Online Marketing Blog

Search Marketing is well documented as one of the most effective marketing strategies a business can employ regardless of the economic environment. Now more then ever companies recognize search as an essential element to their businesses bottom line and are seeking out the help of professional SEO firms.

Finding the right search marketing agency is no doubt a daunting task. But what happens once you’ve done your due diligence and chosen an SEO firm that best suits your style and philosophy?

Below are 5 ways to ensure you’re getting the best return on your search marketing dollars from your SEO invrestment:

On day one of SES London I was able to catch up with Google Search Evangelist Adam Lasnik to do a short (10 min) video on several topics important to web masters looking for better results on Google. Adam starts with a descrption of his responsibilities at Google and then answers questions about Google compliant Flash and JavaScript, duplicate content - especially with press releases and suggested uses of internal site nofollow other than for “PageRank sculpting”.

I am curious if anyone else has noticed a trend over the past year or so where people (I have nobody specific in mind) in the search marketing business seem to increasingly gravitate towards becoming a “SEO celebrity”. It’s a bit like like moths to a flame, really.

A while back, I had a search marketing job candidate answer the, “Where would you like to be in 2-3 years?” question with, “I want to be a famous SEO”. “Why?” I would ask. “Because that’s my goal”. Fair enough, but it’ll be tough to pay the bills with a wallet full of famous.

During the PRSA International Conference I had the opportunity to talk with Eric Schwartzman about the interplay of search engine optimization and online public relations. There’s plenty of sage advice for PR professionals interested in leveraging SEO tactics for public and media relations in the interview (Eric interviews Lee), so if you have 25 minutes be sure to click the link above and listen. Otherwise, here is a paraphrased accounting of our talk:

How can SEO can help an organization raise awareness?

Monday night, Jessica and I represented TopRank at a Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Event in Minneapolis.

In the first of a series entitled ‘Conversations About the Future of Advertising’, Jan Leth from Ogilvy & Mather gave a presentation entitled ‘Dada, Data, Alpha and Beta’ in which he highlighted how marketers can take advantage of the digital age.

In particular I found interesting, the idea of momentgraphics versus demographics. Marketing of years past would have concluded that we need to know the age, race, income and interests of each of our prospects.

[Note from Lee: While Susan, Jolina and I are in Miami at a private client conference for one of the largest companies in the world, it seemed particularly relevant for Jolina to write a quick post about enterprise SEO. Jolina's presentation today to roughly 30 different business units as well as corporate communications, PR and IT simply kicked ass.]

While the vast majority of search engine optimization projects performed by search marketing agencies are for small and medium sized businesses, SEO for large and complex organizations takes a unique combination of finesse and consideration.

The Internet Marketing Ninjas instructional program including videos and tools conceived by Jim Boykin of We Build Pages, has officially launched. I think a lot of people in the search marketing industry will be wowed by the sheer volume of quality information that’s available. Currently there are a series of 12 videos from the likes of Aaron Wall, Shoemoney, Neil Patel and Jim himself. Plus, most of the famous We Build Pages SEO and link building tools have been taken offline and included in the program along with many of the private WBP tools.

Recently I did a podcast for AllBusiness.com , recently acquired by Dun & Bradstreet, along with their Marketing Director, David Saries. The audience for AllBusiness.com is small businesses, so the questions were flavored toward the perspectives many do it yourself or hands on web site owners and online business owners have.

The podcast discusses a variety of topics ranging from a definition of SEO to common SEO mistakes. We also discuss emerging online marketing channels and whether small businesses can “do SEO in-house” or not. You can listen to the full podcast here: “The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization”

As the Global SEO Program Manager/Diva for one of the largest companies in the world, Tanya Vaughan from HP has a tremendous amount of responsibility and knowledge about enterprise SEO. We caught up with Tanya after the Enterprise Search Engine Optimization panel at Pubcon in Las Vegas to ask about her role at HP and to elaborate on a topic from the session, “progressive enhancement”, and what it means for SEO.

Be sure to check out the TopRank channel on YouTube for more SEO interviews.

Social Media Keyword Research is Here
Whether it’s a phrase entered in a search box on a standard search engine, on a video sharing site or tags assigned to your friends’ shared social bookmarks and shared images, the meaning and intent inferred by keywords is paramount to any kind of “pull” online marketing effort.

For search marketers, that means using keyword research tools on an ongoing basis in order to adapt to trends, seasonality and changes in what’s important to the target market.

On the heels of the PRSA conference last week, the topic of how search plays a part in online PR effectiveness has continued to enter into the increasing numbers of discussions we’ve been having with companies working on figuring out where to best leverage their 2008 marketing/PR dollars. It’s that time of year again.

Now more than ever, PR and media relations efforts can benefit from attention to how search engine visibility influences consumer perceptions and the way both consumers and the media find information online. With an increasing variety of search types to choose from including standard search like Google, Yahoo, Live and Ask as well as platform or content type specific search such as news, blog, image, video and options within social media web sites, brings new opportunities to optimize content.

Learning the basics of search engine optimization isn’t difficult, it’s time consuming. SEO consultants can offer a variety of services but in the end, web site owners will appreciate the SEO services they’re getting much more if they educated themselves on the fundamentals.

The nature of marketing web sites has continually evolved from a focus on optimizing text to include an array of digital assset optimization such as images, audio, video and content delivery formats like RSS and mobile. Regardless, there continues to be a significant value in basic SEO.