Online Marketing Blog

Panda, Penguin and other Google updates are part of  search marketing. The frequency of updates has continued to garner attention over the last 6 months.

The only sure thing; it’s likely to continue as Google stays its course in refining standards for quality content.

And in a post-Panda and Penguin world, smarter more meaningful link building is not only recommended but a requirement.

Understanding this is only the tip of the iceberg. What lies below the surface is the real opportunity and from SES Chicago, here’s what you should be thinking about.

7 Link Building Philosophies to create value and remain Penguin-friendly. Shared with the audience by Jon Ball of  PageOnePower.  

1. In a World without Google
Imagine if Google didn’t exist, where would you spend link building efforts? What would you do and not do?

Online Marketing Magic blankets the Midwest as SES Chicago kicks off this morning. Audience members packed the room and gulped coffee anxiously awaiting to know what Avinash knows.

Curious to know what makes Avinash Kaushik (Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google) roll out of bed each morning? Surprisingly, it’s not data.

3 Simple Ideas Keeping Avinash’s Finger Off Snooze

1. Influence: The ability to find people and brainwash them that they need our products or services.
2. Experience: Most websites suck according to Avinash. And he’s on a one-man mission to fix them.
3. Value: If we solve the 2 problems above and can’t make money doing it, we’re doing it wrong. And that’s no fun at all.

How do you reach the intersection of influence, experience and value and find Online Marketing Magic?  Start with 14 online marketing Wake-Up Calls spanning from Analytics to Social to Mobile.

We’ve always considered our online marketing agency “search plus” and by that I mean search is central and important, but accomplishing client marketing objectives requires a broader view than just optimizing web pages and digital assets. Of course if you follow us here or you’ve read Optimize, you know that.

As social and search technologies evolve along with changes in consumer behaviors, there’s a trend towards a convergence of disciplines. Mature, data driven digital marketers see where search fits in the scheme of things but many brand marketers and traditional search agencies are still a bit lost. I’ve seen brands view SEO solely as an afterthought and SEO agencies think search is the only way to market online.  These polarized perspectives are often driven more by self interest or limits in capabilities than knowing what will make the most impact for a business.

In the 1989, Greg LeMond overcame a 50 second deficit in the final stage to win the Tour de France by 8 seconds.  He clocked the second fastest time trial ever recorded in the Tour de France.  So how did LeMond secure a stunning victor after 3 weeks and 2025 miles?

Optimization.  The optimization of his equipment, including aerodynamic handle bars and helmet, allowed LeMond to shave crucial seconds from his time and ride to victory in front of his less well optimized competitors.

Optimization results had a big impact on this race and they can have a big impact on business as well. I recently attended a session by Mikel Chertudi, Senior Director of Marketing of Adobe on Conversion Optimization: From Strategy to Execution. He offered strategies for businesses to optimize their digital marketing, in order to move ahead of the pack and secure a victory.

On the second day of SES San Francisco, I headed to Lee Odden’s session Optimize B2B Content Across the Sales Cycle. Lee kicked off the presentation by polling the audience on how engaged they were in SEO, social media and content marketing. Hands raised all over the room.  When he asked how many were focused on content marketing across the sales cycle, it was striking that there relatively few hands raised.  As focused as we all are on conversions and purchases, we are not all capitalizing on the opportunity to attract and engage with our customer at every point in the buying cycle, and as a result, customers can slip away.

Hot off the heels of Avinash’s SES opening keynote, day two of SES San Francisco 2012 included another famous Googler to start the day. Matt Cutts (@mattcutts), Distinguished Engineer for Google, is the head of the Web spam team. He and his spam fighters, as he refers to them, make up part of the Google Knowledge Group.  He was a last-minute addition to the SES schedule, interviewed by Mike Grehan, VP and Global Content Director for Incisive Media, as part of the day two kickoff.

Taking a deep dive into analytics with Thom Craver (@thomcraver) and Garry Przyklenk (@gprzyklenk) at SES San Francisco was the perfect way to kick off the Dicovery Channel’s Shark Week.

This team of knowledgeable online experts did not disappoint, and as promised, plunged headfirst into analytics and how to make them work for your organization.  In this article I have included 7 things that you need to know about analytics from the “Web Analytics Deep Dive” session on Tuesday afternoon.

#1 – Data is Not Information

Data and information are not the same thing.  Data is described as a seemingly unconnected set of numbers and values.  Information on the other hand provides context around the data, and labels or groups the content.

Keywords are the core of your search engine marketing strategy. Most of us know the basics when it comes to brainstorming, generating and finalizing a list, but how can your company get beyond the basics and focus on advanced keyword analytics. The main focus of the presentation by Bill Hunt (@billhunt) at SES San Francisco focused on moving beyond data and focusing on consumer intent.

When we type in a specific inquiry we expect to find what we are looking for, but often paid search results fail us. In order to capture the user who may be disappointed by search results, marketers can better use keywords leveraging advanced keyword modeling.

Advanced Keyword Modeling

1. Understand the ‘voice of the customer’
2. Effectively map your content with query and query intent

Big data is definitely a buzz word within the industry right now, but as I headed to Bryan Eisenberg’s (@thegrok) session at SES San Francisco, I wondered how the average company would be able to leverage the complexity of big data in a way that is meaningful and profitable.

Target made headlines last year when it inadvertently announced to the father of a teenager that his daughter was pregnant, by sending her coupons targeted to her pregnancy. Target knew that this young woman was pregnant before her father did, through the collection and analysis of data related to her past purchases. Although Target would later refine their coupon targeting strategy, this is a powerful example of a company using data in order to speak to the needs of their consumer.

Focus on the Micro and the Macro!

When Avinash Kaushik (@avinash) is giving the opening keynote you know that you’re in for a treat.  SES San Francisco was no exception.  Even with a few minor technical issues, Avinash rolled with the punches and jumped right into what is wrong with online marketing today, and how it can be fixed.

As always Avinash’ presentation was a unique mixture of stand up comedy, and expert advice from one of the only people who can truly call themselves a guru in the online marketing industry.

3 Things I Find Interesting That I Want to Share

“I got into the web through the path of data.  As it turns out the problem is very rarely lack of or bad data.” – Avinash Kaushik

As one of the original and largest conferences with a focus on search engine marketing, SES content runs the gamut of strategies and tactics to help marketers improve their performance. This isn’t an easy task in a world where platforms like Google and Facebook can change the rules from one minute to the next.

SES may have had it’s roots in search marketing, but like the “best of the best” search engine marketers, SES has adapted to the changing marketplace and evolved content offerings including: mobile, social, content marketing and big trends like Big Data.

The notion of optimization is increasingly viewed as a holistic approach that can impact discovery of content to anyone that is looking.  That bigger picture view of marketing performance optimization is something you’ll find in the tracks, presentations and tactics at SES San Francisco. It’s a real 360 degree view of what it means to optimize digital marketing to achieve any kind of marketing goal with any audience on any platform.

SES Toronto was full of great content from the keynote from Avinash Kaushik where he took local companies to task with their search visibility and user experience to breakout sessions like the content marketing optimization panel I presented on and this one: Spy vs. Spy: Competitive Analysis. There’s a plethora of tools available online to track, monitor and uncover information that could be used to gain a competitive advantage for both organic search optimization and pay per click.

This session provided a balance of both and included speakers Jim Yu of Bright Edge (@brightedge) and Matt Van Wagner (@mvanwagner) of findmefaster. Moderation duties were handled by Mike Grehan (@mikegrehan), Global VP Content, SES, Search Engine Watch, ClickZ.

Starting things off was Jim Yu of BrightEdge, which is an enterprise SEO platform that has over 2,000 brands using their product.