10 Reasons Why SEO is Like Fitness

10. Everybody Has an Opinion – Some people will tell you the answer to fitness is running 5 days a week, or never eating processed food, or drinking a glass of red wine each day. Most fitness experts would tell you it’s a combination of things, not just one thing. There’s not just one answer. Same with SEO. I’ve had people who have no understanding of SEO or online marketing of any kind say it’s a useless effort. Reality is that it’s a cost-effective strategy for gaining traffic and revenue for a website. Even the best SEO’s have different processes. Some put heavy focus on on-page content while others put focus on technical issues. There’s nothing wrong with either approach as long as it gets the job done. Most experts would tell you it’s a combination of things, not just one SEO tactic.

9. It’s Important to Understand the Math - Your body needs X amount of calories each day (depends on weight, your sex, muscle mass, other factors). If you eat more calories than you burn you gain weight, if you eat fewer calories than you burn you lose weight. With SEO Google and other search engines return a page for a search query that their algorithm determines is the most relevant to that query. One page will be determined to be the most relevant and trusted based on many factors. Understanding the math on ranking for a particular keyword helps businesses make decisions about which keywords to pursue for natural search (if you’re a brand new site with little content and no reputation or trust, it’s not possible for you to rank for “shoes”). It’s a math equation. Just like in fitness, define your goal and understand the math around that goal.

8. The Fast Way Isn’t the Best Way – Weight Loss isn’t the only factor in fitness, but losing 50 pounds in 2 months isn’t likely or even healthy. Fitness experts agree a combination of nutrition and exercise done safely over time is more effective and provides long-lasting results. Same with SEO. Asking a Search Professional to hurry up and implement SEO efforts is like taking a diet pill. It’s not going to work or provide long-lasting results. Haste is the least effective and most frustrating path.

7. It’s A Long Term Commitment – Fitness goes away if it isn’t cared for on a regular basis. If you’re a fit person and quit exercising, start smoking and eat out at every meal, your fitness will go away in a hurry. Natural Search requires regular SEO because the competitive landscape changes and because search engine algorithms change.

6. It’s Important to Make Goals – Weight Watchers is a successful program because it involves creating goals and making a plan which is a part of everyday life. Same with SEO. You can have multiple meetings about the importance of better online marketing for your sites health, but until you come up with a goal and a plan it’s not likely to happen.

5. Find a Professional – If you know how to do it yourself, do it. Reality is that if you knew how to do it yourself, you already would have. If you’re a long ways away from your personal fitness goals, it’s wise to hire a fitness professional to help you. There are many kinds out there (nutritionists, trainers, etc.) All of which can help. Same with SEO. There are people who provide SEO for better rankings and natural search presence, PPC for paid search efforts, Social Media for engagement on social sites, Analytics to provide learnings and actionable analysis for your sites health, Landing Page Optimization to improve the likelihood that a visitor will take the action you desire on a site. All of these skills are necessary. For fitness, in a perfect world, everyone would have a personal trainer, a shopper, and an on-site chef. For online marketing, in a perfect world, everyone would have a Danny Sullivan, a Tim Ash and an Avinash Kaushik. Find a professional who has had success with other clients.

4. Be Honest and Realistic – The danger in making fitness a goal is not being honest and realistic. Don’t create a fitness goal of looking like Beyonce. Create a goal of weight loss or improved cardio capability or reduced cholesterol. If you’re a small shoe company, you’ll probably never overtake Zappos for “shoes”, but if you specialize in “red stiletto heels” you may be able to rank for that term. That honesty should go both ways. If an SEO tells you they can give a particular ranking in 2 weeks, that should be a red flag. SEO’s should promise improvement and return on investment, not guarantee ranking in a short period of time.

3. Fitness Is More than One Thing. If you run 5 miles a day but eat Ding Dongs and Big Macs you won’t achieve a high level of fitness. If all you do is for SEO is put lots of keywords on a page or spam blog comments you won’t achieve your site fitness goals.

2. It’s Easy to Be a Hater – Be supportive of the friend who is achieving his/her fitness goals. Often times the people who try to give SEO a bad name are the people who wished they understood it, or feel like they should understand and are frustrated that they don’t.

1. If it Sounds Too Good to Be True, It Is – Diet pills and weight loss schemes are a huge business. People want to just take a pill or do a crash diet and be fit, but that’s not how it works. Good nutrition and exercise are the recommended path for long-term fitness. It’s not easy. Same for SEO. It requires keyword research, competitive analysis, content development, technical skills and a number of other strategies and tactics if done well.

Analogies for SEO are important because it’s such an misunderstood industry. SEO’s often get a bad rap. Check out this post by Elisabeth Osmeloski that addresses this week’s Dexter which dings SEO.

The reason SEO’s have a bad name is two-fold.

There are people who will take your money and accomplish very little in fitness and SEO. There are businesses who will pay those people to take their money for making miracles in fitness and SEO. There is no easy way to either.

Morsel of the Story – For the people who do it the right way (fitness or SEO) it’s a valuable and rewarding effort.

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;)