Can I join your FaceBook fan club?

After finishing up a frantic day of closing up business prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to sit down and catch up on the news of the day.

I don’t watch a great deal of television, but I have this habit of news channel scanning. I hop from CNN, to HLN to CNBC to Bloomberg. This habit sometimes raises eyebrows, but it has some great benefits. Aside from keeping me in touch with the world even though I work long hours, It usually provides me with concrete examples of successful and not so successful uses of internet marketing.

As I flip the channel to one of the generic news stations, I find myself in the middle of your typical Thanksgiving shopping feature. You know the one; a rosy cheeked reporter stands in front of a collage of cashiers and people in puffy winter jackets hoisting bags full of goods. I’m guessing at this point that it’s going to be about how the retailers are going to defy the recession and bring in the customers.

I was right. And to my delight it’s about how a particular retailer uses Facebook. Jackpot!

After I’ve gone over the typical details of an SEO engagement with a customer, and we’ve begun to digress into other internet marketing possibilities, I’m usually asked how Social Media could help them to achieve their goals.

They ask me what’s involved and I talk a lot about social bookmarks, YouTube.com, Twitter and definitely Facebook. I propose various scenarios and we ‘him and haw’ a bit and get back to the task at hand; getting their SEO initiative in order. Maybe I should tell them to watch more TV?

Well, I now have a great story to use that’s relevant to the holiday season and researchable to some extent.

Ok, let’s go back to the news story. The retailer being featured came up with an innovative and effective way to leverage Facebook to increase their Black Friday sales. They advertised incentives directly to Facebook.com users. So what, right? Well, there’s more. The campaign included incentives aviable only to the retailer’s Facebook fans.

So you had to join become a fan to get the benefits. Their fans were allowed to visit the store two hours earlier then non-fans on Black Friday and they also received an additional discount on all purchases.

This is a brilliant example of using social media to affect revenue in a timely fashion, grow their customer base and facilitate an ongoing inbound marketing campaign. Enjoy!

How To Become The Most Successful SEO That Ever Lived

(Slightly tongue-in-cheek here, but read on…)

Are you familiar with this quote? It’s the Bessie Stanley Quote, but often erroneously attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s what SUCCESS is attributed to:

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

If you can use this in your daily life, apply to your business, to your friends, to your family, to your religion, to your physical and spiritual being, you may indeed become the most spectacular SEO that ever bore fruits on this planet.

P.S.
So, the next time you do your keyword research, write a piece of (awesome) content, hunt down quality links, interact with your clients or co-workers, give a little extra. You’ll feel better.

Local Search Marketing With Google Local Business Center

In any market, whether it’s ultra-competitive, or not – you want to be found in Google. Local search has great opportunities for your business. This short video introduces you to Googles Local Business Center, where you can easily sign up, and get your business listed. (Note: Some markets will be tougher than others, but you need to start!).

It’s free, and customers will find you, and especially, if you remember these tips for local optimization:

• Add Google/Yahoo local business listing with the address in the city being searched.
• Ensure citations from major data providers, such as infoUSA, Localeze, and Internet Yellow Pages providers.
• Associate your local business listing in the proper categories.
• Include a claimed, verified local business listing with Google/Yahoo.
• Include product/service keywords in the title of your local business listing.

Use getlisted.org to get started quickly in Google, Yahoo & Bing Local search marketing.

How To Sell Your Garage Online With Google

Your Garage Online?

Every once in a while I get a call from someone who’s decided to move their garage sale online.  They have oodles of semi-new, semi-interesting things to sell and they’re hoping to somehow ditch the middleman and have some fun setting up a website and selling the goods themselves.

Time goes on and after two or three visits by hackers and no sales; they end up giving me a call and asking in a timid voice for a quote for SEM marketing services.

I used to actually quote them service pricing.  No, really, I did.  There would be a long awkward pause, then some mumbling and then I would eventually end the torment with some advice and a pleasant goodbye.

I’ve decided to do my good deed for the day and just cut to the advice for those in need.

I can’t help it if they don’t find this blog and read it before calling.

Tips to those who wish to sell some stuff online:

1. There are multiple businesses that can do this for you.  I would first mention eBay, but for various reasons, which I didn’t really care to uncover, you dislike the eBay experience.  Online auctions are really your best option because your only leverage in selling is price point.  The reason somebody will buy from you vs. “Mega Merchant” is because you can sell it for less.
2. There are online classifieds such as craigslist.  The problem here is then you have to do the haggling yourself.  I say leave it to the auction.  Anyway, craigslist gets plenty of traffic.
3. Maybe it’s all about being a do-it-yourself-er.  You’re set on creating your site.  Okay, then you’re in luck.  I was just reading an article in Search Engine Watch about the release of Product Placement Ads from Google.  Instead of trying to find a firm to market your site, you can open a Google Merchant account (same goes for Yahoo! and Bing) and create product ads for the items you want to sell.  You only pay Google once an item is actually sold.

With these three options, you should be able to get some sales. Get to it.

SEO = Talk Soup = Success?

Why, dear reader, do I keep having the same discussion over and over? Is it me? Is there something wrong with the tone of my voice? Maybe it’s my last name, it’s hard to pronounce. I’m almost out of ideas.
Somebody explain why I keep having this conversation:

Poor me: “Hello, may I help you?”
Misinformed customer: “Yes, I want my website ranked on the first page of Google for . . .”

Let’s stop there. Do you know how much talking must now take place because “misinformed customer” has mistaken a tactic for a strategy? The conversation grows lengthier and more precarious depending on how many other people the “misinformed customer” has talked to prior. Why do some of my colleagues and competitors contribute to this confusion by answering “You bet!” to that same question?

So, what’s the big deal, you ask? Why don’t you just say yes and close the deal? Because the “misinformed customer” thinks they are telling me exactly what they want and I have to carefully dig, dig, dig, dig to find out what they really need and then provide them with the vocabulary to articulate it.

Maybe it’s just me. Let me be clear on my thinking; being ranked on the first page of Google for a particular key phrase is a tactic. Before you disagree in this context, let’s agree on the definition of tactic. Here’s what I’ve taken from Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: 1tac•tic
Pronunciation: ˈtak-tik
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin tactica, from Greek taktikē, from feminine of taktikos
Date: 1640
1 : a device for accomplishing an end
2 : a method of employing forces in combat

So, based on this definition, I believe that ranking is a tactic. It’s a device for accomplishing an end, whether it’s generating qualified leads or building brand recognition. It is not a matter of ethics, but of good business sense to ensure that any potential SEM customer understands this.

One critical element to selling and maintaining a loyal customer in any industry is to effectively listen to and understand the customer’s needs. When I sold paid search technology, the conversations were simple because I was selling to paid search professionals and because other firms couldn’t use naiveté to close a deal and thus perpetuate misunderstanding.

It seems in SEO that things are much different. Too many firms seem to be happy to sell on their promise to effectively perform a tactic, whether it contributes to the customer’s real needs or not. I don’t know this for a fact, but I really don’t have any other clue as to why I have to explain all of this over and over again.
So, I’m here to help everybody to help me. If you’re selling SEO and you are about to have this same conversation with a potential client, taking this tack has helped me to educate customers and win trust and win business: talk soup.

We can see from the most recent search trend analysis that while impressions remain relatively constant, clickthrough rates have been steadily dropping. This supports the theory that people are using search to research and buy, but they are doing less shopping around. It’s not the gospel, but most of us infer that this is because the internet is less of a novelty and is now becoming more like a shopping center or a grocery store. What does this mean for the marketer? It means that brand is back.
It is critical for our customers to understand this new grocery store analogy. There was a time when the internet was shiny and new and the “brick and mortars” didn’t have their act together and there weren’t established internet brands. That has all changed.

I use soup because it seems to be all about brand. There are maybe two soup brands anybody thinks about? Seriously, all these soup eaters and two brands?

When somebody comes to me and proclaims that a simple ranking tactic is the solution to their business problems, I make sure they’re not selling soup. Just because I put some new tomato soup brand above, below, to the left or to the right of Campbell’s, I doubt they’re going to sell anything. If product placement is their strategy, I can help them to do it, but they aren’t going to be happy. They’ll spend a lot of time and money for nothing. And yet I have customers who are basically trying to do the same thing; like a mortgage broker shopping around for the lowest quote to rank next to Lendingtree.com on the phrase “home loan”.

I promise to do my part to educate as much as sell. I hope others will join me. If you’re an SEO professional, somebody soon is going to call you to talk rankings. You can help them. Just talk soup.

The Idiot’s Guide To Google Quality Score for Adwords

Quality Scores - Your Golden Eggs

The Quality Score (rated 1-10) on the Google Adwords platform is much discussed, and equally mis-understood. If you know the secrets to elevation of the scores (higher is better) – it can be a game changer for your business. For example, the keyword quality score improvement will help on your overall costs of campaigns and CPC (cost per click), ad rankings and more. You’ll sleep better at night, having obsessed about it for months.

Consider these tips and resources to help improve your quality score for advertising with Google paid search.

1. What is the Google Quality Score?

Every keyword you bid on inside the Adwords system is assigned a score. It’s done real-time, and gets assigned once somebody executes a query on Google and clicks on your ad. It helps Google – to help you:

• Get your ad shown
• Reveal the cost if ad is clicked
• Increase or decrease ad ranking – what position to show your ad

Here’s what Google says about Quality Score:

“Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The AdWords system works best for everybody — advertisers, users, publishers, and Google too — when the ads we display match our users’ needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position, and bring you the most success”.

2. What about Relevance?

The main topic of discussion when “quality” is discussed on all search engines, and for Google in specific, is “relevancy”. Does the query match the expectation of the user? Does a link back to web-page match the link and is it topically relevant? (for SEO, search engine optimization). If so, you’ll have a much better chance to rank and get a boost.  The quality score looks at this important model, because ultimately, nobody should (and cannot) be able to simply buy your way into the first position for very long (unless you have seriously deep pockets, and don’t have a brain). It should always be considered, and having keywords tied into the ad copy itself, along with correct matching type (broad, phrase, exact) into campaigns and ad group, gives you a serious head start.  Example: If an ad is clicked 500 times at $2 dollars, Google makes more money if you have 1,000 clicks at $1.50, for example. So, Google wants the clicks, versus just high buys with ads that nobody clicks. (think about this important concept again!). The truth is – it’s set up so that Google, the searcher and the advertiser wins. Users find what they want, more traffic to you, lowered cost for advertiser, better ranking, and more money back to Google.

3. Does Google Reveal The Quality Score?

Inside the Adwords interface, you can see the Quality Score for each of your keywords. However, it’s an optional column that you have check off. The number shown is an approximate value, and a good average is 7, and very common. 1 (one) represents a poor quality score, 10 (ten) is optimum. Don’t obsess, just work through this article, and measure yourself.

4. Why is Quality Score Important?

Ad ranking (positions) on the results pages are important, since it affects click-through-rates (CTR) and bids.

Remember this formula: Bid x Quality Score = Ad Rank.

A paid search specialist should spend time looking at options for improving quality scores because of the above.

5. Things You Can Do to Improve Your Quality Indicators

This list is not exhaustive, but will get you into positive territory, if followed.

• The historical Click-Through-Rate (CTR) of the ad matching keyword on Google (search network)
• The total account history – measure by the overall CTR to ads in total, including keywords
• The quality of your landing page
• Relevance matching factors from keywords to ads within ad groups
• Overall account performance in the geo area when ad shown

Google reveals these things to assist webmasters and advertisers help themselves. However, many of the critical low level factors and secrets are kept safe, so we make some assumptions along the way.  They can change the dials at any time, and not tell us.

We heave learned however, that the CTR of your keywords is the most critical influence on the QS (Quality Score) . The proof is shown because of ads clicked more over time have the biggest impact.  Furthermore, the relevancy of matching from query to ad, to landing page is very much part of this exercise. Landing pages themselves impact the QS in either direction, and you are serving yourself well if applying the right principles to landing page construction. More on that later.

6. Recommendations for fast campaign and landing page optimizations.

A) If somebody is searching for [chocolate cookies], you are helping scoring by providing close alignment of keywords to ad groups. The ad copy in your text should be tightly targeted. Small ad groups, with close relationships of keywords and matching types will help immensly. For example, you can create 3 adgroups to test “chocolate cookie B” (Broad), “chocolate cookie P” (phrase) and “”chocolate cookie E” (exact). Inside each ad group, you would use a limited set of keywords, from 1-10, for example. Also, make sure to include negative keywords. For example, at a higher level, a ‘cookie’ could also be an’ http cookie’ , and would not be related. A negative match type would not create an impression for that keyword, ie. your ad would not be shown.

B) Test, test, test – your ad copy. You must improve your click-through-rate (CTR), and it will improve quality. The copy in the ad is absolutely critical. We often will recommend adding 3-4 variations of the ad, pause 2 of them, and use the built-in A/B mechanisms to show the ads. Note: Make sure to remove the “optimize” setting within the campaign settings. It should allow you to monitor the balance of ads shown better. (Incidentally, “A/B” comes from the mail order business, where they would test the “A” version with a different headline or offer against the “B” version). You can do this only, and very quickly as well. You need 100-1,000 impressions, depending – to get valid data to work from. Don’t stop too soon, and don’t let it run ‘forever’ without changing and updating either. You will be putting money on the table, and giving it to Google instead. We call this the “Google Tax”. You don’t want that.

C) A compelling, clear action-oriented ad should also have a strong landing page to match. The topical and contextual relationships are very important.  Do not stuff keywords on the landing page, and use SEO principles to feed the machine.

D) Monitoring and validation. Google reporting allows a number of fields in “custom” settings, and you should add the Quality Score to keywords and ad groups.

E) Account quality. Deleting or pausing poor performers is recommended. In fact, deleting them completely is likely more preferred, but you should keep track of them somewhere. Pausing is easier, and less work of course. If you have a lot of ad groups, you should look at overall quality indicators and get a sense for “global” views, not just the “detail” view levels.  Keep in mind that a high quality performing platform doesn’t change overnight, so make sure to work with the system, and track it.

F) Geographical impact. You may find great CTRs in Chicago, whereas similar ads get poorer results in Los Angeles. Try to discover where this happens, and fix it.

G) History and testing. Some are afraid to touch highly performing account structures. We agree you have a goal in mind – for all your efforts – but online marketing and Adwords is all about testing and tuning. Testing ads, keywords, landing pages, bids – all is an ongoing exercise, and you are never truly done. Some will set up completely new, different Adwords accounts, and test in a different environment, but it’s not the same.  Also, any time you add new campaigns, you don’t automatically get the benefit of a quality account. Expect to build these out each time, and tune, watch them as before. As you build out new campaigns, we offer this advice: “start high, and work downwards”. You’ll know from keyword research what traffic is available, but it’s not until you launch into your (niche) marketplace, that will truly know. Bidding high, and working downwards is a better strategy. You are showing Google you are not afraid to test, and you are indeed a “Google Adwords Player”!

BONUS: Make sure to read Google Advertising Policies, and Landing Page Guidelines.

Finally – a great video by Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google. It captures the awesome engine that is the world’s most profitable advertising platform, the keyword auctioning system: Google Adwords.

The #1 Way To Generate Leads Online

Disclaimer: This post is not biased in any way!

Lead Generation with SEO

It is true that you must work with practitioners that know what they are doing here, but SEO (search engine optimization) is truly the top way to generate (quality) leads online. Using this approach, you are optimizing your website (pages!) for search engines and thereby for users to find you. The visitors come to you virtually for free, and your (assumed) decreased cost per lead can and will dramatically increase your business valuation. With the keyword research and marketplace analysis, along with content, usability and links analysis, you can find out what folks are *actually* searching for, other websites (your competitors) they are surfing to, so you can match your site and pages with a high user intent, from natural/organic search. We know that not all are in a buy mode (awareness, research, compare, buy), but if they are – your value proposition overall will be much higher than other means.  You can use other traffic tools to help leverage SEO even more, and for the long haul.

“Forty-eight percent of marketers said that search engine optimization (SEO) was the best method for generating conversions online. More than one-half of marketers with budgets over $1 million agreed.”

Statistics and numbers can not deny the facts. Just take a look at this:

Here’s more information on the marketing trends.