Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

Google Shoves Their Liaisons Off Maps

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:17:09 -0600

by Miriam Ellis

I understood from day one that getting into website design and SEO meant that my job description would necessarily include acting as a sort of liaison between small business owners and the sometimes bewildering world of Google. When Local Search became my passion several years ago, the importance of my role as an interpreter and guide for business owners became all the more critical.

Most business owners have some sense of what the organic SERPs are for, but few of my Local SEM clients understand Google Maps, the 7-Pack and how crucial Google's Local Business Center will be to their overall success on the web. It's my job to explain how it all fits together and, because of Google's frequent changes in policy, to forewarn Local SEM clients that the road ahead may be rocky. You can be ranking in the A position of the 7-Pack today only to find yourself gone tomorrow, with no meaningful explanation from Google as to what has happened. The Local game is just like this, and I do my best to set correct expectations for clients who are almost certain to have some frustrating, odd or foggy experience with Google Maps at some point in their future.

Google's newest policy change has done more to offend and distance the very people who act as the intro into Google Maps than any other I can recall. Google has decided to stop showing local results for Web Designers, SEOs and advertisers in North America and the UK. This has been a hot topic for a couple of months, and Google employee Joel H. has finally responded on the extremely long Maps Help Forum thread with an explanation that isn't satisfying anyone:

Today, we're intentionally showing less local results for web design / SEO queries. For example, [web design sacramento] doesn't display local listings today. We believe this is an accurate representation of user intent. In some cases, we do show local listings, however (as NSNA/php-er noted) [web design in bellingham]. I'm sure some of you feel we should be displaying local results for queries like [Web Design Vancouver]. I understand that concern, but based on our understanding of our users, we feel this is the right decision for now.

The conversation going on at Mike Blumenthal's blog regarding Google's latest move has very quickly brought to light the fact that many web designers, SEOs and other types of marketers are positive that clients search for them with location in mind, because these clients attest that they want to work with someone in their own city. So, the explanation that a user looking for web designer san francisco doesn't actually want to find a web designer in San Francisco is not striking anyone I've spoken with as correct. My own direct personal experience with this is that my company very much does get calls from people who want local services. I'm not satisfied by Google's explanation of user intent.

Reason is further assaulted by Google's decision that they will still show local results for these types of services if the user query includes the word in. I would like to ask Google how it improves user comfort if a user is able to type in pizza nyc, chicago furniture store or auto repair washington dc to get local results but that he must type in web design in san francisco if he wants to discover which web design companies are operating in his city? How is the user supposed to know this? Especially if all of his past experience has informed him that he doesn't need to incorporate prepositions into his queries to retrieve either organic or local results? Good human usability relies on establishing comfort...in my opinion, this quirky way of dealing with only one set of businesses makes Google's local index harder to understand and use, not easier. Shouldn't making things easier and more helpful be Google's goal?

Local SEO expert David Mihm is making no bones about his understanding of this policy change:

That said, their answer about "not having local intent" is just BS. The real answer is that the business titles for SEO / web design Maps results look too spammy for their taste because by now most SEO companies who read your blog (Mike Blumenthal's blog) know to register their company's DBA with a couple keywords. I certainly did.

Other local SEOs are responding that if David Mihm is right and that the whole point of this is to clean up what Google feels is a spammy area of Maps, then why isn't Google being honest about this and, why oh why didn't Google take such drastic action with the infamously polluted locksmith industry results? The scenario takes on a punitive aura when legitimate designers, SEOs and marketers see their listings disappear while actual criminals are allowed to continue to use Google's results to rook people into giving them access to their locks and keys. Why single out the web services market?

Finally, designers and SEOs in the US, Canada and the UK are asking why their counterparts in places like Hong Kong and Russia are still being represented in the 7-pack without the inclusion of the word 'in'? Can it be that Google has concluded that someone searching for a web designer in Moscow actually wants to work with a neighbor while someone doing the same search in Boston has some other need in mind? Bottom line...it makes no sense.

What I Think Is Going On Here

I think Google has goofed. I think what we're seeing is Google trying to find a solution to *something* that is bothering them and that they rolled out this change in part of the world without fully considering the consequences of it. I don't think it's going to stay this way, and I would predict that this story isn't over.

When you consider the fact that Google has judged this website design company's local listing to be so popular and useful that they've awarded them Favorite Place status, only to yank their listing from Maps, the state of confusion within Google becomes pretty obvious. When one mouth is calling a local listing a 'favorite' while the other mouth declares that no businesses in that whole vertical have a place in Maps, you've got a two-headed monster that is bound to cause chaos, bewilderment and derision in the real world.

This is the aspect of Google's modus operandi that makes my job as a go-between for Google and small business owners remarkably challenging. My conclusion about Google, after many years of trying to work with their indexes, is that they make haphazard decisions, roll things out in beta form and almost never set controls in place to deal with the outcomes of even small changes made to their internal policies. A single decision at the Googleplex, made in some quiet room, has the potential to adversely affect hundreds, thousands or millions of business owners in real life, and Local raises the stakes higher than in any other arena with which I'm familiar. And, Google never seems to learn from experiences like these. They keep operating in the same way while continuing to evince little sense of accountability and sadly minimal communication.

My take on the results of Google's latest action are these:

1. A less realistic depiction of the local business scape in North America and parts of Europe. Instead of showing you which web designers and SEOs are available to work with in your city, Google's new results would have you believe that none exist.

2. Heightened user frustration and decreased user comfort. Users won't be able to figure out how to find what they need without going through the obscure step of adding a preposition to their query.

3. Decreased goodwill between Google and the very business people most likely to be representing Google's applications to the public; the designers, SEOs and marketers who spend their workdays showing business owners the Local ropes.

I'm not seeing a positive side to Google's choice, but I'm also not panicking about it, because I don't believe Google will leave things this way. In their heart of hearts, Google knows that providing relevant local results is the raison d'etre of Maps, and hiding real local business data from the public would make Maps, in effect, irrelevant. My advice is to stay tuned. I'm sure there's more to come on this one.

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SEO: Be a Content Creation Beast

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:53:38 -0600

by Charles Lumpkin

You're targeting the right keywords. You've got links pointing back to your site. All the SEO basics seem to be covered. Now what? How do you get that extra bit of traffic?

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Santa, Bring Me this Analytics Hack for Organic SEO

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:05:36 -0600

by Jeff Howard

Dear Santa, I've worked hard this year, I served my clients with dedication, and provided value to every organization I've touched. However, I still need better tools to help justify SEO practices. Please have your best elf programmer develop this hack so the value behind SEO becomes more transparent in 2010.

All this year I've been striving for better rankings, as my rankings climb I see more visitors, and it's rewarding. But, I want to know my keyword performance for each organic position. For example, when xxx keyword was at position xxx how many times did someone land on my website.

I've seen others try to develop a hack that helps with this, but it doesn't do the job well.

Build me a tool that helps fill this chart.

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The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:51:28 -0600

by Manoj Jasra

Last week I caught up with Stephen Woessner, the author of The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization. In his book, Stephen outlines a 15-step process to help improve the performance of your website in organic search. In our chat, Stephen gave me some insight into his latest SEO book.

[Manoj]: Your book is targeted at Small Businesses, talk to us about the importance of small businesses understanding the foundations of SEO in order to really kickstart their website(s)?

[Stephen Woessner]: A small business owner needs to take advantage of every possible competitive advantage, especially during this challenging economy -- and having an effective Web presence is one of the best strategies to increase sales. SEO is a proven, low-cost strategy for increasing Web site traffic, and a business owner does not need technical skills to get substantial results. By following the 15-step process in The Small Business Owner's Handbook to SEO, business owners will see a dramatic increase in rankings within 30 days or less and a doubling of Web site traffic in 90 days or less. SEO provides any business owner with measurable results and proven performance.

[Manoj]: If small businesses could focus on just 2 or 3 main strategies in your 15 step process what would you want those to be?

[Stephen Woessner]: Great question! My advice would be to focus on Steps 3-6 initially. Step 3 teaches business owners how to select keywords that are proven performers so no time is wasted on words that don't matter. Step 4-6 teaches business owners about the three most valuable pieces of real estate on any content page: 1) Page title, 2) META keywords, and 3) META description and how to optimize these fields using the keywords selected during Step 3. However, the power of my 15-step SEO process is using all the steps in unison, but if a business owner did nothing else, they should absolutely take advantage of Steps 3-6.

[Manoj]: This book has a lot of great information and can be digested in very little time - is this what you envisioned before you started writing?

[Stephen Woessner]: I am glad you think so and absolutely! My goal in writing The Small Business Owner's Handbook to SEO was to make it very practical and tactical. I wanted to include a specific step-by-step process that any business owner could sit down, read, and begin using right away. I wanted to take a no-nonsense approach and provide a handbook that delivered efficient and effective results.

[Manoj]: Do you think SEO still provides one of the best ROIs compared to other online strategies?

[Stephen Woessner]: Definitely! I cannot think of another online promotional strategy that is as effective as SEO with a little to no-cost investment. SEO should be the promotional foundation to any Web site.

[Manoj]: You mention article submissions in your link building chapter, how effective is this strategy?

[Stephen Woessner]: Writing and submitting articles to the free distribution sites that I highlight in my book is the single most effective strategy for building high-quality, in-bound links to a Web site. The articles also demonstrate a business owner's expertise in their given industry. The link building strategy I explain in detail within Step 15 will generate hundreds of new, high-quality, in-bound links within 90 days or less. The additional links will also increase a Web site's site popularity within Google, and as a result, the site's rankings will go even higher.

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Take Your SEO from Trash to Crash

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:28:31 -0600

by Stoney deGeyter

Ever see one of those movies where some secret government agency has a super high-tech office in an old, dilapidated building in some rundown part of town? The camera starts on the outside, looking over a ghetto as it moves down the street. It zeros in on a rundown building that a squatter would be embarrassed to live in. Then, as the camera moves inside we are shown a state-of-the art facility worthy of a Manhattan high-rise office in the 22nd century.

Sometimes SEO is just like that, but the opposite. A lot of time and energy is spent on the "exterior" (search engine rankings) while ignoring the interior (building a great website.)

Imagine yourself driving through a newly renovated area of town. The asphalt is freshly laid with bright yellow lines down the middle. Young, budding plants have been planted along the sidewalks between the street and newly stuccoed office buildings that look to be full of leather bound books smelling of rich mahogany. Now imagine walking into one of those buildings to find torn up carpet, water-stained ceilings, crumbling sheet rock on the walls, and someone doing their business off in the corner.

Imagine the change of emotions you'd feel. Stepping up to the door you feel confident that you're walking into a place that's going to meet your needs. But as soon as you open the door, you're hit with a stench that is the forebear of whats to come.

Focusing on search engine rankings while ignoring the quality and usability of your website may be a great way to get visitors in the door, but what will they find once they get there?

Putting your money where it counts.

When you're on a budget, as many businesses are today, you really want to spend your money where you're likely to get the greatest benefit. Unfortunately, money isn't always spent on what is actually the most beneficial, but rather what is perceived to be. While SEO can help you gain exposure and drive traffic to the front door of your website, if what's behind those doors isn't up to expectations, all the money getting them there is simply a waste.

A couple years ago I had my wisdom teeth removed, had a root canal and then a cap put on one of my teeth all in a couple of months time. I had to see several different dentists, each a specialist in a different area, so I got to see quite a few dentists offices, noticing a stark contrast between them.

Most of the offices were roomy and full of nice furniture, but one stood out as a genuinely scary experience, especially for someone who suffers from mild claustrophobia. The receptionist's desk was two and a half feet wide and piled high with about a years worth of "stuff that can wait."

I was placed in one of the procedure "rooms" looking right at someone else being examined by one of the nurses. As I laid back in the chair to get some X-rays, the nurse had to duck repeatedly around overhanging equipment while stepping over a small office trash can to get out to the hallway. It was like trying to perform an operation in a closet.

This is what many business websites are like when they focus on SEO and ignore their website design. There is nothing wrong with investing in SEO to drive traffic, but SEO is not the end of the story.

Conversions matter

A while back we had a long-time client undergo a major site redesign. They had held their rankings pretty solidly over the years but the site was design was getting stale. We had also been prodding over the previous months to address their site's many inefficiencies. Because their business had been growing significantly since we started working on their SEO campaign, they were never in a real hurry to make any changes. But finally they made the move.

The client invested in a major redevelopment of the site and rolled it out to the public. Almost immediately something amazing happened. Their conversion rates jumped by 30%!

This jump wasn't the result of new keywords optimized, or previously optimized keywords suddenly moving up in the rankings. The increase in conversions was directly tied to making their site more appealing and user-friendly.

The new site design cost them about what a years worth of SEO cost them. With a much more user and search engine friendly site, the efforts we were able to shift the efforts of the SEO campaign from creating band-aid solutions to being able to invest in a far more focused keyword targeting campaign.

With the additional revenue the client began talking about expanding the online marketing efforts; and why not? With a newly polished, high-tech interior, why not do all that you can to drive even more traffic to the higher-converting site?

No one can deny the value of getting first page placement for relevant keyword phrases. But many small businesses still need to be convinced that there is more to marketing than rankings and traffic. Bringing traffic into the slums isn't all that difficult to do. Getting someone to buy from you while they're there is. Lucky for you, it's not too great of a distance to go from trash to cash. Conversions do matter. And in the end, conversions are what matter most.

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Basic SEO: Sitemaps. With an "S"

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:18:04 -0600

by Charles Lumpkin

In this episode, Charles Lumpkin, talks about the importance of having not just one, but two sitemaps.

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The Upcoming Battle of the Social Media Industry

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:31:37 -0600

by Jennifer Laycock

Earlier this week I made a post about why companies need to add a social media strategy budget to their 2010 marketing plans. The first reason on my list was the ability social media gives a company to listen to their customers.

Listening to the unfiltered thoughts, complaints and praises of customers via social media carries a huge benefit for the companies who know how to leverage it. That said, it's also one of the most terrifying aspects of social media for many brands. Fear of what will be said is still one of the biggest reasons companies are afraid to dip their toes into the social media waters.

Last week Zane Safrit pointed to an interesting article over at Business Week that examines corporate fear of social media negativity.

Zane hit the nail on the head when he titled his response "Shooting the Social Media Messenger" He wrote:

The most interesting part of the paragraph warning readers of the perils in that bottle of elixir titled social media was its encouragement to shoot the social media messenger. Don't like the message being shared about your brand on twitter, facebook, blogs, etal? Shoot 'em. Shoot the social media tools.

Zane offers some great insight (so make sure you go read his post) and it got me to thinking a little more deeply about the root of corporate social media fear.

On some level, companies seem to have this idea that if they keep their heads low and stay quiet, they can pass, unnoticed through the era of social media and go about their business. Unfortunately, the likelihood of ignoring social media and staying a successful company is becoming about as likely as ignoring the Internet and staying a successful company. It can be done, but it's unlikely. There's a mistaken idea that the collective voice of social media and NOT the company itself will be the source of negative commentary.

From Business Week:

...with one misstep, one clumsy entrée, companies can quickly find themselves victims of the forces they were trying to master. Thousands of bloggers attacked Motrin last year because of an advertisement from the Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) brand they found demeaning to mothers.

Ok...back up a minute here.

Thousands of bloggers attacked Motrin because of something Motrin DID, not because they COULD...and there's a big difference there.

There was a time where companies could launch an ill-fated or poorly targeted or even a downright offensive campaign to the world and remain mostly protected from backlash. There might be a slight dip in sales or even a few angry letters and phone calls, but unless some angry consumer had a mainstream media connection, things mostly got ignored. These days, a stay-at-home-mom can have an online network of millions she can access with a few keystrokes. The voices and opinions haven't changed, they've just been given reach.

That's a hard pill for some companies to swallow. It's far easier to "blame" social media and the "angry mobs" that form than it is to admit the angry mob never would have formed in the first place if the company hadn't done something dumb.

But That's Not the Point I Want to Make

The commentary I've seen on this article so far pretty much stopped there. It points out the fear companies have of engaging with consumers because consumers might react poorly to their ideas. There's a bit of irony to be had here when you realize some social media types are jumping on the article because of it's shoot the messenger mentality. Why? Because the article goes on to make some very good points that really need to be addressed by our community.

The problem, according to a growing chorus of critics, is that many would-be guides are leading clients astray. Consultants often use buzz as their dominant currency, and success is defined more often by numbers of Twitter followers, blog mentions, or YouTube (GOOG) hits than by traditional measures, such as return on investment. This approach could sour companies on social media and the rich opportunities it represents.

Let's read that last sentence again...

This approach could sour companies on social media and the rich opportunities it represents.

And THEREIN lies the problem...

While I'm a social media strategist for small businesses, my background is in organic search engine optimization. In other words, I come from the "original" snake oil of online marketing. Social media, for all it's hype and loyalists STILL hasn't broken through the mainstream marketing barrier. It's where SEO was half a dozen or more years ago. It's fighting to define itself, to justify itself and to legitimize itself.

It's not going to be an easy battle.

We're Going to Have a Big Mess to Clean Up

Sure, we can point out how many companies are devoting dollars to it. We can give case study after case study of companies both large and small who have seen glorious success with social media. Guess what? We could do the same thing with SEO, to some degree we could demonstrate success more concretely.

It's still a new industry with undefined rules and a million and one consultants out there blazing new trails. The sad reality is, more companies will be burned by social media "experts" than will be helped by them this year.

To this day, I still talk to companies who have been burned time and time again by search engine marketers. Small businesses who have invested thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars into search engine optimization strategies that were outdated, ineffective and totally untargeted.

And THAT is what will happen with social media as well.

Social media is evolving at an ever increasing pace. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, FriendFeed, Flickr, MySpace, Yelp, Google Maps, LinkedIn, Blinklist, del.icio.us, Furl, Reddit, Mixx, LiveJournal, tumblr, I could go on and on and on and on. (Heavens knows the list of social media sites does...)

Right now, there are boatloads of social media consultants who promote and measure success by getting a company signed up with a million accounts and building up a million followers.

Who cares?

Social media isn't a one size fits all solution. Every company will need a completely different strategy for success and guess what? Not all of them need Twitter, or Facebook or even a blog. Finding (or being) a social media strategist isn't about knowing how to build a presence or set up an account, it's about knowing how to set goals, establish a way to track those goals and then having the marketing knowledge needed to leverage conversation to reach those goals.

There are lots of great and effective social media strategists out there who can do this. Unfortunately they are severely outnumbered by the ones who can't. And THAT is what will make the next few years challenging for this industry. The social media strategists who "get it" are going to need to do a lot of educating and expectation setting with clients. They'll be doing a lot of clean-up as they come in to business relationships with companies who've been sold a bill of "get a lot of Twitter followers" goods. They'll have to work harder to change minds and prove themselves than they would have if they'd gotten there first.

I still see my friends in the world of search doing this. More and more often, they're the second (or third, or fifth) search agency a client has come into contact with and they have a lot of reeducating and reassuring to do before they land the contract. I fully expect those of us in the social media space are going to quickly find ourselves in the same position.

Social media may be on the rise, but it's popularity will attract those who are in it just to make a quick buck. That's going to leave the rest of us playing clean-up. On the bright side, it's also going to make it easier for the ones who build true and trackable strategies to differentiate themselves and rise to the top.

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Is your site ready for search marketing?

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:27:46 -0600

by Mike Moran

I realize that to some, this is a dumb question. I mean, if you have a Web site, why would you NOT optimize it for search? Organic search is the cheapest way to bring people to your site and paid search is the easiest, so it's a no-brainer for you to recommend that every blessed Web site on the Internet dive right into search marketing, right? Wrong.

So, as you stare into the distance, wondering how to figure out if you are ready for search, what you really want to know is if your site is ready for customers.

Suppose you are opening a small shop on a busy street in town. What's the first thing that you'd do? You'd order the best merchandise you could find. You'd make sure it was attractively laid out. You'd be positive that you had helpful employees to answer questions and to run the cash registers. In fact, you'd do absolutely every one of those things before taking out a big ad in the local paper, right? You'd never take the ad out if your store wasn't ready.

Image by LaPetiteTwinkie via Flickr

But too often, that is what I see on the Web. Folks approach me every day asking for help with search marketing when the simple truth is that their Web sites aren't ready for customers. The sites might be hard to use. Or have little information. Or have no way for customers to actually buy anything--no online buying and no easy way to move offline.

But still, they want search marketing. They are convinced that the problem isn't that their Web site stinks on ice, but rather that not enough people are visiting. Trust me folks, if your Web site is awful, you want as few people to see it as possible. Not only won't they buy from you, but they won't come back. They might even tell other people how bad it is. That's not the kind of word of mouth you are looking for.

No, don't let this advice paralyze you. Some of us are our toughest critics. We see all the blemishes on our sites without noticing what's positive. Your site doesn't need to be perfect, but it does need to be good. If your Web site is no good, then sending more people to it won't be the answer.

So, take a hard look at your Web site. If you can honestly say to yourself that folks arriving at your site can find what they need and figure out how to buy what you are selling (online or offline), and you have the sales to prove it, then you are ready. For you, search marketing really is a no-brainer.

But if your Web site causes customers to faint dead away, or call you on the phone to complain how they can never find anything, you have a bigger problem than search marketing that you need to solve first. Once you do solve it, then search marketing will bring you far more impact than you'd ever dreamed.

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Getting the Itch to Start from Scratch

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:34:15 -0600

by Stoney deGeyter

Over the past few months I've been working on a personal hobby site. I have to say, it's been a lot of work. It's been a while since I've built a new site, I've spent most of my time over the years working on my main business site and already-built client sites. Even when we are brought in for consulting in new site planning, it's someone else that does the work, not me.

After spending dozens of my free-time hours just getting this new site set-up, I can totally see why people would just rather pay someone else to do it for them.

Starting from scratch

I went the easy route and I found a $25 Wordpress theme that gave me most of the functionality I wanted with some extra cool features I liked. I spent the first week customizing it; adding plugins and tweaking the code. I don't know a whole lot of code outside of HTML but I can sort my way through it. I found some widgets to add and removed some that I didn't like.

Every now and then I came across an issue that I couldn't fix. A email to the theme developer and almost all my problems were quickly solved. I spent some time fiddling with a logo until I got it just how I wanted it.

Next I had to start building the site structure. How were my pages going to be categorized with both blog posts and the directory I was building? I did some tinkering along the way and I keep making improvements as I go, but finally got the basic structure in place.

Perfection never comes, so roll it out now

What I found most interesting during this process was the SEO elements. This took me far longer and was much more work (and a work in progress) than I anticipated.... and I haven't even started going through my optimization checklist.

But I realize that some things you have do to quickly so you can get moving forward. I don't have time to make it perfect, otherwise I'd never get the site done. I've spent countless hours tweaking this, that, and the other, but only after the site has been live and generating traffic.

In fact, that's been one of the most frustrating things: There is always something more to do. Put aside the actual content generation of the site (I write reviews of restaurants and other things to do in Canton, Ohio,) I have an ever-growing list of things that I have to do in order to promote the site.

Let's see:

Twitter? Check. I'm was up to 80 followers in the first three weeks, and hover around 150 now.
Optimized directory title tags? Check. I performed more specific keyword research about a week and a half after going live.
Optimize directory page text for keywords? I got to that round four weeks after going live.
Populate the directory? Only what I've reviewed, nothing else.
Create a Flikr Profile? Started this about five weeks in and soon abandoned it.
Create a Facebook fan page? Done but not utilizing it well.
Create a coupon page? Sort of. Nothing special.

And it seems every time I get an item knocked off my things-to-do list I add two more! And I still have to write reviews of the places I go, which means I can't spend every evening in front of the computer working on these things, I actually have to go out and experience something to review.

All said and done, this little hobby site of mine has occupied just about every bit of spare time I've had and there is always somethign more, more, more to do.

The Client's vs. SEOs perspective

Now I understand why people hire SEO firms... this is a lot of work! Arguably I know a thing or two about SEO, yet I can't imagine trying to do all this without the knowledge base that I have.

Many people in this just-starting-out position jump into a new project without realizing just how time consuming this web stuff really is. Those that know enough to know that they don't know enough often times don't know quite enough to realize that even those of us that do know enough about what we are doing can't wave a magic wand that makes results appear overnight. (That was a mouthful!)

Client's want results and, rightfully so, but to some once they right that check, the results are supposed to be delivered like a pizza on game night. But in reality, it doesn't happen like that at all. There is a lot of details that have to be planned, implemented, and followed through on, otherwise the site won't go anywhere.

*Participation not included

Why have I been so successful with this project over the past few months? (I'm using that term relatively.) It's because I have been engaged in the marketing of the site, beyond the SEO and development. Had I handed the SEO and development of the site to someone else it probably would have been completed, but the site would be stagnating with very few visitors. Some things just can't easily be handed off with a check. Those that can still take active participation by the writer of that check.

I have to be engaged in twitter as often as possible. I have to join conversations and establish relationships. I could pay someone else to do this but guess what? It would take just as much time for someone else. I just have to decide where my time is most valued. Do I run the business or do I market the business?

Every business owner has to decide how they will proceed. Hire some or all of the marketing out or do it themselves. Those who don't do it themselves honestly have no idea what's involved. Heck, I do this for a living and sometimes I have no idea what's involved.

One of the best things about doing this is that I'm learning quite a bit. Some of this is old hat to me while other portions of it are brand new. Through this hobby site I'm learning valuable skills that I'll be able to bring to the table for my clients. That right there makes it all worth it.

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Four (ok twelve) Reasons to Build a Social Media Strategy for 2010

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:29:06 -0600

by Jennifer Laycock

As a small business social media strategist, I'm very happy to see so many companies finally beginning to recognize the need to invest some of the marketing dollars into social media. I'm ever more happy to see how many of them are willing and able to dedicate some internal staff to the matter. On the other hand, I'm finding that many of these companies have absolutely no idea WHY they need a social media strategy. They just feel the pressure to get involved and hope something will come from it.

Unfortunately, that's no way to build a strategy. What good does it do to invest time and money into a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other number of social media outlets if you have no goals, no measurement and quite frankly, no idea why you're there.

What companies need to do is embrace the benefits of social media while very carefully thinking through the goals of their outreach efforts. Different goals will require different strategies. Taking a shotgun approach of simply trying to "get out there" will rarely result in a solid payoff. It's far better to sit down and carefully consider what your company's goals are and to build backward to create a strategy that's most likely to meet those goals.

2009 is coming to a close and most companies are already deep in planning with their 2010 marketing budgets. With that in mind, here are four key reasons why your company needs to consider planning and launching a social media campaign next year.

Reason #1: Social Media Gives You Unprecedented Ability to Listen to Your Customers

For companies that don't already have some type of social media strategy in place, this is usually the best place to start. While it takes a little bit of common sense and guidance to create an active and vocal outreach plan that will deliver results, pretty much anyone is capable of listening to the existing conversation.

The goal here is threefold.

Find out where your customers are: The first thing you'll need to do is find out where your customers and potential customers are spending their time. You can run a search for groups or fan pages on Facebook, search for keywords related to your business on Twitter Search, set up Technorati and Google Alerts or using a free service like Social Mention. You can (and should) also check your log files to see what types of social sites (blogs, forums, Twitter, etc...) are sending traffic to your site.

Find out what your customers think of you and your competitors: Once you've figured out where to look (or as part of that process) it's a great idea to run searches for your company (and products) and for your competitors and their products. This lets you know what your customers like and don't like which gives you an excellent starting point for making changes, playing to your strengths and otherwise building offerings that will appeal to your audience.

Find out what your customers' passion points are: This becomes one of the keys of a social media listening strategy and it's one that's often overlooked. Social media listening isn't just about hearing people praise or complain you, it's about identifying subsets of potential customers and learning about the things that drive them to conversation. Finding out what makes them tick and finding the hot button topics that get them focused.

Basically, companies need to view social media as a sort of endless focus group they can tap at any point in time. For companies that invest in listening and really sit down to consider how this information impacts them, there's amazingly valuable information available. Using this information to impact all forms of marketing can make this specific strategy perfect for companies who don't have time to invest in a social media voice, but who want to reap some of the benefits.

Reason #2: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Build or Introduce a Brand

Sometimes, the entire goal of a social media strategy is to create awareness about a new product, a service or a brand. Consumers are heading online in droves to have conversations and thanks to the explosion of interest in microblogging, social networks and blogs, they're talking about more topics and reaching more people than ever before.

Getting a customer to talk about your product used to mean they mentioned it to a handful of friends or co-workers. These days getting them to talk about it might mean they share it with hundreds of friends on Facebook, thousands of contacts on Twitter or even tens or hundreds of thousands of readers on a blog. That's a massive amount of potential exposure.

Let's take a look at three different ways of approaching this one:

Use social media to introduce a brand new company to the world: This is one of the most popular ways of using social media. New companies are springing up all the time, often in very competitive markets. Finding (or paying for) brand evangelists to go out, build relationships and educate communities about these companies can be very effective. The key here is to come at things from the relationship and educational side of things. Plugging or pushing products on social media rarely works, gently creating opportunities for exposure by becoming part of the community can get the job done very effectively.

Use social media to introduce an existing brand to a larger audience: For companies that simply haven't gotten into the social media space yet, there's tons of opportunity to grow beyond their current reach. These are the types of companies that benefit most from looking at their analytics and talking to existing customers to find out what communities they're part of online. From there, it's a matter of branching out into new and similar communities (i.e. if you get great traffic from parenting forums, seek out new parenting forums) or finding creative ways to equip your current customers with the desire to evangelize you to their friends.

Use social media to introduce a new product or service from an existing company: This tactic is very similar to introducing an existing brand to a larger audience. These companies generally have the head start of an existing base of loyal customers from which to build. This means they can approach existing customers who have active voices in social media and offer them the chance to test and experience the new products or services.

Reason #3: Social Media Gives You a Unique Way to Gather Feedback

Another excellent reason to turn to social media is the ability to gather feedback from your target audience. While this may sound similar to the concept of listening to the conversation, there's a strong difference in the two goals. Listening is focused purely on listening to the existing conversation without trying to influence it's direction. Using social media as a feedback channel is all about actively soliciting input, ideas and even complaints about your products or services.

The thing to remember with this type of social media strategy is that it takes some serious investment. You can't just show up on a popular social media channel and ask people to tell you what they think. You have make a heavy investment into building relationships first.

There are several different ways to do this:

Use your blog to run ideas past loyal readers before you launch them: The great thing about building up a reputation as a company who listens is it gives people reason to talk. Southwest is one of the best examples online of a company who has established a strong feedback channel with their loyal customers via a blog. If you regularly take ideas to your readers and demonstrate that you not only listen to, but act on their advice, you can open amazing doors of opportunity. Listen to your customers. Talk to your customers. Use social media to find out what they want and then deliver it. You won't be sorry.

Use social media to recruit a team of beta testers: Sometimes you have ideas or products you need feedback on, but are not yet ready for public consumption. While social media seems to be the very essence of "public consumption," it can still be a very valuable outlet for beta testing. Why? Because you can use social media to establish the types of relationships needed to put together a small group of beta testers. You can reach out into the community to find influencers, build relationships with them, and offer them exclusive and early access in exchange for their feedback and ideas.

Use social media to ask direct questions: Sometimes using social media is as simple as asking a direct question to a larger audience. Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and even YouTube can be immensely valuable in terms of getting your question out to a group of people you already know share an interest in your topic or your product. The ability to ask your customer base what they want so you can find a way to deliver it is one carries a lot of value.

Reason #4: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Demonstrate Personality

One of the single greatest advantages the Internet and social media has given small business owners is the ability to once again go head to head with their big box counterparts. A decade ago, this was because web sites gave no indication of business size. The small mom and pop shop could have a site that looked just as good, was priced just as good and carried just as much inventory as a company like Sears or Walmart. These days, smart small businesses are using social media not only as an equalizer, but as a competitive advantage.

You don't have to look far to find a story of a consumer who feels unappreciated or ignored by a larger brand who has made them unhappy. No one likes to sit on hold for 2 hours trying to lodge a complaint or have a product replaced. Smaller brands who sell the same product at the same price but actually answer the telephone have the chance to differentiate themselves and bring in loads of new customers. Beyond that, small companies who establish a voice via their blog or social media outlets have the chance to build credibility by building relationships directly with consumers.

Here are a handful of ways to use social media to do just that:

Demonstrate your unique personality by communicating as a person and not as the company: Companies are faceless, people are not. Using social media to tie your business brand to a personality can go a long way toward making even the largest company feel small and approachable. Whether it's answering questions on Twitter or sharing anecdotes or stories on your blog, letting some of your personality shine through goes a long way toward helping consumers feel connected to your brand.

Use various social media outlets to make yourself both available and helpful: This may be the single biggest way companies are using social media to establish personality right now. Whether it's the president of Zappos making lunch plans with a complete stranger while he's in town on business or someone from Comcast responding to customer frustration with a solution...big brands are using social media to communicate openly and helpfully with consumers and it's paying off.

Use social media to communicate in the way that's most natural to you: Back in the early days of social media it was all about blogs. The problem with this is not everyone is a good writer. These days, a lack of natural writing ability won't keep your personality from shining through. Whether it's shooting video, recording a podcast or simply sharing unique finds and quick insight on Twitter, social media has opened up a ton of ways (other than writing) for people to communicate. This lets everyone play to their strengths and gives you a chance to be "you" in the best and most comfortable way you know how.

To be honest, there are dozens...maybe even hundreds of reasons to get involved with social media next year. These are just some of the strongest. What it all boils down to is this; your customers are online and they are using social media to communicate. If you aren't, you're business is missing opportunities. No one says you have to master every use of social media all at once, but you're doing yourself (and your bottom line) a disservice if you don't at least give some thought toward creeping into the social media space next year to do a little listening.

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Let Social Media Pick Your Pizza

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:58:07 -0600

by Sage Lewis

I always believed that Pizzeria Uno was the best pizza. But I wasn't positive until I got confirmation from the people in my social media class. They all confirmed to me that it was indeed the best pizza. Social proof is incredibly powerful. It compels people to try new products and it also validates what existing customers already believed. Get testimonials!

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Will 2010 be the Year for Engagement

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:50:40 -0600

by Eric Brown

It seems a lot of small and midsized businesses are starting to introduce social media into their marketing arsenal. Perhaps it is because of budget restrictions or they just want some of the profound buzz surrounding the social media craze.

But what happens once the Facebook fan page is up, but has few fans, Twitter account is live, but only a handful of followers and a blog with no comments and little interaction? Now what?

In order for Social Media to have compound effect it requires engagement, otherwise you have missed the best effects of Social Media Marketing.

How much does engagement have to do with your brand, and with, well YOU.

Seth Godin in his blog post today defined Brand differently than we have thought about in the past;

A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it's a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn't pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.

A brand used to be something else. It used to be a logo or a design or a wrapper. Today, that's a shadow of the brand, something that might mark the brand's existence. But just as it takes more than a hat to be a cowboy, it takes more than a designer prattling on about texture to make a brand. If you've never heard of it, if you wouldn't choose it, if you don't recommend it, then there is no brand, at least not for you.

What Does This Have to Do With Engagement

What Seth is saying is that if folks aren't talking about you, or your brand isn't worth talking about, you have little to no brand value. Similarly, if you aren't doing anything special, engagement becomes a challenge that even the best of PR can't overcome.

Andy Sernovitz posted about Bill Samuels Jr., a 7th-generation bourbon maker and president of Maker's Mark. His Ambassador Program is, time and again, considered the gold standard of product fan clubs. 500,000 people proudly carry a membership card to show their support for this brand.

Bills secret to creating an army of crazy-passionate fans:

1. Authenticity. Bill is Bill. When he emails the ambassadors to meet him for a drink you know he'll be at the bar waiting to meet you. And he'll love talking with you and he loves his bourbon.

2. Great Stuff. Maker's is great. It's been great for a long, long time -- the distillery is a National Historic Landmark. You can't motivate fans for an average product. For a great product, you don't need to. They'll come to you

So what is the special sauce required for engagement? Be remarkable, do something worth talking about, build a product or service offering that stands out and away from the pack.

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How to Get Links From .edu Domains Using the Skew Method

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:15:05 -0600

by Charles Lumpkin

In this video, Charles Lumpkin shares an easy and practical way to get links from valuable .edu domains.

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My View From SES Chicago

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:32:38 -0600

by Sage Lewis

I have this theory that at every Search Engine Strategies conference there is a particular theme. I often times have a feeling for what I think the theme will be early in the week. I didn't really know what it was for much of the week. I think I finally figured it out. Watch to see what I think.

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Landmark Local Categories List

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:40:10 -0600

by Miriam Ellis

Talk about Happy Holidays and the spirit of giving! Mike Blumenthal has just published the very first Complete Google LBC Category List we've ever seen. This is the gift Local SEOs and local-focused business owners have been waiting for and it vastly simplifies the process of picking the right categories for a given business - something you can't afford to make a mistake about!

Choose 5 And Choose Well

When adding your business listing to Google's Local Business Center, you are prompted to choose 5 categories that best describe the nature of your entity. Just like those old Yellow Pages categories, LBC categories are critical to helping users navigate their way to your business and choosing the right categories can mean the difference between traffic coming to you from Local Search or not.

Some businesses offer many more than 5 different areas of specialization, but the point here is to use the LBC as Google dictates and pick the 5 main categories that best describe what your business offers. With Blumenthal's new list, considering your options just got so much easier.

In the past, when picking categories for my Local SEM clients, I had to do a lot of experimenting to find good choices, typing in various keywords, looking at the competition, etc. Now, all I have to do is refer to this list to quickly understand all of the possibilities and this not only saves time on my part, but it reduces the chances that I might overlook a category that could potentially be of high importance to a client. All of the categories are laid out in plain view, accompanied by a very interesting list of synonyms that apparently cause these categories to be called up.

There is much discussion going on about the synonyms. No one is quite sure how Google arrived at this list. Mike Blumenthal says he senses these are likely drawn from general organic searcher behavior, rather than LBC user behavior, so the synonym list should be taken note of by anyone doing any type of SEO. You may be able to identify some interesting patterns from the keywords associated with each main category.

Don't Get Too Fancy, Pal

I want to share an anecdotal tip here that I feel is important to consider while we're on the subject of choosing categories. Steve Hatcher of Axe Media relates the following:

I had a rash of business owners contacting me over past month or two because their maps rankings plummeted. Most of them had been stuffing extra keywords into the categories, including city names.

Again, the point here is to use the LBC as Google intends it to be used. As a Local SEO, my life is made so much tougher by people trying to get fancy and outwit the bots. They stuff, they spam, they ruin the quality of the results by trying to get ahead fast instead of planning to stick with it for the long haul. Granted, with bugs, glitches and a chronic lack of oversight on Google's part, the temptation to fool around is pretty strong, but it's totally antisocial to do so.

The whole point of Local is to create indexes that yield pertinent, real and helpful information for communities that improve the quality of life for local people. Sets of results that list the same business 7 times in a row with variously over-optimized titles do not deliver a quality user experience. It's my belief that participation in Local carries with it a responsibility to understand Google's rules about their own product and to play by those rules to the best of your ability. It's a smart plan for your business in the long run and a decent way to treat your neighbors.

Stay tuned on this subject of LBC categories. Blumenthal has revealed that he is currently working on a database version of this list that will make finding the right categories for your business even easier than scanning the whole long list. Now there's something to make visions of local sugarplums dance in your head!

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