Increasing visibility using search marketing practices can be complex. At Get Page One, we emphasize the importance of having strategic vision to achieve favorable search results via the use of organic search engine optimization, paid search advertisements and social media marketing. Yet, rather than falling into the trap of needing to understand complicated jargon such as meta-tags and XML site maps, optimal search marketing results rely on a collaborative top-down approach between a business and its SEO company. Both stakeholders play a part in the success or failure of Internet marketing campaigns.

The components that make search engine marketing work well require an expertise within a multitude of disciplines, many of them technical. Choosing keywords, targeting and optimizing advertisements, deciding on PPC or CPM and setting up analytics are all part of a process that leaves the average marketer puzzled. While complex terminology and knowledge on the technical side of search marketing are a part of your SEO company’s DNA, today’s digital world requires a holistic approach for success.

In other words, best practices in SEM do not always entail your entire workforce having in depth knowledge on the meaning of complicated jargon. However, in addition to the specialized side of the practice, SEM primarily focuses on communication to an audience who is actively seeking out information on the Internet. The saying ‘content is king’ translates into the customer experience. After all, consumers are not simply searching for your site map or what tags you have used. Consumers are seeking relevant information that will provide them some sort of benefit. Simply having a website and Facebook fan page isn’t enough. Great consumer facing content should be a part of the company culture.

Making search engine marketing work for you isn’t simply about nifty software, a website with a few keywords and some inbound links. This is why we emphasize collaboration with our clients so that great content and technical expertise synergize and lead to long-term success in today’s marketplace.

It may be easy to think that to achieve favorable search results on Google, Bing or Yahoo, simply putting up a video, blogging or posting to Facebook and Twitter will get the job done. However, to achieve optimal results, the combination of search marketing, organic search engine optimization and social media necessitates a cohesive strategic vision. Moreover, this vision is not an end-game approach, but rather an ongoing and flexible process. The need for flexibility stems from the constantly shifting changes in search algorithms and consumer behavior. We are often asked at Get Page One how each of these components operates in tandem to reach results.

While the answers are not always simple, search engines begin the course of online visibility through a complex combination of factors. More than just heading tags, anchor text, backlinks and advertisements, each component in the search process works together to develop placement on search engines, where the best place is, of course, a top ranking. Ideally, through the progression of increasing views and interaction, organizations convert search results into consumer demand and new sales. In a sense, it is akin to a professional baseball team playing for a World Series title. Each element, from pitching and hitting to defense seemingly operate separately. However, these components do not win championships by operating independently. The manager must know when to bunt and steal bases and when to pull the starting pitcher and rely on the bullpen.

Likewise, search marketing, SEO and social media marketing all seemingly function as separate entities. Yet, each has its own objectives. Choosing the right keywords, effective use of ad elements such as targeting and call-to-action, engagement through social networks and measuring results are just a few pieces of the puzzle.

On the Internet, you want to be in the right place at the right time, when the consumer is looking. Each building block in the practice of search marketing helps to realize this goal. Optimal search results typically occur when each building block combines within a comprehensive strategy. Therefore, like a World Championship baseball organization, achieving top Internet ranking is a team effort.

What is the value of a customer? It is an important to many business owners. Last week, we discussed how both search marketing and social media can provide several benefits including driving awareness and providing communications channels for customers. And through efforts to reach out to existing customers and new prospects via the Internet, search and social can have profound influence on purchase decisions. However, going beyond the immediate to thinking long-term, there is another way of looking at the bottom-line value.

Bringing in new customers is typically an immediate and necessary goal for any organization. Customer retention and reputation management can lead to enduring success. However, over time, customers have their own intrinsic value beyond simply an initial purchase. Yet, the question remains – what is that value? Are we measuring our long-term efforts at search and social media marketing to uncover their true potential?

Customer lifetime value (CLTV) is typically an average of costs incurred, relative to the benefits (profits) received from attracting and converting a prospect to buy a product or service. Retaining customers and influencing them to buy more and to buy more frequently over their lifetime relationship with the company is an important measurement to consider. The formulas for calculating and measuring CLTV are too long and complicated to cover in this blog. There are many books and websites that can help understand and calculate CLTV.

However, search marketing and social media fit into CLTV in very unique and strategic ways. Driving awareness of new products or services, upgrades, special offers and package deals via search and social media can affect long-term profitability. Connecting and measuring sales conversions through these channels can also illustrate the viability and return-on-investment resulting from using search marketing and social media marketing as an influence and awareness technique.

The trick is to set up proper measurements and connect the dots as a customer follows the path through the sales funnel and over the lifetime of the relationship with your organization. There is an old saying in business circles that we believe applies – ‘You cannot manage what you don’t measure.’

Many C-Suite executives and marketing managers know both search marketing and social media are important. For some organizations, much of a customer’s initial awareness about products and services is likely to derive from search engines, social media or both. Yet, in terms of their affect on the bottom line, the thought of allocating substantial dollars to these channels may sometimes be a tough decision. The challenge reflects bottom-line thinking; getting the mind around where search and social plug-in to a business can be puzzling. Although, when we uncover the various benefits and connect search and social with business objectives, we begin to see a clearer picture of the overall importance of social and search.

Location, location, location. This cliché is true for real estate and for brick and mortar operations. It is also true for the Internet. If we use our Yellow Pages today, it’s often as a fire starter; otherwise, it just sits collecting dust in a drawer. Today, the search engine has effectively replaced the Yellow Pages for online users. To be found, location in the search rankings is becoming almost as important as physical location and in some cases, more important. Restaurants, for example, are discovering that Internet traffic can very well lead to foot traffic.

Numerous organizations get new business via referral from existing customers. Interestingly, many referrals now are made via social media rather than around the water cooler. Additionally, customer retention has become a significant focus with social media marketing, by augmenting and adding customer touchpoints that are more relevant and more frequent than the once-a-year sales call or monthly newsletter. This “top-of-mind” strategy using social media not only builds product or service awareness, but also creates a more consistent brand message through customer engagement.

Conversations are happening about brands all over the Internet, and reputation management can affect the bottom line for a business in both positive and negative ways. Consumers seeking information via the Internet often get their first impressions of that brand by what they discover via search or social media. Thus, it’s vitally important for a company to participate in online conversations and boost the positive while mitigating the negative.

When businesses consider search and social as important aspects of their marketing that directly touch the consumer, the benefits and justification for adding search and social to the marketing budget are much more clear. In essence, connecting search and social with everyday operations can provide significant value to a company’s bottom line.

We know that search engine optimization and search marketing do the dirty work of creating brand visibility online. Web marketers strive to hit top pages of search engines on Google, Bing and Yahoo. What many marketers and brands sometimes miss happens to be the human influence on the overall search process. This is the blend of both traditional search behavior and the ability for influencers to have an affect on search rankings.

Getting Social

At Get Page One,  your organic SEO, search marketing and paid search-advertising programs are hard at work tapping into consumer behavior, making your brand findable through search engines; however, there is something else hard at work about which you may or may not be aware.

The social media aspect of search is increasingly having an influence on page ranking. And while some of the information on how much influence social lends to search algorithms is vague, Google and Bing both factor social into the mix.

Influencers

The ability for social media to affect search rankings stems from influential users sharing links. This is especially true with Twitter. Shared links via tweets with respect to the overall influence of the user provide authority to the pages being tweeted. The closed system of information from Facebook is more difficult for search engines to calculate the influence of a user; yet, Facebook is still a factor.

Social Media Marketing

Many organizations who learn that social does impact search think that simply having a presence in social media will affect their page rank. Others are concerned about reputation management issues on the social web. As the gap between traditional search and social closes even more, it pays to have more than a simple Twitter account and Facebook page.

Outreach and influence from a brand can breed outreach and influence from authoritative users who can lend a helping hand to your SEO efforts. They, in turn, not only lend a human influence to search, but in essence, can become de facto brand marketers as well.

Search Engine Optimization for Small Business Is a Necessity, Not a Luxury

Search marketing and search engine optimization for small business may sound like another fancy-pants way of fleecing you of scarce marketing dollars, especially if your small business is encountering tight budgets and increased competition in this harsh economic climate. In fact, we at Get Page One are 100% certain that some of the “search engine optimization for small business” pitches you see are 100% scams.

However, we also believe that quality search engine optimization (SEO) can make a huge difference to medium-sized and small businesses with customers who use the internet to find products and services. I.e., nearly everybody.

And the co-founder of our humble SEO company, Brian Rutledge, will be talking about search engine optimization for small business at the SEM for SMB conference in Austin, TX. More on that later!

What Search Engine Optimization for Small Business Can Do

We run into a lot of medium-sized and small business owners who don’t see the need for search engine optimization. “We don’t sell anything on the web,” they say. “We don’t get business from our website.” “We don’t sell technology.” “Our customers don’t use the web much.” “Our customers know how to find us.” “Our web designer is already doing SEO.” “We saw an ad for guaranteed search engine optimization that costs $50 a month.” “We don’t have a website.” And of course, our favorite: “We don’t have the budget.”

This blog isn’t a sales blog. I’m not writing this to sell you our services; I blog to share SEO knowledge and to chat about funny things in this digital life of ours. But still, I feel I have to address all of these common excuses. My disclaimer: it’s okay if you don’t choose us for your small business’ search engine optimization provider. We’re cool with that. But we like people to understand what search engine optimization is all about. We’re little internet marketing evangelists. The more people understand SEO, the easier our job becomes.

“We don’t sell anything on the web.”

The majority of our clients don’t sell anything on their websites. But they do sell products or services. And people find products and services on the web.

“We don’t get business from our website. Our customers know how to find us.”

This is a popular one. Some businesses do build a website solely as a service to their existing customers, like a digital sign that points people to an address or phone number. Of course, this begs the question: Do you want business from your website? Can your website do more than just shunt people to a phone number? Do you know how many customers are currently visiting your website or how many are non-repeat visitors? (Yes, this information is easy to see and free to track.) Are your competitors getting business from their websites? Do you want more business?

Some small businesses actually don’t want more business. My mechanic routinely turns people away. He’s happy with his current volume of customers. Good for him. If he came to us looking for search engine optimization for small business, we’d tell him we couldn’t help him.

“We don’t sell technology.”

Do you sell a product or service that people don’t search for on the web? Are you sure?

There are still some things that people don’t shop for on the web. People usually don’t look for a grocery store or a gas station on the web. They assign more value to proximity, and aren’t concerned about differentiators.

Not that search engine optimization for small business can’t help such entities. Gas stations and grocery stores usually belong to chains that have elaborate websites with a variety of customer loyalty and marketing projects going at all times. If they don’t, they might benefit from a strong web presence that emphasizes what separates them from the big boys. And that web presence probably needs search engine optimization for small business.

“Our customers don’t use the web much.”

Usually this comes from small businesses whose customers aren’t young or well-heeled. Do you know what the web usage statistics are for the elderly and the less affluent? Do you really know your demographics? Do you know the web traffic statistics for your website? Do you want more affluent customers in the 18-45 demographic?

“Our web designer is already doing SEO.”

We love in-house web designers. Many of them are experts at what they do, and partner with us smoothly in the implementation of good search engine optimization for small business.

But keep in mind that your web designer probably already has a full plate keeping the site running and up to date. She probably does some graphic design and IT work for you, too, right? (You know she does.) And with all these different priorities, do you think search engine optimization for small business is at the top of her daily to-do list?

And if your web designer happens to be untrained in search engine optimization, do you think she’ll say, “Hey, boss, I’m not sure what kind of file hierarchy to use for SEO” or spend hours restructuring the current site for better searchability? Would she seek out additional training when you’re already running her ragged? Probably not.

Good SEO needs constant maintenance and refinement, especially since it requires dogged, meticulous reverse-engineering to figure out the best techniques. You see, the search engines don’t tell us what search engine optimization processes work the best. We have to figure it out ourselves through grueling trial and error. But with experience and determination, it’s possible. To us, search engine optimization for small business isn’t a hobby; it’s a calling.

“We don’t have a website.”

Do you want a website? Do your customers ask about your website? Do your competitors have websites?

At Get Page One, we’ve developed a high-powered content management system (CMS) with our own SEO and useability enhancements. Because we’ve already built the software system, we can perform strategic website development at a fraction of the cost of boutique web design firms. For our bigger clients, we sometimes build their entire website at no cost because it makes it easier for us to do our job of search engine optimization.

“We don’t have the budget.”

People think SEO is expensive because it’s new and has its own weird acronym. Not true.

We’re pretty proud of the value proposition we offer to search engine optimization for small business clients. Simply put, we’re not high-priced consultants, and our SEO work can pay for itself in new business several times over.

In fact, we proposed to one client that we’d give them free SEO services in exchange for a percentage of the new profits they were getting from their increased web traffic. They turned us down politely. They knew they were earning too much from the new business we were bringing in.

“We saw an ad for guaranteed search engine optimization that costs $50 a month.”

This one makes us grieve. SEO scams like this give all a bad name to all search engine optimization for small business. They prey on people who don’t fully understand what good SEO involves. At best, they’ll take your money doing superficial things that don’t actually affect your search engine ranking. At worst, they’ll sell you unnecessary services and pull dirty tricks that will get your website banned from Google, Yahoo and MSN.

SEM for SMB Conference! Get Page One Co-Founder to Speak on Search Engine Optimization for Small Business

Our co-founder, Brian Rutledge, a leader in the use of search-engine-approved “white hat” SEO techniques, will be speaking at the SEM for SMB conference, July 16-17, 2008, which was organized specifically to help guide small business owners through the confusing maze of SEO, SEM, and PPC. It’ll take place at the downtown Austin Hilton.

“Search engine marketing for small businesses” is more than just a buzzphrase,” Brian says. “If your small business has a website, then you should be aware of SEO basics. If you are willing to learn some fundamentals of search marketing, the entry costs are very low in comparison with the potential gains. In today’s competitive markets, if you’re not doing SEO, you’re losing money.” Rutledge will also address some of the shady SEO practices that small businesses need to watch out for.

So if you’ll be in Austin this summer, check out this presentation on search engine optimization for small business. It should be a great networking event and Brian’s a lively and informative speaker.

Who’s Got the Title of “Most Digital”?

The most digital city in the country has been identified by thinktank Scarborough Research. Using a survey, the company picked out eighteen purchasing behaviors and traits that they isolated as indicative of “early adopters” and “techy.” Then it tracked those behaviors to different metro areas to determine the country’s most digital city.

“Most Digital City” Methodology

The behaviors and traits they selected were related to three digital domains:

• geeky toys owned by the subjects, like DVRs, Garmin GPS units and VoIP digital devices,
• uses of the internet, such as blogging, web searching and online banking,
• and style of cellphone usage, like messaging, websurfing and downloading.

Unsurprisingly, two of the top four “most digital cities” were found to be in California. Also in the top four were cities in Nevada and Texas. Got any guesses yet at the most digital city nearest you?

If you guessed San Francisco or San Jose, like we did, well, no digital brownie points for you. Neither of these tech powerhouses showed up anywhere in Scarborough’s results. Either Scarborough’s “most digital cities” data is flawed, or perhaps Northern Californians are thriftier than we thought.

Most Digital Cities

So, without further ado, the runner-up most digital cities (according to the study) are Las Vegas, Sacramento, San Diego.

At the top of the Most Digital City heap is our own Austin, Texas. The study says the concentration of digital-savvy consumers in Austin is at a lofty 12%. Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles get digital honorable mentions, presumably delivered virtually via avatar in Second Life.

Most Digital Means Most Credit Card Debt?

The study also found an association between the “most digital city” behaviors and extravagant consumption. Apparently, 54% of the “most digital” consumers spent over $500 in online shopping in the past year, and each is 56% more likely to own or lease a luxury car and 49% more likely to own a second home. Austin residents can pull this off a little easier than San Diegans, so we can sorta see the connection.

If you’re a resident of the Most Digital City in America, like we are, we hope you’re watching your account balances. All that digital tomfoolery can burn a hole in your finances pretty swiftly.

Changing Identity in Adobe Acrobat Professional Isn’t Impossible!

Adobe Acrobat Professional is one of the important SEO tools we use in the office, but it can be frustrating as hell. I ran into one particular bugaboo today when preparing a web page review for a client.

The problem? You can’t change your identity in Acrobat Professional, so all of your comments appear under your Windows login name instead of a name that’s appropriate for your document. You can see at this Adobe Acrobat Professional forum that this problem has stumped the pros.

So if you whimsically login as “huggybear” on your computer, every comment you create in Adobe Acrobat Professional is going to show up as huggybear. Not so hot when you’re trying to impress those humorless clients from Chicago.

It’s Not Your Acrobat Identity – It’s Your Author Name

SEO wunderkind Brian heard about my problem and assured me it could be fixed. “Sure,” I told him. “I’m uninstalling Adobe Acrobat Professional right now, and I’m going to change my Windows login name before I reinstall it.”

So I went off and did my Adobe Acrobat Professional install/reinstall mambo. No joy. Apparently Acrobat was emotionally attached to my original Windows login name (no, it’s not huggybear), and it wasn’t letting go.

Since I work at a search engine marketing company, I resorted to “the Google” and turned up the aforementioned Adobe Acrobat forum, replete with frustrated Acrobat users. No joy.

How to Change the Name on Your Adobe Acrobat Professional Comments

So finally I had Brian come over to my workstation and whack on Adobe Acrobat for awhile. It was a pain to figure out which prefs needed to be edited but it is doable.

First, go to Edit > Preferences > Commenting and uncheck “Always use Log-in Name for Author name.” This means that Adobe Acrobat’s no longer going to use that original huggybear identity name anymore.

Great. Now where the heck is the Author name changed? Well, of course, Adobe managed to hide this deep in the bowels of Acrobat Professional.

First, create a new comment. Right-click on it to bring up the Sticky Note Properties and click on the General tab. There! The author name!

And yet we’re still not done. Before you close the dialog box, you MUST hit the “Make Properties Default” checkbox at the bottom. That will apply the Author Name to all of your Adobe Acrobat Professional comments, rather than just this single instance. Nice UI design, Adobe.

So there you go, people. You can’t change your identity in Adobe Acrobat Professional — but you can change the name that appears on all of your Acrobat Professional comments. Thanks, Brian!

When you blog about something for SEO purposes, link to it immediately, with relevant text, from social media websites that do not utilize nofollow links.

Don’t wait for someone else to do it. First indexed by Google is often first ON Google

Well, crud. Digg is down as well. Now what the heck am I going to do today? Better yet, what are YOU going to do today?