Recently, I presented at a Software Association of Oregon meeting for our local Columbia Gorge Chapter and Gorge Tech Allliance on the topic, “Growing Your Online Marketing Channel”. It was a great group of local businesses with a focus on tech companies, but retail, non profit and content sites were represented as well.

When broaching a topic this wide, it’s easy to get caught up in over simplifying or over whelming. Summit Projects Executive Account Manager Rob McCreedy presented great information and case studies from their Nike sites and gave some helpful guidelines for understanding Website Usability.

My focus was creating framework for good Search Engine Optimization and how Natural Search can help grow your business. The hardest part about these short meetings is providing value. We could spend a week on Keyword Research alone (1 of 15 slides in a 20 minute presentation). It’s always the hope that these educational meeting lay the groundwork for understanding that Web Marketing and Search Marketing are complex disciplines and that investing in your success as a business owner is worth your time. This takes a great deal of insight and responsibility from the business owner.

The two biggest issues I see with business owners struggling to make the decision to grow their online marketing channel (especially small to mid-size business) are:

ISSUE
1) The desire to spend precious little time or budget on online marketing, then having unrealistic expectations regarding results.

SOLUTION
As a business owner, create an expectation for your marketing agency for ROI. Research the potential for growth for your company online, determine your ability to garner more of the market place, define parameters for potential growth and make decisions about investing in search marketing, web development and other online marketing strategies.

ISSUE
2) The expectation that you can pay an agency for a project, walk away and return to great results.

Get involved with your agency and collaborate through the entire project. As a write this, I think about a project we’re working on now. The business owner (I’ll share more about the project upon completion;) has been involved, not just with creating project parameters, but with design, content development and user experience. It’s not an easy process to say the least, but the potential for success of the project increases dramatically with your involvement as a business owner. No one knows your business better than you.

Kudos to those who attended this (or any) meeting exploring Growing Your Online Marketing Channel, and dare to take the next step and create an actionable strategy for growing your business online. If you think you need more education, attend SEMPDX meetings, attend local Community Education courses, read articles on the topic (ClickZ or SearchEngineLand) or reach out to an agency who has provided results for their clients.

If you’re a marketer or business owner looking to learn about search marketing and you live in the Pacific Northwest, you have great educational opportunities through our local SEMPDX, Search Engine Marketing Professionals of Portland.

Last night, they sponsored a Hot Seat, a site review which allows business owners and marketers to submit their sites for review by a panel of professionals. This is one of the best ways to get a better understanding of how to improve your website, not just for search, but for usability as well.

Whether you have a site that generates millions or generates awareness (like one of the sites up for review, Donate a Life Northwest) you’ll get practical advice you can take back to your development team. Here are a couple of recommendations:

*Create simple calls to action on your home page. At search shows and with clients, I’ve gone through this process and 90% of the time, this piece is missing. What do you want people to do on your site? If you want visitors to pick up the phone and call you, give them your phone number, don’t make them search for it. If you want them to schedule a consultation, create a form that makes it easy to do that.

*Submit your xml sitemap to Google. Go to Google Webmaster Tools and follow the simple directions for submission. Vanessa Fox (speaker and the founder of Google Webmaster Central) recommended creating a script to resubmit xml sitemaps rather than remembering to manually resubmit.

*Examine your keywords and be realistic. Sometimes the most trafficked keyword for your industry is nearly unapproachable. Remember that “tail” terms can be even more powerful since they’re likely to generate intent that matches your service and be less competitive than “head” terms. Vanessa wrote a terrific blog post about this phenomenon.

Want to do your own Hot Seat? Do a mini focus group. Sit down with users or potential users of your site and create a dialogue about the site experience. What do you think you’re supposed to do on the site. Was it easy to find the info you were looking for? Is the site credible and trustworthy? Try this exercise just once and you’ll walk away with “ah hahs” that can improve site experience and conversion.

Don’t miss the next SEMPDX Event as well as the upcoming SearchFest in March. It’s a lot of great speakers from the big SES and SMX shows but in our own backyard and for a fraction of the price.

Since involvement with the search industry in 2001, we’ve used the SERP define as part of our reporting criteria to clients. It is one way to gauge effectiveness of natural search efforts. Once we show page one placement for a keyword or phrase then we show the amount of visits generated by that placement, then behavior of that traffic and the conversion of that traffic, pretty straightforward.

Now that personalized search define and custom SERPs are more common than ever, the search industry is left without a metric that it has used to dazzle current and prospective clients. It’s exciting when you can tell a client that they are #1 on Google for an important search query, but what do we as an industry do now that SERPs are difficult to replicate? What I see on my query is very likely to vary from what my client sees because of customized results. We can run the reports with personalized search off and advise clients to do the same so we can be on the same page, but results for their potential traffic will vary due to custom results that can be driven by geography, bookmarks, past queries and other information because engines want to drive the highest level of relevance for users.

This is great for users, but it can present some complexity for search marketers. This change in the search algorithm define places us in the same situation as more traditional marketing efforts. We can still monitor our visits and track them back to the engines, then proceed to return on investment and conversion. Though some search marketers may fear this transition we should be excited about it. We are now left to embrace more traditional, grown up methods of success like quantifiable growth, roi and increased revenue for our clients.

There are still many search marketers that point to their client SERPs and congratulate themselves for being masters of the universe. The real power of search lies in helping our clients complete the sales cycle (or other conversion goal), not just giving them placement on an engine. What does personalized search and custom SERP’s mean to SEO? Maybe it means it’s time for search to grow up and take its’ rightful place among traditional marketing strategies. Growing up means getting more responsible, and that’s good news for the industry and our clients.

As I’ve enjoyed the holidays, I’m reminded about how important foundational elements are to so many things. When it comes to preparing a great meal, there’s no fancy color coordinated table setting that will make up for a bad cut of meat. When it comes to hosting a party, it doesn’t matter if the food and cocktails are perfect if you didn’t invite people you like. It’s difficult to build anything sustainable on a rocky foundation. I meet with many business owners who want to skip the foundation. No matter where you are in your search marketing efforts take this quick quiz and determine if your foundation is solid and ready for building.

1 We’ve done thorough keyword research
2 We have good information architecture for our website
3 We have link popularity through strategic linking
4 We can be found for the keywords we’ve defined for our business
5 We know which search queries result in conversion
6 We understand our analytics
7 We send natural search traffic to other pages besides our home page
8 We have a plan for continued improvement
9 We’ve done competitive analysis and know what our competitors are doing
10 Our search goals are quantifiable so we can determine return on investment

If you don’t have these foundational elements, take some time to create a plan that addresses each. If you have mastered these elements, it’s time to start landing page optimization. We’ll talk about testing next post!

Three things happened at this week’s Search Engine Strategies show in Chicago that make me think that search is becoming mainstream. First, one of the keynotes called attendees “traditional search marketers”. How exciting to have the descriptor “traditional” next to a job that’s only a dozen years old. Second, one of the keynotes was Professor Emeritus Don Shultz from Northwestern University giving direction for search marketers to become integrated into the traditional marketing mix. Third, companies are creating their own internal search marketing departments. So what does this mean for you as a business owner? Search is becoming a more organized, respected discipline. This means there are higher standards within the industry holding search marketers accountable for the results they provide their customers. It also means that more education is available for clients. One of the biggest complaints of clients new to search marketing is that it is an almost mysterious discipline and companies are writing big checks to almost unknown entities for a marketing medium they don’t understand. Make sure that the search marketing agencies you engage have shown results and referrals for their customers. Educate yourself. Sign up for search marketing newsletters through ClickZ, Bruce Clay or attend a local search marketing organization meeting (in Oregon, that’s SEMPDX) so that you’re asking the right questions when you’re ready to hire a search marketing agency. Lastly, include your search marketing agency into your traditional marketing planning. A great deal of synergy exists when all marketing departments work together to optimize efforts. As search becomes mainstream, prepare to reap the benefits of search maturing and, as importantly for your business, expect the same level of accountability from your search marketing efforts as you do from your traditional marketing efforts.

Last month, I wrote a post, Top 10 List “Why 70% of SEOs Suck” and, as the Search Commander pointed out, this list works both ways. So here’s it is, Top 10 List “Why Some SEO Clients Suck”

10. They want to do search marketing because it’s the cool thing. Unencumbered by real business reasons, they decide that they’ll give their first born child and 30% of their marketing budget for search ranking.

9. They don’t take time to learn the steps to good SEO. They underestimate both the complexity and the nature of SEO and they put less effort into an SEO Campaign than they would choosing a breakfast cereal.

8. They hire their cousins’ best friend because they heard he knows how to do SEO. Clients need to learn to ask the right questions, the most important of which is, “What have you accomplished for your clients”. They also need to ask more than the question about page one placement. Ask how search efforts have improved the bottom line.

7. They sit you down and ask “How do you do search marketing”. Really? If I do construction, would you sit me down and ask me how you build a house? Let’s say, just for argument sake, that I’m a contractor and I answer that question. I would give you the highlights, “We work with an architect to make plans and build the home to specification, we’ll need your help selecting materials, paint colors, tile, fixtures, appliances, etc.” Now let’s assume I’m a search marketer, when I explain that we start with understanding business objectives, then we do keyword research, competitive analysis and create a site with solid site architecture and exceptional content that facilitates strategic linking, they’re disappointed. It’s like it’s a secret club, and they just want the special handshake. That’s not how it works Spanky. (Spanky and Alfalfa, The Little Rascals, anyone?)

6. They want something for nothing. Ninety percent of proposals I submit to potential new clients get this reaction, “We can’t afford that”, without understanding what the value of an SEO campaign will net the company. They want you to build them a Mercedes and charge you for a Yugo. It’s our job to create a relationship between the cost of the campaign and the return on investment for clients and help them make decisions on acceptance or rejection of a search marketing budget based on ROI.

5. They consider using black hat search marketers. SEO clients should beware of search marketers who scream “Get your website number one on Google for $49.95!” and though their business savvy encourages them to run from such ploys, they can be swayed to engage in these practices just to get placement.

4. They want instant results. Good search marketing strategies take time to implement, we make short and long term goals for our clients so they can begin seeing results, but building a site with solid site architecture, relevant links and exceptional content take time, THEN it takes time for those strategies to get rewarded by the engines.

3. They want to do it themselves. I have 2 clients that came to me for proposals, went away to do it themselves, then came back to have it done the right way. Some clients believe “SEO isn’t rocket science, I can do it myself”, and spend a token amount of time learning about it and implementing a partial strategy that gets little result.

2. They think you just do it once. Good SEO/SEM requires long-term commitment. You don’t just do it once and turn your back on it, just as you wouldn’t buy one TV spot on the Super Bowl and quit other advertising campaigns. Products change, search queries change, competition changes, your SEO/SEM Campaign has to change and evolve as well.

1. They haven’t been educated. The number 1 reason SEO clients suck is because we haven’t done a good job as search marketers of educating them. I hate to pass the buck back to the industry, but that’s where some of the responsibility lies. We make it our job to educate our clients, give them achievable results and deliver. Maybe SEO clients would suck less if SEO’s suck less;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last month, Rand Fishkin of seomoz.org posted “less than 30% of companies that spend money on organic search ranking services are getting a good deal” Read the full article
A big AMEN to that, here’s a Top 10 List of Why SEO’s Suck…

10. They want to be search marketers because it’s the cool new thing. It is cool, don’t get me wrong.

We go to cool conferences-Who went to the Web Attack conference years ago where Dennis Rodman rode his motorcycle onto the stage? Way cool;)

We wear cool clothes-My favorite swag this year, Acquisio Bid Management Tool T-Shirt reading simply “I hate doing this shit”.

We are trend setters. More than two years ago we were discussing the impact of social media, today my Aunt Debbie has a groovy page on MySpace and Social Media has its’ own conferences.

We have cool nicknames. My favorite search moniker? Search Commander, Scott Hendison. Love it!

We are great performers. Just check out our Google Karaoke YouTube from SES San Jose (okay, so we can’t sing, but we do have fun!)

Yes, search marketing is cool, but it’s a lot of work.

9. They only want to do the sexy stuff. Is it fun to get kudos for a high profile article or exciting new search placement, yes. Is it fun to create exceptional, relevant title tags and meta descriptions for every page? No, it’s tedious, it’s painstaking and you won’t get any pats on the back for doing it right. But you will struggle if you don’t take the time to implement this foundational element with care. Meta data may not mean as much to engines, but it means a great deal to searchers. If a searcher sees a page title that matches their search query they’re more likely to follow that “scent” and click thru. Commit to the process, grunt work and sexy stuff alike.

8. They don’t properly educate themselves. Don’t disrespect the industry or fellow search marketers by taking a 2-week Search Marketing certification course and then hanging out your shingle. Do an internship with a respected agency. Spend the money on SMX or SES conferences. Join a Search Marketing Organization, such as SEMPO or SEMPDX. Read books on search marketing. Commit time daily to blogs and forums dedicated to search marketing. Then when you execute your first project, do so with small, achievable goals.

7. They speak poorly of their competition. This industry is growing rapidly and it’s made up of very bright, highly skilled marketers and a handful of snake oil salesmen. Speak only well of your competition and if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything. There is plenty of work to go around. Nice is the new mean!

6. They focus on just one tactic. Today’s search marketing strategies require multiple tactics on many fronts. Start with best practice items first-good site architecture, exceptional unique content, relevant and strategic linking. Then begin employing Web 2.0 tactics that can help you get an edge. Create a solid foundation so your house will still be standing if Google nofollows every social media link on the planet or universal search takes more than a couple of months to roll out. It sounds trite, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket and don’t forget the basics.

5. They take projects inappropriate for their skill level. I attended my first Search Engine Strategies Conference in 2002. I’ve been in the industry since 1997 and involved in search since 2001. I provide exceptional results for clients, but if I had a new client with needs beyond my abilities I’d reach out to the appropriate resource for help. (If I were a podiatrist and someone showed up in my office for brain surgery, I’d refer them to a neurosurgeon). Your clients will appreciate your honesty and likely retain you for other projects more inline with your skill set because you were interested in their long-term success.

4. They work alone. If you’re a technical genius, it can’t hurt to involve marketing and business development in your search strategy. If you’re a marketer, don’t dismiss IT work as “the techie stuff”. We need each other. One of my favorite parts of my job is hearing from different disciplines about what is most important. The truth (and our best results) can be found in our aggregated knowledge. If you can’t hire an employee, work with subcontractors who own a skill set you don’t. Knowing your abilities and limitations is the first step to greatness.

3. They don’t create expectations. I’d be willing to bet the reason why many business owners aren’t happy with their search results is that their agency isn’t setting expectations.

2. They over promise and under deliver. It’s okay to say, “we can’t win without a redesign” or “it will take 9 months to reach our goals”. It’s not okay to say “Yeah, we can do that” and then you don’t.

1. They don’t review business goals. Don’t just set a goal for search placement (20 keywords in page one results in 3 months). That doesn’t answer a business goal, ask about the goal your client is trying to reach-improved sales, more lead generation, increased white paper downloads. Attach a quantifiable goal to all of your search milestones and when you deliver, your clients will know you’re for real…then you’re on your way to not sucking.

If you’re a business owner looking for an SEO that doesn’t suck, get references and ask them to show you results.

Paid Search (PPC-Pay Per Click) is a great way to stick your toe into search marketing. If planned correctly, it’s cost effective, it’s simple to implement and very trackable. Whether you use Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN AdCenter, your first step is doing some keyword research. Go to Wordtracker and download the free trial, test the words you think your customers are using to find you and also get some other recommendations. Then create ad group campaigns based on your business objectives. Do you want people to purchase a product? Create an ad group using keywords for that product, take them to a page that best explains the product (the closer to the end of the sales cycle the better). You’ll need to plan which keywords to attach to which ad groups, utilizing not just broad matching, but exact matching and negative matching as well. Make sure that your ad group has a call to action. If your visitors don’t traditionally purchase or take the action you want them to take on the first visit, take them to a page that allows you to acquire an email address to begin communicating with your potential new customer (sign up for email, download a white paper, etc.) Since you’re paying dearly for that click, make sure that you’re creating a process within your Paid Search Campaign to support your business objectives. Tip: If you create an ad group that is initiated with a keyword regarding a particular product, take the click to a page that gets them the closest to that product (not your home page!) Also, remember that a paid search visit starts with a search query using the words “buy yellow widgets” take them to a landing page with the words “buy yellow widgets”, you’ll want to carry the “scent” of the originating search query throughout the process so you don’t lose your potential new customer. Look for our post June 15th when we’ll discuss creating landing pages for your paid search campaigns and improving ROI by testing creative on landing pages. Check out this great tool in beta for testing creative at Google Web Optimizer. (Next time: Defining online business goals). Hope you’ll join me!