Brevity is in these days. And so is character, a trait that was a bit old-fashioned. Google rewards sites that are are trustworthy, credible and relevant. Watch your business’ character, while counting every letter.

Why SEM haiku? As an antidote to the SEM practioners demanding immediacy, urgency, do it all, you are falling behind, doomsayers. Don’t have 100,000 followers on Twitter? Don’t have a monitized email list? Don’t have time to spend nurturing your Facebook Wall? What is the matter with you? You are being left behind!

What happened to thoughtful marketing built on solid goals, focused on your customers and done within your budget (both dollars and time)?

In the mad rush to be among the first to adopt a new social marketing tool, we are abandoning good practices in our zeal to not be left behind. See any parallels to the technology crash or the housing bust? How many stocks did you buy with sky-high price earnings ratios just because everyone else was doing it? Did you buy a house that was 1) more than you needed, 2) more than you could afford, 3) so you could flip it for a few bucks (choose all that apply) because you didn’t want to get left out of the housing boom?

Does this mean I don’t believe in social media marketing? Absolutely not! There are great tools and many cost-effective ways to use them. But just like any other business decision each one needs to be evaluated on its cost, risk and reward.

His presentation was a perfect metaphor for a well-crafted web page!

One of his introductory comments was “hope is not a strategy.” He was speaking in terms of managing a business. But it is true in so many aspects of our lives and is true of websites.

Building a website and hoping people will come, hoping people will convert, hoping you will see an increase in sales, is dooming your website to failure.

You need to build a site based on solid customer knowledge and sound keyword research. You must must build it to be visible by the search engines. But, most of all, you must create content your customers want.

The question for today is what is your strategy for your website development? With a business, you would be measuring all your financial ratios and making good business decisions based on the facts. The same should be true for your website. Know what you expect from your website and measure your results. make changes to improve your results. focus on your customers and give them what they want.

If you are not measuring your website, today is the day to start your own website scorecard. You can start small and build it, but if you want success you need to start now. The search ranking work you did from the previous post would be a great place to start

By the way, if you are interested in improving your company financila perfromance, you should check out Profit Mastery from Steve’s company.

http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm

Start Your Tracking System

Use whatever tool works for you to track this process–a spreadsheet, pencil and paper, the back of a cocktail napkin. You will be updating this information as we go along so just make sure you keep it handy and have enough room for more updates.

Identify Your Keywords For Each Page

The key concept today is that each page of your site should be optimized for a set of keyword phrases (1 - 3 phrases). Think in terms of each page, not your site as a whole. In order to get the most traffic you want to have pages optimized for different phrases. This makes you a bigger target for searches. Why settle for a postage stamp when you can get your business on a billboard?

So write down your 5 pages and the keyword phrases you think are appropriate for each one. Then test to see how well you come up in the search engines.

Find Your Starting Position

A handy way to test is to use the tool at MarketLeap:
http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm

Just put in your web URL and your phrases and see how how well you rank in each of the major search engines.

Do The Same For Your Competitors

Now go through the same process for your major competitors. Don’t despair if you rank lower, even much lower! Remember this is just the start.

OK. That is all for today. See that wasn’t so hard and now you are on your way to improving your site’s search engine visibility!

While it is true that washing your car will not help your website, the idea of doing something constructive–even something small–is well worth heeding. A kindred thought is “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

I see many clients who are overwhelmed with understanding and managing their web sites. The task is daunting so many don’t even want to start. Our goal at Beyond Building It is to help you tackle all the issues, one step at a time. Bite-size tasks to get you going, one small step at a time to where you will be managing your website with confidence and success.

Tomorrow we will being the journey.

Three important take-aways from the conference:

• Everyone is still learning about search and social media marketing. Many leaders in these fields were at the conference but there is so much to learn, so many ways to participate and the tools change so fast, we are all learners.
• The concept that the Internet levels the playing field is certainly dead–although I believe it was never true in the first place. The big companies have so many resources available to them that the small business owners are at a distinct disadvantage. But that doesn’t mean small biz owners should give up. They just need to find their competitive advantage and use the tools they can afford to employ (both in $$ and time).
• People in this field are so generous–willing to share their time and expertise. One of the greatest benefits in attending a conference like this is to hear people’s experiences, learn what tools they are using and what lessons they have learned.

I have an over-flowing action item list of future blog posts. And, I will be doing some video posts to make the information easier to understand and apply to your small business . . . stay tuned!

It doesn’t have to be that way.

But why another blog on search engine optimization and Internet marketing and by the way, what is all this talk of social media marketing? A quick search and you can be overwhelmed with all the resources available. But my work with many small business owners is that it is just too much. So much information they don’t understand. They don’t know where to start. They have no one to ask to untangle the often conflicting information and the unanswered questions.

So if that sounds like you, I welcome you to Beyond Building It. Add a comment, send an email or just quietly lurk. But, I hope you learn and profit from your time here.