Commonsense SEO That Won't Get You Dinged

Recently at South by Southwest (SXSW) Google’s Matt Cutts talked about an upcoming “over-optimization” algorithm adjustment aimed at those who sort of abuse search engine optimization to game the system. This would included stuffing the page repetitively with keywords, link-buying, automated link building and other tactics that go beyond "what a normal person would do."

But you don't necessarily have to worry about wearing a black hat, grey hat, white hat or any hat at all. By following these practical steps, you can achieve strong search engine rankings, stay clear of the new Google adjustments and sleep well at night:

• Make sure your page title, main headline (h1) and the content immediately under that headline contain the keywords for what you want to be found for
• Write deep, authoritative content about your subject matter, content that people may also want to link to
• Have a blog on your site and post frequently on topics that you want to be known for, using the same keywords as your content strategy
• Foster links with companies that you're affiliated with or with like-minded sites
• Build links by posting comments on other peoples blogs related to your targeted topics and include your URL or reference other blogs (with a link to their URL) on your blog.

There are, of course, other things that you can do but these basic steps will get you results while keeping you in Google's good graces. You can read more about what Google said at SXSW here.

All the Mad Men

The title of this post also happens to be the title of a track on one of David Bowie's great, but lesser known albums -- The Man Who Sold the World. Released in 1970, the title track may be familiar to more people because Nirvana covered it on their MTV Unplugged record and show, not long before Kurt Cobain's alleged suicide.

The reason why I bring this up in a marketing blog (besides trying to snag unsuspecting glam and grunge rockers traversing the Internet) is that the song generated in me a feeling of nostalgia and I began to wonder whether the appeal of Mad Men the show was mainly nostalgia-driven (this is admittedly a circuitous route to get back on topic but I guess it works).

There's plenty of nostalgia to be had, from the cool retro style, the historical context familiar to most boomers and the idea of a bar in your office and drinking that begins no later than noon. But I don't think that tells the whole story.

I think we're drawn to the mythical days of Madison Avenue because they remind us of a time when we connected emotionally to brands since buying is often an emotional decision, or at least has a significant emotional component. In these days of dispassionate algorithms or ever more smarmy and sophomoric Super Bowl ads, we long for marketing that generates a feeling, a feeling that can stay with you for years or come back whenever you read that brand name or hear that jingle.

So when you're trying to connect with an audience or build your brand, remember to speak to the values, experience and aspirations of your audience to generate a feeling. Look for a post on the four most important questions you need to ask yourself when building a brand identity and brand voice that people can connect with.

The Email Marketing Myth

If you listen to iContact, Constant Contact, Exact Target and the plethora of other providers who provide online email marketing programs, email marketing is something you absolutely have to do. Like other must-do trends (Groupon is another but more on that in another post) that alone should get your radar up. Email marketing does have it's place, but it's unlikely to be a major driver of new business for many small businesses.

Email marketing has notoriously been a low response/low conversion medium, but that factor is offset by its very low cost, and if you're doing it yourself that cost is the monthly subscription for your service and maybe the cost of the list. Physical mail responds and converts much better (and God bless the PO because they're now offering free tools to help businesses use DM) but of course costs more with printing, mailshop and delivery costs. That's why, as a business mover, email marketing is really a volume game, a low conversion percentage is OK if you're deploying the email to hundreds of thousands of addresses. That puts it out of the realm of most small businesses.

And because of the growing use of this tactic, getting into the inbox is becoming harder and harder. Email inbox placement rates declined to a record low of 76.5% in the second half of 2011 according to Return Path's most recent Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report. Translated, that means one out of every four emails don't even make it past the spam filters, let alone opened and read.

Does this mean you shouldn't use the email medium at all? No. Email marketing is great for keeping in touch with customers, building loyalty through coupon offers to repeat customers or developing leads that come through your website.

It's just not the next big thing, and that's probably a good thing.

The Social Role

Recently in my Twitter feed I shared a link of this article that discussed the advantages of search marketing versus social. Predictably the article concluded that you should to both, but in my mind it's really not a case of one or the other or even of doing both to cover all of the bases.

In my view search and social really represent two very distinct dynamics. Search marketing reaches people who are looking for something very specific, often to meet an immediate need. Social marketing is where people share experiences, ideas, likes and dislikes, which can help them discover new options or influence a purchase decision. It can also lead them to a need that they didn't initially realize they had -- what we used to call creating need awareness in the old days of sales.

So you really need to operate in both spheres for two entirely different reasons. If you don't have a strong search presence (paid or organic) you'll miss out on all the people who are in the real-time behavior of looking for a solution that you may offer. If you don't have a social presence, you won't have the advantage of people propagating your sales message for you or bolstering your brand credibility with recommendations.

You also won't get the chance to expand interactions with customers. Search tends to have a very direct chain -- users click over, come to your page and they either buy or they don't. Social gives you a chance to have expanded and ongoing conversations with your customer base -- in fact the best social dynamics often expand a sales conversation that was initiated on the website, eventually returning it to the site to close the deal.

Despite what people may tell you, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who is successful selling purely through social. And although search can have very predictable cost and conversion metrics, it's only one step in building deep and profitable relationships with customers.

So my take on it is that you should engage in both search and social marketing, but for very different reasons.

Search Marketing, Online Marketing and Branding

Well, it looks as if branding has made it's way into the supposedly dispassionate world of search marketing. Check out this article in the New York Times on a very interesting campaign by Google.

Of course, branding in the online world isn't exactly news -- elements of branding have been used particularly in online display advertising and often in conjunction with offline campaigns. Still, search is supposed to be driven predominately by relevancy to the search and position, but this isn't always the whole story.

I manage search marketing (Adwords) programs for several clients and I've seen a significant difference in campaigns where there is a concurrent brand effort going on versus when there is not -- a click-thru and conversion improvement of 20% or more. So although relevancy may still be the most important thing, don't forget to build trust, awareness and credibility through your brand.

Check back for a future post on the four most important questions to ask when building your brand.

A Sense of Places (Google)

If you're a business with a local focus, especially if you're a brick and mortar business, the single, most effective thing you can do for your business is fairly simple, free and available to you right away -- your Google Places listing.

Google Places is sort of an outgrowth of Google Maps and there's a free page that's associated with your map location (that little balloon pinpoint on the map with the letter inside it). On it you can post information or a description about your business, your hours, special services that you offer, photos, videos -- you can even offer coupons on your Places page. Your customers can also rate, review or leave comments about your business.

Since in a locally-oriented search Google makes the Places results prominent on the search engine results page (SERP), and they try to deliver in the Places listings businesses most relevant to the search and the closest to the location of the searcher, your Places page should be optimized by using the best keywords to describe your business. Just like your website, optimizing your Places page will get you to the top of the results that Google returns and having both your Places page and your website optimized for local search can lift the performance of both.

Most importantly, your Places page can often deliver more results than your website. I have clients who, when you count clicks on the map icon, phone calls and click-thrus to the main website, actually get more action from their Places page than from their main site. Some use their Places page as their only online presence, successfully couponing and driving traffic to their page via Adwords Express (a stripped-down version of AdWords designed for Maps and Places).

So if you're a local business, before you spend a lot of time and money on your website or get into print advertising, flyers, direct mail, email marketing or heaven forbid, GroupOn, start with your Google Places page. You can email me with any questions or follow me on Twitter @lbconsultinginc.

Speed May Now Be King For SEO

With Google's latest changes to its search engine algorithm, the time a page takes to load is becoming a critical factor in where that page places on the search engine results page (SERP). While SEO professionals have long known that this played a significant role, it now appears that speed may be approaching the emphasis of in-links, on-page relevancy and recency, the latter of which was the most recent shift before the latest change, no puns intended.

The thinking behind this new emphasis is that today's Web user no longer has the patience to wait, as this recent New York Times article discusses in depth with a telling quote from a Google engineer. So if your website is chock full of widgets, multimedia, feeds, numerous social links and heavy graphics, you might want to take an approach that all of us could use in several areas of our lives -- lighten up!