SEO is a Brick not a House

This post is in reference to SEO services as a business model, however many of the ideas can be juxtaposed to businesses and their utilization of the method for marketing So much gets said about SEO and its relevance or even legitamacy. Most of this is purely linkbait, and the SEO crowd is all to quick to fall into the trap. The arguements fall into three basic camps. 1.The SEO are scumbags camp, of which Derek Powazek became a member and then quickly left. 2.The SEO is bullshit camp, of which Jason Calacanis is probably the most visible member, but you can find tons of the linkbait here . 3. The SEO is a “dying business” concept, of which Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker is one of the main figure heads, and now Robert Scoble has joined the mix. None of these are 100% right, or for that matter wrong. 1. Some SEOs, like some circus clowns and some grocery baggers are indeed scum bags. But then there are people like, Neil Patel who have gotten rave reviews from savvy web people due to his aid of their web properties. From Quicksprout.com : “Neil has advised TechCrunch for more than two years and been an important part of the growth of the TechCrunch Network by helping us implement SEO best practices. Search engines have grown to be responsible for 1/3 of all TechCrunch traffic, so Neil’s ongoing support is critical to our business.” – Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch 2. Some SEOs offer services that are nothing more than bullshit, every SEO has had to clean up a mess by these types of unscrupulous business people. But there are a ton of proffesionals out their helping people transition to the online space, and thus save their livelihood. 3. Some SEOs have thriving businesses based on there insane prowess, like my bud Dave Naylor , others are feeling the economic crunch. For me, long term, I look at my business ventures and I side with Shoemoney on several points. SEO as a stand alone service offering is a tough long term business plan to feel solid about. The engines are changing too fast to allow anyone doing the service to feel confident about their business over the next 10 years, and everyone should be looking at the current changes in terms of personalization and taking it as a cue to diversify what they do. SEO is a block in the creation of a solid online marketing strategy, it isn’t the entire house. Good SEOs know this. Every site clinic I have ever seen with SEO rockstars like Greg Boser, Todd Freisen, Dave Naylor, Mikkel deMib Svendsen, and countless others always circles back to them spending as much time exploring conversion, usability, and social media as they do the standard SEO practices. To definitively say SEO as a practice or service based business model has lost its legs is a bit premature to say the least. Traditional media is dying quickly, and more businesses are turning to the web to make a new revenue stream. Search is the most logical place to begin for these companies. Also, the top 5% of SEOs out there will be making money as long search engines exist. Again though, search, paid or organic, can only be a piece of the online marketing puzzle. As we look at 2010 we are seeing that brands have cemented their position on the web, building a solid brand, via a mixture of online marketing streams is the only route towards continual prosperity online. Mobile adveritisng, due to the growth of app based mobile OSs, will likely grow from 2009s relatively small $416 million in spend, and acquiring the tools to make this a part of your offering as a service provider will soon become a necessity. Social media has become profitably, and now is a must have for CMOs. And so we start to get this view of online marketing like a machine, one distinct entity, but with sum parts that have little use on their own. What good is 100,000,000 search based visitors if you are only getting .02% conversion, and negative ROI on the money to achieve the paid and organic rankings? How real is a 90% conversion rate if you are only bringing in 2 natural visitors a month? Smart professionals in the space, like my friend Todd Malicoat , are using their talents to offer companies online business consulting services, and utilizing the revenue generated from these services to fund their long term goals. This has been the premise behind Search & Social from Day 1. Why make everyone else money? Utilize the skills and team you have built to build revenue streams beyond services. This site is the most public proof of this concept for us. We are looking at an evolution online, and not a death. The direction the online world is moving favors diversified marketing campaigns, more directly branding based marketing, and savvy service providers will make note and transition. Others will die off. This is the cycle of business in any sector, and not a fact reserved to SEO alone. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . SEO is a Brick not a

How to Measure Branding PPC Campaigns

Rule #1 in every paid search campaign (PPC) is Identify and Track a Measurable Conversion . For 95% of campaigns this is a must, but there is a new breed of paid search campaign: the branding campaign. These are based on traffic to a site only and intentionally do not rely on traditional tracked metrics (sales, forms) for results. Before I get into the new breed let me make one thing very clear , paid campaigns are almost impossible to optimize if there is no trackable conversion to measure. Paid search managers rely on the conversion to determine where they are losing the searcher. The funnel of paid search starts with the impression, or the search query. The click happens when you get the searcher’s attention with your 3 lines of poetic, intent-based perfection. The click through rate lets your manager know if the keyword and ad are targeted. After the click, conversion metrics based on ad and keywords are imperative. They allow managers to tell if the website followed through with the promise of the ad. If the searcher does not perform the intended action, there is something to fix or optimize. The new breed of branding-focused PPC is missing the conversion metric. The intent of these ads is to inform the customer of the brand, send them to the site, and grow trust. They are looking to convert the searcher in the long term, which is not directly measurable. You cringing yet? This goes against everything that is online marketing. We have seen a rise in budget levels over the past 10 years because executives can SEE the return on this advertising model. The selling point is in the ROI, and traditional advertising mediums have been losing ad dollar share because of that. Another change is coming to the online marketing space. Trust is still a big part of the consumer’s decision-making process and with all of the scams online, it makes sense that a return to some form of branding was going to happen. How do we make this work though? As much as branding campaigns cannot be tied directly to specific sales, every paid search campaign needs to have metrics and benchmarks. If you are tasked with a paid search campaign with no conversion metrics and a focus on traffic, dig deeper for what they are looking for from the traffic. Most branding campaigns should be measurable through a marked increase in overall traffic (given), but here are a few more metrics you might want to track: Click Through Rate – CTR is still very necessary to determine relevance to the end user. If you stop looking at this, you are not getting the best traffic for the cost. Time on Page – This metric will allow you to see how long people are spending on the initial page. This is one of the metrics to determine landing page relevance to keyword and ad. In most cases, the higher the better. Bounce Rate – Are your visitors leaving quickly? You might be on the wrong keywords, need a page redesign, or new ad copy if the traffic from your paid campaign has a high bounce rate. The main goal though is to get your branding campaign to drop your bounce rate over the entire site. An increase in return visitors will have an affect across the board if the branding campaign if effective. Return Visits – This is the key to any branding campaign. Are they coming back? A branding campaign should work with all other advertising to bring new people in and give them a reason to come back. If you are not growing your percentage of return visitors for the site overall, something isn’t working. Total Time on Site – If your intent is to drive traffic and get more people interested in your brand, then the entire site needs to be targeted to them. If the total time on site goes up (be sure you are not tracking yourself), this trust and branding goal is being met. Remember that the online marketing world changes everyday. Roll with it and use your analytical brain to tie old media with new metrics. Everything is trackable and measurable online. Find benchmarks from prior years and forge a new path. The guest post is by Kate Morris . You can find her on her blog or on twitter @katemorris . Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . How to Measure Branding PPC

Do You Have “Linkable Content”?

You know the great thing about Antiques Roadshow? Aside from finding out that grandma’s ugly ceramic cat collection can actually bankroll a Caribbean cruise. It’s the idea that maybe; just maybe somewhere in our lives there are things that, with a little bit of lemon pledge and a new coat of paint, could actually become highly valuable. The same thing might be true of your website. The idea of creating great content for links isn’t new; Eric Ward was defining linkable content 8 years ago. More recently, Garrett French made a killer blue print for how to conceive, create and promote linkable content . Moreover, on Search Engine Journal, Loren Baker has educated readers on the importance of building natural links to interesting and relevant content & Ann Smarty has written about attracting links with HOW TO content . So why are there so many sites that still aren’t buying in? Maybe the idea of creating a library or searchable database is too daunting? Maybe in-depth research coupled with the time and effort required to create and market great content just seems like too much work. But unless a site features a billion-dollar brand name, funny pictures of cats or the contents of Lindsey’s Lohan’s trash, people probably aren’t throwing links at it.  So what’s a small commercial site to do? I say, grab a dust rag, head into the basement and see what you already have that, with a few creative modifications, can be turned into something brand new. 1. Product

James Francis – An Upcoming Internet Marketer

James Francis, with nearly 6 years of Internet marketing expertise, is trying to invest his time, money, and knowledge in helping many online marketers who confront with common problems while performing their online marketing ventures. Along with creating and promoting online products, James also spend quite a lot of time in researching on the web

Visit link:
James Francis – An Upcoming Internet Marketer

Matt Benwell – An Insight About the Webmaster

Matt Benwell is no different from many top webmasters who created credibility in the market, and with that credibility, he is now able to promote various online marketing products to aspiring Internet marketers. When he commenced in web marketing career in 2007, he was striving day-in and day-out to get relieved from his debts, however, it

See the original post:
Matt Benwell – An Insight About the Webmaster

Eric Rockefeller – The Famous Web Marketing Guru

For those who want to know all about Eric Rockefeller, the genius marketer who made over $72,000 in less than 30 days by promoting a single Clickbank product, then this is the bio you would want to read without fail. He claimed to fame came soon after he launched mylistmonster.com. Eric, an experienced web marketer,

Read more:
Eric Rockefeller – The Famous Web Marketing Guru

WPP + Google Marketing Research Program

The Internet, World Wide Web and Google were borne out of research programs. Recognizing the value basic research can produce, WPP and Google have launched a marketing research program in conjunction with major universities to fund academic research in the field of online marketing. Having spent the last ten years researching the field of online marketing while also personally applying , testing, proving and disproving my findings, I was excited to learn what academia may have discovered. I was pleasantly surprised to learn the WPP Google Marketing Research program winners appear to have begun fielding some of the general questions I have been contemplating over the last four years while fleshing out and writing my book – For Sale By Google. After listening to the WPP + Google award winners’ responses, I am satisfied with the progress my own personal Google Marketing Research program ie., my upcoming book For Sale By Google has already achieved by comparison.

Link:
WPP + Google Marketing Research Program