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 youngest daughter graduated from high school on Friday. She is brilliant, talented, beautiful and, as many seniors, SO ready to move on to the next phase of her life. Graduation is marked by a ceremony shared with family and friends, teachers and students who’ve shared many of the same experiences and trials. sitting through the ceremony made me realize the depth of importance of the ritual, as a way to celebrate the past and prepare for the future. As a way to mark a beginning and end.

Do you do that with your customers? In reviewing reports or status updates do you circle back an achievement with an overarching goal. Though it may be self-evident to you as the service provider, it may be worth while to take a moment to recognize the passage of a campaign that’s just surpassed your 12 month goal in 9 months, or congratulating the team for converting leads at a rate that exceeded expectations. Celebrating beginnings and ends let’s us acknowledge our accomplishments as well as clear the plate for new accomplishments and challenges.

I am fortunate to work with some very bright people and I find myself learning from my clients all he time. One of our clients’, Sue Gaulke, CEO of Successworks, provides presentation skills training to Fortune 500 clients, she also teaches at the Protocol School of Washington.

Sue wrote a book “101 Ways to Captivate a Business Audience” a few years back that is absolutely timeless when it comes to presentation advice.

It has been reproduced in several languages and has been used by salespeople and CEO alike. I’ve read it a couple of times through, but really focused on implementing its’ strategies for this week’s presentation at SMX Advanced.

Though every page has what Sue would call a “teachable” moment, two things really struck me this reading. One, that most great presenters have concerns about presenting. It’s okay to be nervous, athletes need the adrenaline as do presenters. It’s just not okay to make nervousness a focus. Second, and this is really a revelation, is to forget about yourself for a moment (your fear, your nervousness, your message, your deck) and think about your audience. She recommends actually taking your shoes off and figuratively putting on the shoes of the person you’re speaking to. It’s easy to spend too much time in your head, but asking, “How can I help someone benefit from my past knowledge and past mistakes?”

I really focused on that recommendation for this presentation. As a group over the course of a few calls the panel and I (directed by our fearless leader and moderator Chris Elwell) really honed in on the question of “What can we bring our attendees that no one else can bring to the table,” “How do we engage our audience in a way that is so meaningful to them that what they take away will stay with them throughout their careers”. No easy task, but I’m confident that Marty, Will and I will illuminate a topic that many consultants and agencies pay little attention to and one that can define the course of their business.

The Morsel of the Story-Putting focus on someone else is the best way to reach them.

Presentation Skills Training

Announcing the next tweet up in Hood River March 31st 5:30 pm @DoubleMountain

Check out how Ford does Tweet Ups

What’s a Tweet Up?
It’s a Twitter Meeting, an offline meeting for Twitter friends.

Why go to a Tweet Up?
It’s a great way to meet Twitter followers you don’t know offline and to get better acquainted with Twitter friends. It can also be a great way to learn Twitter tips from each other and to share each others’ business and philanthropic ideas.

What to Bring to a Tweet Up?
Business cards (preferably with your Twitter Name), money for a happy hour beer and a smile.

What’s the Value of Twitter?
This is different for everyone and just as in real life, you get out what you put into Twitter. If you go to Twitter to hock your wares and not add value to your followers, you’ll likely get squat. If you participate in the conversation and add value for your followers it can be a great place to network, share, learn, widen your circle of influence and even have fun.

I have had one new client and two speaking gigs (Digital Journalism Camp and CRGVA) from Twitter.

I read reviews for a play I wasn’t sure I would attend, bought tickets and loved it
(thanks @pcsghost).

I keep up to date on my industry news (thanks @LisaBarone for the BrandsinPublic tweet).

I found a new recipe for turning all my lovely tomatoes into freezable marinara.

I learned about a scholarship for my daughter.

A client, Successworks, began sharing speaking presentation tips with potential customers.

But maybe as importantly, I feel connected to the people I like that I don’t see often due to busy schedules. I love learning that my favorite coffee friend, a tech friend (@Mettadore) and one of my son’s friends are all in the same play. That @toddmintz has interesting, exceptional taste in music. That @MatthewRayScott has a wicked, dry sense of humor. That boiling tomatoes and placing them in an ice bath is an easy way to remove their skins. That @TonyRobbins is as optimistic in 2 sentences as he is in presentations. That the Syrah I’ve wanted to add to my collection but couldn’t afford is at the local wine store.

How can people do that with just #140 characters? Join twitter and you’ll see.

Hoping to see some friends and meet some new people at the next tweet up in Hood River at the Double Mountain Brew Pub March 31st 5:30 pm.

Best to you, @mediafortemktg

I’ve had this blog for 3 years as of next month. I’m passionate about writing and love the idea of making connection with your market and readers through blogs. I rely heavily on blogs and online communities for many things in my life, including:

Updates about search engine and online marketing from Search Engine Landd and Mashable

Recommendations for wine and wine tasting from Snooth and Cork’d

Gardening design and planting advice from A Way to Garden

Insights into being a parent of college age children at CollegeParents.org (blog is called “Hoverings”;)

I’ve encouraged my clients (and friends) to use blogs as a way to communicate with clients and potential clients in a way that helps brand, creates relationship, fosters interest and raises awareness.

Our Hood River real estate client, Copper West Properties, has a wonderful blog called “The View from Here”. Maui Meyer is a business owner, county commissioner and world-class windsurfer who believes his contribution to helping with your Hood River real estate transaction is second to the value he and his team bring in being trusted negotiators and local expert advisors to the real estate process. The blog includes helpful insider real estate trending and projecting information which includes text and video.

The site we built for our client Sue Gaulke at SuccessworksUSA.com included a blog which was initially meant to be updated twice a month for her clients, including Fortune 500 companies such as Nike, Intel, NBC, Lowe’s and Proctor & Gamble. She has recently completed a wonderful series called “Presentation Olympics” which she updated almost daily and she’s preparing to do a video series called the “No Choke Zone”.

My friends the Irwin’s, who recently purchased and renovated the beautiful Balch Hotel in Dufur, Oregon just started blogging about their experiences as hotel owners, sharing staff experiences and giving advice for brides on planning their weddings.

These business owners have leveraged blogs as a way to share their unique value proposition and they’re doing it really well.

As my blog has evolved, so has blogging. When I started “Search Forte” the goal was to help my clients and potential clients understand SEO/SEM well enough to engage in the conversation.

Now there are hundreds of thousands of blogs on SEO/SEM and my clients don’t just look to me for updating. They know where to go for the latest on search marketing as well as social marketing or digital asset management.

So in order to follow my own advice (Physician-Heal Thyself) I will begin posting for the MEDIA forte marketing blog with a new title “The Morsel of the Story”.

If we’ve ever met you know I love food (and cooking and gardening and wine) and I’ll be sharing insights into the art of SEO/SEM as it relates to food. I’ll have my first post later this month.
Let me know what you think!

At a presentation for the Columbia River Gorge Visitors Association (CRGVA) yesterday I was reminded that huge impact can happen from small efforts.

My work is primarily on marketing strategies for ecommerce businesses, but it’s wise to remember that you don’t have to hit a pin nail with a sledge hammer. Some businesses, especially small local businesses, can benefit from focusing on local search efforts.

40% of Searches Have Local Intention

My friend, fellow SEMpdx.org board member and Local Search Guru David Mihm has done a great deal to raise awareness of the importance of local search, including launching a site to help small business owners called GetListed.org.

His message is this. Claim your listing. Then you can choose categories and provide link citations to companies that aggregate business information. There are many other things you can do to improve the ranking of your local listing in Google’s 3- or 10-pack, but a journey of a 1000 miles starts with one step.

So do it today. Claim your local listing.

Google Local Business Center Offers the Following:

*Free Listings
*Free Updates
*Free Insights

A search for “hood river marketing” turns up this list:

I’m fairly certain that the Fruit Company and Providence don’t need to be found for the keyword “marketing” but I’m sure there are local companies who would like to be found for that term.

I like the video Google has on it’s local business center page but it could just as well give this message to small business “Help me, help you, help me to help you!” Be Rod Tidwell to Google’s Jerry Maguire, then maybe they can “show you the money.”

Claim your local listing at Google Local Business Center today

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

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