Sometimes it’s hard to tell what goes together. Sometimes we’re pleasantly surprised about things that unexpectedly go really well together. Most Thursday nights I’m at the White Buffalo here in Hood River, Oregon, for wine tasting and book club. The draw has been the great, smart girls that contribute to the interesting discussion, but honestly I’d be there anyway for the wine tasting from local wineries and for the proscuitto wrapped figs. Something about the delicious saltiness of the Italian proscuitto and parmasean combined with the delectable thick sweetness of the figs is truly irresistible.

Savory and sweet go together in SEO as well. The devisive power of well-studied analytics goes beautifully with the sweet interactivity of a well-planned social media campaign. The savory flavors of link profile reporting goes perfectly with the sweet PR crafted not from analysis but from relationship.

The Morsel of the Story – Don’t just serve up savory hard data without actionable analysis or soft, warm and fuzzy relationship building marketing, put them together for the perfect combination.

Spatchcocking & SEO

I’ve been passionate about cooking for about 10 years. I love pouring over the appendix part of the cookbook to learn about specials tools, cooking styles and definitions. In my most recent version of Martha Stewart’s Food Magazine I came upon on article about spatchcocking. Immediately intrigued (mostly because I had never heard of the term) I read 3 pages of how to spatchcock, what knives to use to spatchcock and what temperature to cook poultry that has been spatchcocked. What was missing though was the “why”. Why spatchcock? Why spend 15 minutes and buy a special pair of poultry scissors to flip around the legs of a chicken to go a direction God never intended them to go? Why is butterflying a chicken superior? Since Martha knows her stuff I suspended disbelief and tried it and it was outstanding. The drippings from the fat in the legs was dispersed throughout some of the tougher parts of the chicken, it presented beautifully and salvaged some of the bird that may sometimes get overlooked. I’m now an evangelist for spatchcocking.

How often do you tell your clients they need something but don’t explain why. “KPI’s are one of our important execution strategies”, “Cross channel keyword research takes more time but is imperative to success across different networks”, “Link citations are necessary to local search algorithms”.

Recently we improved local search results for a client for whom we’d provided natural search results, but we didn’t provide additional metrics for Local Search to distinguish why both Natural and Local Search were relevant to their listings. Once we provided results, there was a better understanding of “why do I care about this.”

What you tell clients or customers they need is important, but telling them why creates better understanding and expectation.

The Morsel of the Story – If you want your clients to be evangelists for what you do, make sure they understood what and why.

I fell in love with Eggplant Parmesan in Cortona in Tuscany. It was served in the gorgeous deep green and blue glazed dish. The deep purple in the skin of the eggplant, the red of the fresh marinara, the deep green of the freshly picked basil all made my first impression so dramatic and to top off the experience, it tasted glorious.

I’ve since tried a few recipes to recreate the masterpiece I enjoyed in Italy, yet every time I get different results. sometimes the eggplant is too chewy, or it’s too saucy and not substantive, sometimes the ratio of mozzarella and parmesan doesn’t compliment the dish, it’s a moving target. The last time I served it I asked my son what he thought, “I’ve had better from you”. Getting past my initial reaction to banish him to a life time of Top Ramen for the remark, I asked what made it better before. He wasn’t sure, but he just knew this wasn’t my best effort. Online marketing is some science and some art, when it comes to search, we’re cooking with ingredients that haven’t all been identified. Trying to document what ingredients we use every time we create a search marketing recipe is part of getting better.

The Morsel of the Story-exceptional documentation is necessary in correlating cause and effect.

I met Third Door Media’s, Claire Shoen at the first SMX Advanced. I was by myself and walked in to the Pre Show party hoping to find someone I knew from Portland so I could have someone to chat with. On my way in Claire stopped me to ask how I was enjoying the show and to compliment me on my full length white rain coat. When I ran into Claire again at the SMX Social show in New York she remembered me, where I was from (and the fact that I rocked the white coat;) Claire may have used the white coat to remember me, but if you’ve met her you know she has remarkable recall about people and an amazing talent for putting people at ease.

The Morsel of the Story – Finding ways to make a connection is a powerful way to network and create a lasting impression.

My favorite SEO question-”how long will this take?” First, this answer has at least two parts, “how long will it take to rank and get traffic?” and “how long will it take to keep rankings and traffic?”

Answering, “How long will SEO take?” is like answering, “How long does it take to achieve trust, authority and relevance.” The real answer is that they’re both a process, not an event.

So how can online marketers answer this question in a way that helps the business owner make room in their marketing plans for much-needed SEO?

Important steps are to define goals based on the bottom line. Establishing expectation for ROI for your SEO campaign is far more helpful (and measurable, and attached to business success) than establishing goals around rankings and traffic.

Once you’ve established your goals, next steps are to define the trust, relevance and authority needed in your space. Steps for achieving this are different for a spa in a small town competing with 25 other spas, than steps for a laptop company competing with thousands of online companies which sell laptops.

What is trust online?
Trust is established through several criteria,
-How long have you been in business?
-How well does your site perform?
-Are you an expert in your field?

What is relevance online?
-Does the visitors search query match your site content and other signals?

What is authority online?
-Are you an established company?
-Are you serving exceptional, unique content that establishes you as an authority?
-Do other relevant and authoritative sites link to you because you provide important information to your visitors?
-Are you doing it better than anybody else in your space?

That last one is daunting, but the reality is that many searchers don’t delve past page one to get the answer they need. If there are 3,000,000 pages returned for a query, are you doing it better than the other 2,999,990 pages returned for that query? If not, you have more trust, relevance and authority to achieve.

What’s missing from many companies’ approach to SEO is the acceptance that SEO (like every other part of building a business) takes time and commitment. It’s not a one time event, nor is it easily achieved. With that in mind, it’s also not okay for your SEO company to have ambigious strategies and tactics for achieving trust , relevance and authority. Though SEO is a process, that process should be marked with events that achieve the end goal.

The good news is that establishing trust, relevance and authority will help you in other online marketing efforts including perception of your brand in social networks.

Getting clients to realize that search (and other onine marketing disciplies) is a process and not an event helps incorporate the need for an ongoing relationship with a search marketing professional that will help them get and maintain an edge. And what do you need from an SEO? You guessed it; trust, relevance and authority. Read Google documentation about choosing an SEO.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can help businesses grow. It has the power to change the fate of an online presence and the ability to do the marketing version of moving mountains. But, done incorrectly or without understanding, it can plunge a site into obscurity and have enormous negative impact. That’s a good start for wanting to make “SEO” a dirty word.

One would think that a discipline with that kind of power would be regarded with respect. Yet newbies are adopting this profession with the amount of time and expertise it takes to get a fishing license, wait it’s harder to get a fishing license than it is to call yourself an SEO (or Search Marketer or Social Media expert, add online marketing profession here.)

Here’s a top 5 list of things that DON’T make an individual an online marketing professional, yet it’s the very same list that is prompting the out-of-work, needing-a-new-career, want-to-make-the-easy-money crowd to declare themselves such:

1) I know what a title tag is.

Good for you. So does anyone whose attended an online marketing course or read a blog post on the topic.

2) I have a Twitter account with 500 followers.

Having followers does not a social media strategy make.

3) I have a soccer blog with ranking for the search term “adidas power driver A-6 Model 14.”

Who cares? No one is searching on those terms.

4) I’ve been to a search marketing conference.

Just because you’ve paid $299 to attend an educational event doesn’t mean your ready to hang out your shingle.

5) I don’t have to have credentials to say I’m an SEO (social media marketer, PPC specialist, add any online discipline here.)

True, but the people who pay you to help them are going to expect results.

There is some agreement about what an SEO Strategist is (search marketer, SEO professional, we can’t even agree on the title of this position). I asked a handful of online marketers their opinion and though answers varied, there were some commonalities. Thank you to friend and SEMpdx colleague, Todd Mintz for his list that provided framework for the discussion. Here are his Top 5 of What Makes an SEO:

1) Perception: Search Marketing isn’t learned in a classroom…it’s learned in the real world. The ability to take concepts / theories and know how to apply them the very fluid world of the SERPS is essential to success. Though there were many definitions provided in my survey of “What makes an SEO” the one constant was that everyone agreed that the classroom alone doesn’t define an SEO.

2) Judgment: A search marketer has the ability to wield significant influence over the fate of a business. Don’t try tactics that could damage the website and don’t take gigs where your skills aren’t good enough to help

3) Honesty / Directness: Can’t say it any better than this Spare the Rod, Spoil the Client.

4) Community: Gone are the days where a search marketer can function as a lone wolf. They need to have the ability to tap into peers / colleagues to facilitate their online aims.

5) Metrics: Search Marketers need to speak the language of business (Sales / Leads / Revenue / Profit Margin / ROI). Geekspeak (e.g. Rankings) doesn’t help a business owner pay their bills nor does it provide any justification for the search marketer’s fee.

Online Marketing can include a lot of disciplines. In Adam Audette’s post, Small and Nimble Trumps Big & Slow in SEO he proposed that Search is such a big topic that someday we may see consultants/agencies that perform just one aspect of search (his example was SEO/SEM Audits), but there are many elements that require a skill set specific to that topic; including PR, content development, on page optimization, conversion and landing page optimization, usability, analytics and social media. This reality of search depth and the need for specialties within the discipline of search is another thing business owners will be challenged to understand when choosing a consultant or agency:

So where do we start to repair the image of search? Some of the responsibility lies with the search community. Creating expectations will allow the aspiring SEO to have a set of standards to achieve before defining themselves as an SEO. Here is a starter list of expectations for entry.

1) First you have to provide value. This is a relatively new discipline so your clients expect you to learn more over time. However, if you’re using your clients money to finance your education, you’re doing them and yourself a big disservice.

2) Specify your services. Business owners new to online marketing may assume that we all have the same skills. If you’re a content developer, make it clear what services you’re offering so the client understands what their getting.

3) Create expectations for performance. Online marketing, especially SEO, can have varying results and it is not a one to one discipline. That said, it is your professional responsibility to create expectations and achieve performance for your customers. It is exactly this issue that has given the term “SEO” a bad name and made it a dirty word.

This is a topic being addressed at search conferences and on search blogs. Whether you’re a business owner wanting to learn about search best practices or a fledgling wanting to establish yourself, participate in the conversation and that starts with listening. Challenge yourself to spend a few hours a week just listening, then start asking questions. Here are a few great resources to follow before defining next steps:

*SearchEngineLand

*BruceClay

*SEORoundTable

*SEOmoz

*Jill Whalen’s High Rankings

*Mashable

You’ll find the search community to be a network of exceptionally bright people very willing to share. Search for experts in the field and learn from them. One of my favorite comments about this issue came from Rand Fishkin at last year’s SearchFest, be adaptable. Fishkin also shared research at SMX Advanced this year in a preso titled, “Google’s Ranking Signals: Data Correlation vs. Expert Opinion.” This piece shared ranking factors from data correlation and opinion from 70 top experts outlining specific elements of unique content, trust authority and link popularity and how they affect ranking, but part of his presentation was about the future of ranking signals. The Google algorithm will change, SEO strategies and tactics will change, the online landscape will change, business community and online marketers alike are living and dying by their ability to adapt and overcome.

Lisa Barone wrote a piece for Outspoken about Google’s “profiling” of SEO’s. There is controversy over the search profession for good reason. It’s a relatively newer discipline, there are a lot of terrible, even harmful practitioners, it’s as much art as it is science and even Google eyes it with a fair amount of suspicion because there are practitioners who try to “game” the algorithm rather than help Google provide what’s most important to all of us-exceptional, relevant results for a search query. We can change the word to “Findability Strategist” or “Search Specialist” or “Online Marketer”, but in the end “SEO” done well, whatever its’ name, matches a product or service to it’s target market.

The responsibility, though, doesn’t solely lie with SEO professionals. That responsibility for success also lies with the business owner. When people share horror stories about a bad SEO experience, it generally starts with, “I paid this guy $199 to get me to page one of Google for the word ’shoes.’” No offense meant, but don’t be an idiot. As a business person, you need to do your due diligence before hiring anyone to contribute to your business goals. First make sure that this SEO has references, make sure they have a track record of success and if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

Search queries are the technology-driven version of marketing and advertising. The traditional marketing mix of Price/Product/Placement/Promotion is still relevant and online marketing has it’s own version of the 4 P’s. They may be different strategist to strategist, as long as the end result is a recipe that works. Call it what you want, make it a dirty word, SEO (at least for now) is an important part of the online marketing mix. Whether or not it stays a dirty word depends on what we as marketers and business owners do with it.

I had the honor of presenting at this weekend’s Digital Journalism Camp at the Oregonian. (Check out video coverage of the SEO session)

The sessions were very thoughtful and timely and included Digital Storytelling, Revenue Models and Hyper-Local News sessions as well as the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) session I presented with Anvil Media’s Rachel Anderson.

Presentation focus was on case studies for organizations and reporters who are getting SEO right and garnering page one placement for prominent keywords/phrases. I shared that journalists now have two audiences, their readers and the engines. I presented an example from the Huffington Post about an article for the Amazon and Zappos deal. The journalist had done a lot of the right things: keyword-rich headline, properly tagged article, ability to bookmark, easily integrated social media, simple sign up for getting email news alerts, but what they didn’t do right was a travesty to the english language and the journalism reporter code, they spelled “acquisition” incorrectly IN THE HEADLINE. (A point that this journalism major didn’t catch, but one of the attendees did).

This is a great leap off point for the question on many journalists minds, how do we bridge the gap between great journalism and being found online? And just as importantly, why the hell is my prize-winning article buried in Google News behind some poorly written, but well-seo’ed blog post?

Welcome to online marketing, come on in the water’s fine. This issue isn’t just one for journalists, it’s one the business community has been dealing with for years. Things change online. It’s a challenge to keep up as the technology changes and people adapt to those changes. That swift and unyielding element of change is also the thing that makes the internet such a thrilling evolution of ideas. Don’t bemoan that it’s a moving target, embrace it or plan to spend a great deal of your time frustrated. To the reporters, IT specialists, content developers and publishers who attended Digital Journalism Camp, congratulations for being in acceptance of this truth;)

As promised here are 6 exercises to include in your pursuit of finding your online readership.

1 Don’t get caught up in gaming the engines – Good SEO isn’t easy. If there are 50,000 results for a given keyword/phrase, you will have to do a lot of things right to get to page one. Simply be thoughtful about implementing SEO basics.

2 Be a great reporter first and a beginner SEO second – Do your job and learn the foundation of good SEO. Encourage your organization to participate in getting content found by your readers through search engine optimization and marketing.

3 Do keyword research – Whether you are dealing with an ongoing issue or a new topic, do keyword research and think like a searcher, what words would my reader use to find this topic?

4 Add value for your reader through proper linking – If you cite information in your article that can be illuminating for your reader, share the link to that information in your article.

5 Think about what Google needs to find you – Write keyword-rich headlines, use stock ticker info in your article to help Google News identify, properly tag your article, make sure readers can easily share your content.

6 Spend time on your social media profiles- Search engines aren’t the only place your readers will find you. As a reporter, you’re a brand. Create social media profiles that highlight your unique insight, your ability to bring out truth through exceptional interviewing and your powerful writing skills. Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn.

Thank you again to all the attendees at Digital Journalism Camp. Keep me posted on your progress and feel free to tweet me @mediafortemktg

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.

WordTracker SEO Blogger

There are many tools to make implementing SEO an easier task. The WordTracker SEO Blogger tool is one of my favs, especially for beginners.

Blogs are a great way to share information about your product or service for many reasons. Blogs are easy to publish, they are quickly indexed by the engines, if you have great content, they can help establish you as an expert in your industry, they’re a great way to generate comments, interest, awareness and the ever-coveted links to your site.

Problem is, copy writers rarely understand the importance of sharing your products and services via keywords in your blog posts. For example, if you sells shoes, building content around the keyword “shoes” will not likely help your placement in the engines. It’s a very competitive word, there are many companies engaging in a multitude of strategies and tactics to garner ranking for that word, don’t count on it just because you wrote a blog post about “shoes”.

But if you write a blog post about “red high heels” or “red stilleto shoes” (which you sell), and it’s interesting, engaging, fresh content and it includes the words “red high heels” and “red stilleto shoes” in the title and in the post and in the anchor text from other sites to your post, and the keywords “red high heels” and “red stilleto shoes” are part of your on page and off page search optimization efforts and social marketing efforts, a well SEO’d blog post can help you gain traction for that keyword. That’s where WordTracker SEO Blogger comes in. You can optimize for that word, but it also recommends “red stilletos” and “red stilleto heels” and “patent leather red high heels “.

One of the biggest failures for copy writers when implementing SEO best practices is that they think that there’s one silver bullet, rarely is that true. Choose a product, choose a set of keywords and then run with making that product and those keywords relevant on your site, run with giving the engines the SEO signals that you want to be found for those words, run with sharing your message on social media sites, run like you stole something…and don’t give up until you see success.

Get the WordTracker SEO Blogger tool today and get in the habit of writing your blog posts to share value, give signal, create rankings and generate revenue. It’s more persistence than magic;)

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.