Okay, when I choose the following tagline for my blog “Search Marketing Blog for Regular Folks” the intention was to relate that this search marketing blog was for learning foundational SEO + SEM. Turns out, nobody wants to be “regular”. My marketing bad.

So instead of changing my tagline to “Search Marketing Blog for Exceptional Folks” I’d like any suggestions you have for a new tagline that captures that MEDIA forte marketing blog is for the business community in need of understanding search engine optimization and search engine marketing to leverage awareness and increase market share and revenue (I’d use that, but not so catchy and wouldn’t look great on a coffee mug;)

So we’re offering an SEO Site Review to the individual or company who gives us our much improved tagline that doesn’t insult people or make them feel like they’re the SEO equivalent of the kids on the little yellow bus wearing helmets.

Feel free to twitter suggestions to @mediafortemktg

Cheers

We help clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies, to mid size ecommerce sites leverage the power of paid and natural search marketing. Strategies for these sites are different (sales, leads, downloads) but the goal is the same-grow the business.

Here are 5 free search marketing tools you can use this week to grow your business.

1
Google Base. faciliates uploading your products via an xml spreadsheet )or 1 at a time if you just have a few products) and this database gets shared in the search results.

Here’s a result on top of Google’s home page for a client (most amazing jam, bbq sauce, honeys, butters created from local farmers) Oregon Growers

Google Base is free and it doesn’t take a lot of time to upload your products, just remember to refresh every 30 days and add new products.

2 Local Listings. If you have a business that benefits from local search, claim your listings from all 3 engines (use getlisted.org to update all engines at once). Google has their Local Business Center and Yahoo and Bing each have their own local listings services. This is a under utilized free service that can help create awareness about your site and your brick and mortar store. Remember to keep your company information consistant between accounts and to supplement those with local citations (InfoUSA, CitySearch, Yellow Pages, DexKnows, etc)

3 Google Webmaster Tools. If you have a Google account, you can sign up for Webmaster Tools. This will analyze your pages (are they indexed, do they have unique title tags/meta descriptions), do you have a site map? It’s a great way to dot your i’s and cross your t’s on some of the foundational elements of natural search.

4 Keyword Research Tools. Keyword research is a first step in good SEO, use these free tools to help you understand what words/phrases your customers are using to find your products/services online, Google AdWords and MS AdCenter both have free tools.

5 Google Analytics. Did I mention free? Back in the day we paid $199 a monthy for Urchin and now Google offers these analytics for free. This reporting package tells you how many visitors you have, how much revenue you’re generating, how visitors are using your site, what keywords they’re using to find you and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Investing your time in these free tools will help you better understand your business and benefit from the power of natural search. Remember there’s no silver bullet to search marketing success, just many things done well at the same time.

Cats are fiendishly complicated to manage, they eat when they want, sleep when they want, come and go as they please. A cat is going to do what it wants, when it wants and there’s precious little you can do to change that. Feed them, shelter them, love them, buy those ridiculous mouse on a string toys to entertain them, get them a scratching post (which they may or may not use) and be enormously available to them for their every need. And they may or may not give you the time of day.

Search Marketing isn’t entirely like that, but it’s close. Learn best practices, implement the right site architecture, spend time developing great content, participate in online communities through social marketing, provide exceptional site performance all so Google will pay attention, and they will if it’s done right…sometimes. And what worked last quarter, may not be what works this quarter.

It’s the equivalent of setting out a can of tuna when the cat is gone, “I value you you so much, I’m willing to set out a $1.75 can of white albacore to entice you to quit being a bitch and come home where you can do me the favor of keeping you from getting eaten by the coyote waiting for you by the barn.” That usually works, then one day, “F#%& you, don’t care about tuna, what else you got?” A little different from Google, but note the parallels.

In the middle of a fairly difficult move, the cats decided to run off for the day. We contemplate what to do, leave the door open, set out food, drive to the old house, set a familiar article next to the front door, walk around in the rain for hours hoping to catch a glimpse of the cats which we imagine are wet and frightened, feeling out of sorts from the new change. In a bit of resignation we decide to go out to dinner and resume the search when we return. At which point, they emerge. Frightened, wet, tired? No, DeeDee is taking a long leisurely nap deep in the bathroom linen closet, Hermann comes strolling up after a 12 hour disappearance just in time to use the litter box, “Man that was a big adventure, I’d have stayed out longer but I really needed to take a crap”. What an ass. Yet here we are relieved and filled with gratitude that these demanding, careless little furballs are home safely. No rhyme or reason as to why they’ve gone or where they’ve been.

So it’s going great, you’re executing on the well-researched search marketing strategy, all internal pages and products are humming along, ranking and performing just as planned and all the sudden, 2 weeks into the busy season the top trafficked phrase with ranking to the home page drops off the face of the planet, for no apparent reason. Site performance is up, no big pricing changes in the industry, no new competition, nothing unexpected, it’s just gone. So you go about setting out the tuna, not the Bumble Bee, but the really good stuff they get only by smacking baby dolphins in the head, sure it’s bad, but you’ll try almost anything at this point. Stand out in the rain, forgo other activities in the hope of gaining the placement that helps make quarterly goals. Then in exasperation, you go to something else. Your heart sinks, a sense of dejected defeat washes over you. Then you check dashboards the next day, and there it is. The ranking you need, hate and love all at the same time. The bitch is back.

Pixelsilk launched at SMX West last month and we’re excited to have completed their training. Here are my top 10 things I love about Pixelsilk.

1. Cost-effective for business to control their own content. Other than blogs, most business owners day to day either have off-site or in-house programmers to implement changes in content or wait to change content based on budget, limitations of their site, etc. Pixelsilk’s SEO Friendly CMS makes it simple to change site content.

2. Easy to upload videos. Video is a powerful tool, but many businesses don’t pursue this marketing tool because they’re concerned about the technical aspect of uploading videos and they’re not certain it leads to ROI. Pixelsilk easy upload makes it cost-effective to test.

3. Easy to add PDF’s and articles. Adding keyword-rich article titles and abstracts is simple in Pixelsilk. Making it easy makes it more likely that businesses will invest in rich content for their customers.

4. SEO-friendly CMS. Implementing keyword-rich, relevant content in a CMS isn’t always SEO-Friendly. Pixelsilk has worked with Bruce Clay and other SEO powerhouses to make sure that their CMS allows for the flexibility and clean coding needed for foundational SEO.

5. Easy ecommerce integration. Changes to the Pixelsilk system are reflected in Ecommerce solution product-content making sure you have a single-version-of-the-truth product catalog.

6. Easy to add new pages. Whether you’re editing current pages or adding new pages or even new navigation, the process is intuitive and xml and html site map is uploaded based on changes.

7. Easy to change navigation. Did I mention easy to change navigation? Okay I did, but I’ll say it again because, inevitably, you’ve storyboarded and wireframed to everyone’s satisfaction and once the site is live, visitors actions necessitate a change in navigation. This can cause headaches for programmers and marketers alike, but in Pixelsilk changing navigation is as easy as adding a page.

8. Best practices and stability for code. As a search marketer who invests a great deal of time understanding best practices, it’s not always possible for those to translate for even well-versed programmers. Pixelsilk code is clean and adheres to best practices so you can focus on the marketing message and SEO/SEM that brings your clients real results.

9. Easy integration of 3rd party apps. Email, event registration, site search, blogs and discussion boards are either part of the app or easily integrated through 3rd party.

10. Great team & Service. I’ve known CEO, Mark Knowles for just three years, but he and his team are sharp, hard working and enthusiastic about Pixelsilk. They approached creation of Pixelsilk from the standpoint of SEO’s so they could create a tool that’s reflective of SEO needs. So far, it looks like they’ve hit the mark.

I’ll share more about our Pixelsilk experience as we launch our site next month. Cheers

Ian Lourie, Google Analytics Guru Extraordinaire, wrote a great article yesterday, “SEO 2009: Adapt or Die”, that succinctly sums up changes to expect from Google’s algorithm that truly reflect site value. Organic click thru rate, time on site and bounce rate, which are reflective of real site performance and usability, will presumably begin playing a larger role in the SERP’s.

Why is this so important? Up until now, it can be argued, a disproportionate part of search placement had to do with SEO tactics that were more technically driven than user driven. Understanding the ins and outs of title tags and meta descriptions, linking strategies and other “traditional” SEO technical on page issues will still be important, but those elements will be complimented by good old fashioned “performance” marketing. The sites that do a better job of truly addressing searcher intent with solution will beginning winning in the SERP’s.

The best part of this change is that, for the most part, it can’t be faked. The proof will be in the pudding. If a visitor clicks through to a site, spends time on a site, takes action on a site, the site will have more value than a site that visitors just click on from the search results and abandon.

This is great news for companies who have invested in website usability. Shari Thurow, a highly respected usability expert, has been touting this concept for years-if you have an online presence, you have two customers, the search engines and your visitors. These changes will make visitors a more important part of the search equation.

So how do you prepare for these changes? Begin focusing effort, not just on SEO, but on website usability. What are the business goals of your website? What do you want people to do once they get to your website? Do you make it easy for them to take that action? Have you created a site that provides a solution for your online client?

These questions will begin having impact, not just on your conversion, but on your search placement.

So how do you know if your site is “usable”. Here is a checklist:

*Have you defined your online business goals?
Ask the question, what do you want your visitors to do online? We have a real estate client that had a bounce rate of nearly 50% (an average bounce rate). We redesigned the site to meet the visitors goal for the site, search for property. We utilized above the fold prime positioning on the home page to address that goal. The client examined the main elements of a property search: price range and location. This change improved the bounce rate from nearly 50% to 12.91% bounce rate, meaning that, after the design change, about 87% of visitors take at least a single action on the website. Google will see this as a positive for the site as their job is providing the most relevant results for their customers.

*Are your business goals apparent on your website?
We had a client whose business goal was to get people to call the office for a quote, but the phone number was nowhere to be found on the home page. Make sure your business goals (and your relevance to your visitors) is apparent on your home page. If you want to use your site as a lead generator, make it easy for a visitor to leave at least an email address so you can begin the sales cycle. If your top seller is a red suede pump, make sure that your customers can single click from the home page to the red suede pump, choose a size and check out. In a word, respect your visitors. One of my favorite analogies for assessing and adding value to a web visitor is assessing value of a visitor to a brick and mortar clothing store on Madison Ave in New York City. What is the value of that visitor? As a proprietor, you’ve purchased/leased an expensive location, you’ve advertised and marketed your business. The minute a visitor walks in the store, staff treat them like gold because it has cost a great deal of money just to get them to walk into the store. As online businesses, we need to address our visitors with the same amount of care and respect. If a visitor comes to your website, you should serve them the information and guidance they are seeking, if you do anything else you will lose them. Up until now, that was just a great way to improve conversion on your website, now it may mean the difference between being found or not being found online by your potential customers.

*Are your customers converting from a “click” to a “customer”?
This is where the rubber meets the road. It doesn’t matter what your CEO believes, or what your lead designer believes or what your SEO Firm believes. Visitor behavior is what matters. If your visitors take the action you prepare for them and become customers and contribute to the bottom line, you’re winning. Whether your business goal is to generate a lead or close a sale, your visitor defines the success of your site, not just ranking #1 for a specific term or having the most visits. The great news is that now conversion isn’t just a usability goal it’s a search goal and, ultimately, a most important online business goal.

Every important endeavor in life requires time and patience.

Of course there are exceptions, such as winning the lottery, but most would agree these virtues are paramount to any worthwhile pursuit. Pursuits such as being a good parent, being fit, having good relationships or having a successful business.

Yet there is still an expectation that Search Engine Optimization and Marketing is the result of one single strategy or campaign. This “Single Bullet” theory doesn’t work any better for an SEO/SEM campaign than it would for a traditional marketing campaign. You wouldn’t expect big results from one radio or tv spot or a single print ad.

Let 2009 be the year you make a real, concerted effort to leverage the power of SEO/SEM to grow your business. Here are Top 5 Things You Can Do in 2009 for Your Web Presence. As a bonus, I’m going to add some examples of how we applied these strategies for our clients and the growth that resulted from those efforts.

5
Assign a resource (in or out of house) to manage Search Marketing
Search Marketing has to be someone’s job. Could be the Ecommerce Manager on your team, could be an agency or consultant or it could be a combination of both. But someone needs to own it and be accountable for it to have impact.

CASE STUDY
We were hired to help with SEO/SEM efforts for a company that was having some success online but was looking for more growth. Visits have increased by more than 300% and revenue has increased by 129%.

4
Create quantifiable goals
Please don’t let your only goal be “rank #1 on Google for my most important keyword”. This is a fantastic goal, but as an industry it’s important that we look, not just at the rankings, but the results of those rankings.

CASE STUDY
We coordinate SEO/SEM efforts with a local boutique winery as well as some offline efforts that direct traffic online. We create quarterly goals and monitor our success. We have not only met our goals, but we’ve generated more orders this year than we’ve had in the 2 years prior combined. By creating quantifiable results the principal and investors can see growth quarter to quarter as well as year to year.

3
Monitor results
Google Analytics is a great way to monitor results and learn about trends in your online traffic that can help you grow.
Companies who don’t do or just dabble in search marketing think that a handful of keywords will drive their online business and (I’ll say it again) ta da, you’re finished. Most healthy campaigns have hundreds, even thousands of keywords driving traffic and conversion. If you’re waiting on your one big word to make you famous (and again, there are exceptions, it may) you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to drive more traffic and, more importantly, drive higher conversions. People who type a search query such as “toyota prius trailer hitch” are going to convert far better than someone who searches on “trailer hitch”. We wouldn’t abandon “trailer hitch” as a keyword, but the product plus the vehicle make and model provide exceptional results for the searcher as well as the business because they are closely matching intent (if I type in toyota prius trailer hitch, chances are I’m looking for that precisely. If I type in “trailer hitch” my intentions could be many fold).

CASE STUDY
Conversion for searches that include make and/or model resulted in conversion rates as high as 80%. By focusing on on page content and link development for those keywords/phrases, we were able to more than double revenue for the year.

2
Share results
Share results with your team, give credit where credit is due (one of our distributors/sales people came up with some great offers for the tasting room that we pushed online and they created great results. Shout out to people in the trenches who know way more about the product than vendors). If you don’t monitor and share results people will make them up. Not because they’re bad people, but because their business acumen leads them to believe a certain thing. One of my clients said in an investor meeting that 75% of our online sales were from our repeat customers. Reality was that we had 70% new customers and great opportunity to spend some time creating relationships with our current customers and grow them into repeat customers, creating a better lifetime value of a customers. Let everyone know when you did (or didn’t) make your goals and talk about. If you just make goals, but never review them, continued goal creation could be met with a deaf ear. People get tired of spending effort on ideas that they don’t see come to fruition. Transparency into your goals and results is good for you, staff, investors and share holders.

CASE STUDY
Creating new offers is a big part of our quarterly plans and sometimes it’s those that are closest to the product who can create the right offers. We noticed a new employee had a flare for creating offers and merchandising so we now include him in our planning efforts. We’ve seen a 12% increase in revenue above projected outcome for online efforts due to improvement in our offers.

1
Make commitment to Search Marketing
Search Marketing works. As traditional marketing budgets are declining, companies are making commitment to digital marketing because of the exceptional ROI. Now is the time to make a real commitment to Search Marketing. Create a plan, designate a resource, create some quantifiable goals and monitor results. A little success will inspire you to keep your commitment.

CASE STUDY
I have 2 clients launching re-designed sites in January. One client is committed to the week to week evolution of her project, she’s engaged, she offers valuable advise, she responds promptly to requests. She works with Fortune 500 companies and governmental agencies and is well-versed in professional protocol and applies that as steadily to her redesign and search marketing project as she does to all other elements of her business. The other provides ambiguous feedback, rarely responds to requests, has unreasonable expectations, and changes her mind about design and navigation elements constantly. Though both clients will get exceptional service from our team, the engaged client will see results, not just at launch, but during the lifetime of her web presence because she gives it the time and attention it deserves. Think of your investment in search marketing like your investment in your health, your children or loved ones, other parts of your business and 2009 will be the year you get real value from your website.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Where else but Google can you get such great business building tools for free? If you have an online business and you’re not using Google Analytics, well you’re just plain silly not to (unless you have no interest in knowing what your visitors are doing on your site). You can create a report that breaks down your visits by their source, which search engine, which referrals, which links are driving traffic. More importantly, you can see which source is generating the best conversion and focus marketing efforts on traffic sources that grow your business. Break your sales down by keyword within each engine and make educated choices about which keywords you should be focusing on for your search optimization efforts. No matter how close you are to this data, I promise you there will be surprises and some great opportunity to improve conversion and overall sales.

If you want to learn more about Google Analytics, attend the SEMpdx Google Analytics & Hot Seat Review Tues, Nov 11th (I’ll be serving on the panel;) Just $35, great education from Google Analytics experts, great appetizers and no host bar at the Hotel DeLuxe.

GOOGLE SEARCH SUGGEST

Now Google is helping you fill in the blanks when you start a search query, type in “search engine” and you’ll see other suggestions such as “search engine optimization”, “search engine marketing” and “search engine submission”. Helpful if you’re a searcher and helpful if you’re a search marketer. Use this tool to see emerging trends in search queries as well as give you suggestions for keyword sets you may not be pursuing.

GOOGLE LOCAL

I’ll say it again, if you’re not using Google Local and there is any benefit in local business to you, you’re just plain silly. Go to local.google.com and claim your business listing. Build citations from other local businesses or organizations (chamber, yellow pages, relevant industry groups) and keep an eye on where your placing in local results.

GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS

If you have a Google Account, go to “My Account” under “My Products” you should see “Webmaster Tools”, if not click More under “Try Something New” and choose Webmaster Tools. Verify your site by placing a snippet of code and you have access to diagnostics, statistics, links and other great tools.

There really are no excuses, these products are all free. They take little or no technical expertise to implement. The hard work is making analyzing metrics and continued improvement an integral part of your marketing program.

If you’re learning about how search marketing can help grow your businees, don’t miss Aaron Wall’s Webinar “SEO Strategies for the 21st Century” tomorrow, October 21, 2008 12PM Pacific Time.

Aaron’s book “SEO Book” has been used as course text for MBA classes and Aaron has spoken at industry conferences and schools about search engine optimization and internet marketing.

The webinar is free, register now. and is co-sponsored by Corvent and SEMpdx.

It’s the best hour you’ll spend learning about Search Marketing, topics include:

* New tools you can use for SEO and competitive research
* How “search suggest” will shape the future of SEO
* Effective link building techniques in a market where link building is getting harder by the day

I’ll be moderating the event and they’re will be a Q & A session after Aaron’s presentation, Hope you’ll join us,

If you’re choosing a Search Marketing agency, prepare yourself with some important questions.

1* How long have you been in business? -This can be an important issue, especially considering there are consultants with little experience who just decide to put up a shingle and call themselves search marketers. Newer agencies can be a good choice, depending upon their experience, education and the results they have provided for their customers.

2* What kind of results do you provide for your clients? Show me the money;) If an SEO can’t show you quantifiable results and share references, that could be a red flag that they’re enormously inexperienced.

3* Will you share case studies with me? Same as last question but requires a little more detail. Ask for improvements to lead generation, revenue and other site goals.

4* How do you measure your success? If your SEO only measures success with rankings, run. Success needs to be measured with attachment to revenue and/or site goals. Personalized search also makes it hard to call an exact position (what may show as #2 for me might show as #5 for someone else. Make sure your goals are quantifiable and relevant to your bottom line.

5* Do you have clients in my industry? This can be hard, having an SEO who verticalizes in a particular industry can be powerful. Just make sure there’s no conflict and you won’t be competing against a current client.

6* How do you report site changes and other strategy implementation? There’s not one single silver bullet. Good SEO requires a lot of work on a lot of fronts. However, it’s important that your SEO share changes they make whether it’s content, linking or other search strategies.

7* Do you know how to implement local search? Don’t use an sledge hammer when a pin hammer will work. Local search can be enormously effective if that’s your business focus. It may be more cost effective and just as powerful to focus on a local search strategy.

8* What SEO strategies do you implement? There’s more than one way to skin a cat and there are many techniques employed for SEO. However, information architecture, content and linking are fundamental. A great linking strategy won’t do you as much good if you haven’t done keyword research.

9* How can I communicate with you? You should have an account manager or point of contact you can reach at any (reasonable) time. We use a project management tool that allows our customers to view status of all projects relevant to their site so they can monitor progress.

10* How do I know when we’re done? Again, create quantifiable goals. Nothing is more frustrating for an SEO or a client than hearing, are we there yet? and not having an answer. Learn more about choosing a Search Marketing agency.

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.