I have been interviewing a bunch of potential hopefuls and I have started thinking how lucky these college students are to have the chance to enter the internet marketing world fresh out of college. If I would have had the same opportunity, it would have saved me a few years of few years of ‘aimlessness’, so to speak, figuring out what I wanted to do when I grew up.

After my first gig in the Health Insurance Industry, I took a job with the marketing team of a startup online dating site. The dating site never took off, but the experience gave me my first taste of internet marketing. At the dating site, the clouds parted, and I found my path towards a career in internet marketing.

If your struggling to figure out what you want to do when you grow up, below are 5 traits that if you possess may mean that internet marketing is a good fit for you.

1. Possess a Competitive Spirit: In the summer of 1992, when I was 11 years old, I wanted to be an Olympic Gymnast. The one problem was that I had no formal gymnastic training, but that did not stop me from practicing by doing flips over my couch. For Amanda my colleague at SEER, who is 5 years younger than me, it was the summer of 1996, when she too dreamt of Olympic gold. Ok, so it is not necessary to have had the Olympic gold dream, like Amanda and me, but you do need to have a competitive spirit and an internal drive to be the best. Both Paid Search and SEO is about beating your competitors to maximize web real estate on the coveted first page of Google.

2. Love Puzzles & Games: I know when I was a kid, my mom could not buy puzzles fast enough for me. Now I love a good game of Scrabble. Aaron another fellow Paid Search member enjoys a good game of poker. Games also tie into a competitive spirit, as I still hate to lose, but have matured a bit from throwing the cards in my brother’s face and leaving the table crying. Both SEO and PPC are big puzzles. For SEO, you are spending your time figuring out how to understand the Google Algorithm. PPC is a puzzle in itself. Try fitting a keyword, benefit, distinguishing feature and a call to action into an ad of just 95 characters.

3. Enjoy(ed) and Excel(ed) in Analytical Classes, such as Economics, Math or Science classes. Wil actually wanted to be economics teacher before he found his way into Internet Marketing. For Paid Search you can’t be afraid of numbers and have to be comfortable analyzing data. Sure, you need creativity to write ads and help wireframe landing pages, but we are data junkies and spend a great portion of our day determining statistical significance, analyzing trends and calculating ROI. For SEO sure you need creativity to come up with link bait ideas, but you have to enjoy analyzing a sites architecture, monitoring your sites traffic and monitoring your site’s conversions. We know colors and design have their place, but as a team we care more about calls to actions, usability and content with relevant keywords.

4. Love using Excel to figure out better ways to do things: This is similar to number 2. If you actually enjoy learning about pivot tables and neat new Excel formulas, then you will probably also enjoy a life as an internet marketer.

5. Enjoy being a lifelong student: The web is constantly changing. You have to enjoy continual learning because what works well today may not work well tomorrow. Everyone at SEER loves learning about the web and staying on top of industry trends and news. We are constantly sharing blogs and ideas. We even started a SEER Internet Marketing book club, so that we are always growing and learning together.

I hope this helps provide a good gut check to help you figure out if a career in Internet Marketing would be a good fit for you. To other experienced Internet Marketers out there, please add additional traits that you think are common among you and your colleagues.

Per Google’s Help Center, “Search Funnels are a set of new reports describing the Google.com search ad click and impression behavior leading up to a conversion.” Search Funnels are currently in beta and may not be available for your account (note: you need to have AdWords conversion tracking installed or Analytics linked to your account for Search Funnels to work). If they are enabled, you can find them by hovering over the Reporting tab and clicking on Conversions. On the left side, you should see a link to Search Funnels!

Now, what makes Search Funnels so special?? To this point, all of Google’s conversions were attributed to the last click before the conversion. However, there is a LOT that goes into any sales funnel; why would Google be any different? I’d be willing to bet a good percentage of your conversions don’t occur on the first click. Just like any other sales funnel, there is likely a discovery phase, research/evaluation phase and more before a searcher finally converts. With all buzzwords out of the way, let’s take a deeper dive into the reports that Google so kindly built for us.

I: Path Length report –

The Path Length report is a birds-eye view of the overall length of your Search Funnel in terms of impressions and clicks. Did you expect your customers to find what they want on the first search? The Path Length report will let you how many searches a customer conducts before completing a conversion.

II: Time Lag report -

Similar to the Path Length report, the Time Lag report shows how long it took your customers to convert. Do you have an expensive product that could affect an entire organization? Expect a long lag-time as a searcher is likely evaluating a number of different options. You could shorten up the lag time by offering a softer call to action (for example, a whitepaper download) instead of asking the customer to give away too much information at the outset. Do you offer a low-priced commodity product? Expect the conversion funnel to shorten up as a customer is likely just looking for convenience and a bargain.

The time lag report can be viewed from first impression (time since their first query) first click and last click.

III: Assisted Conversions report –

With the first two reports we’ve established there’s more to a conversion than meets the eye. The Assist Conversion report dives a bit deeper into the conversion funnel and provides us with the extremely important assist metric, helping us find the Steve Nash and Jason Kidd of the conversion funnel. Whenever a keyword is part of a conversion funnel but is not the last click before conversion, it is given an assist conversion (either click or impression based). Let’s say you have a site that sells baseball gear and a customer wants to buy a new bat. The customer proceeds through the following path:

Baseball bats (your ad shows, but they do not click)

Baseball bats (again, your ad shows and no click occurs)

Good baseball bats (click!)

Good baseball bats (another click!)

Louisville bats (your ad shows, but they do not click)

Louisville Slugger (click, purchase, $$$ for you)

The above path would give a click-assisted conversion to “Good Baseball Bats,” impression-assisted conversions to “Baseball Bats” and “Louisville Bats” and finally a last-click conversion to “Louisville Slugger.”

Last click conversions should match what you have in the AdWords interface and represents all conversions that came through your campaign, while assisted conversions will show you who everyone who helped out!. Google also provided us with a calculated field to show us which keywords helped out the most. In the example above, you may want to re-think deleting “baseball bats” because of a low ROI – odds are it has a very high assist-conversion ratio.

IV: Assist Clicks & Impressions report –

The Assist Clicks & Impressions report dives a bit deeper into our newly-beloved assist metric and shows us exactly how many clicks and impression it takes on each keyword to get the job done. It is important to note that in this report, the “assist” metric is not exclusive in this case meaning. In the previous baseball example, there were two clicks on “Good Baseball Bats” and two searches for “Baseball bats” in the conversion funnel – in this report they would receive two Assist Clicks and two Impression Clicks respectively.

V: First Click Analysis report –

This report is a fairly simple high-level view of conversions sorted by the first clicked campaign/ad group/keyword in a conversion funnel. Each time you click on a given element the report navigates to the next level on the hierarchy. If you click on a campaign, Google displays all the ad groups in that campaign. Same goes for a transition from ad groups to keywords. If you click on a specific keyword and get super granular, you’ll be taken to a report that shows a dashboard of all reports available for that particular keyword.

VI: Last Click Analysis –

See section V; replace all instances of “first” with “last.”

VII: Top Paths report –

Think your brand conversions are responsible for all your conversions? The Top Paths report will likely prove otherwise, showing every click or impression along the conversion funnel. Thanks to the other reports, we know all the keywords that had an influence on the report, but we haven’t yet had a chance to see what order they work in.

Our Google reps let us know a few things that may give you a bit of a ‘scare’ this report, so I may as well call them out now…

1: There will only be a few clear cut leading paths, followed by an extremely long tail.

2: There will be a ton of instances of (filtered path data) showing up in the impression-based reports. Just like the ever-frustrating “x other unique queries” label in Search Query reports, the (filtered path data) metric shows when Google simply doesn’t have enough information to populate the report.

As you can see from this novella-length post, there is a TON available in Google Search Funnels. I hope this brief introduction gave you a good starting point to explore! Oh, and sorry for all the sports references…

How do YOU plan on using search funnels to help your campaigns? Share your ideas in the comments section below.

The great thing when you are dealing with a company that does solely focus on SEO or PPC (at least in the case of SEER), is that we are committed to pointing potential clients in the right direction (the one that gives them RESULTS), whether that is focusing on SEO or PPC (with SEER or without), or another means of advertising outside of SEER. It’s certainly a tough call, but when you’re in the trenches of search day in and day out you know what type of clients will and will not succeed and let’s be honest, who wants to take a project on that you have that “gut” feeling from the start may fail? (Check out one of Wil’s latest posts for more on Avoiding Client SEO Failures)

So, how do you convince a client who is dead set on an SEO Campaign that, at this moment, PPC is their best approach?

Communicate you are PROTECTING their downside!

Often times when a client is approaching you for an SEO campaign, the thought of engaging in PPC instead scares them.

From a financial standpoint, investing in an SEO may seem like a better solution for a potential new client; they look at SEO as a 12-month investment that they no longer pay for after the contract expires but continue to reap the benefits from.

And at initial glance, PPC appears to have a higher ONGOING price tag – there is the ad-spend, the agency management fee, potentially a setup fee, landing page development fees, etc.

However, what happens if you are dealing with a company who has ZERO online presence or better yet, one that is introducing a new product/service?

If you are anything like the SEER team, taking a (educated) guess that you are choosing the correct terms to optimize a site around based solely on volume, relevancy, etc.for a brand new business/product/service does NOT sound like a good idea .

Why? Because what happens when you get your client all page one rankings and the conversions DON’T COME IN?

Well, here’s the other million dollar question that now your client will be asking YOU: Where are the customers?

So, to avoid the “Where are the customers” question, turn the tables on the client in the discovery stage and push them down the PPC path (But again, do so by communicating you are PROTECTING their downside!).

Use PPC to TEST what terms ACTUALLY do drive the conversions!

And don’t just test the terms haphazardly – Structure your PPC account in the same way you would be driving organic traffic to the clients’ site.

1. Set up a unique Campaign for every page you will likely target in your SEO campaign.

2. Your ad groups will then house the terms you will target to each unique page.

3. Your “landing pages” should be the actual page on the site that you would optimize the targeted terms for.

4. Finally, ensure your campaign settings best match an “SEO” campaign. For instance, target the US (assuming that is your market); target Google Search only (vs. Google Search & Search Partners), etc.

Granted, there will be uncontrollable variances to how organic and paid traffic perform; however, wouldn’t it be great to gather statistically significant data for a client on terms that are PROVEN to (or not to) work! Not to mention, imagine how much more at ease the client will be throughout the SEO campaign knowing that there they already generated some new customers through the PPC tests and are confident they will achieve the ROI from SEO they desire!

Once you have your statistically significant data to base your decision off of, you can then push forward with an SEO campaign that you have CONFIDENCE in will drive the results your client desires. And as long as your PPC account is returning a positive ROI, you may have just helped a potential client grow their business exponentially just by doing some smart marketing research (and hey, picked up a PPC client for yourself!).

And if your statistically significant PPC data leads you to have the tough conversation with you potential client that “this is not going to drive the results you need,” don’t you think your potential client will thank you (and who knows, maybe even refer you to other potential clients) for not wasting their money OR time?

As my colleague Bonnie mentioned in a previous blog, Want to Avoid a Million Dollar mistake, use PPC for the benefits it brings – Do the research (fairly quickly) for your potential client before you waste their time (and yours) and money!

However, while we all may strive for the above scenarios and give each other high fives around the office when they happen, sometimes in the real world it just does not work out that way. In instances where you’ve put your sweat and tears into optimizing your campaigns, but performance drops or remains stagnant, how do you explain it to yourself and to your clients?

Before questioning your strategy and the changes you made in the account, take a look into Google Insights. John at SEO Boy, wrote a great article on how he uses Google’s Insights to project SEO leads and traffic.

Below are 3 examples when Google Insights, provided me with great data and “insights,” which helped to explain atypical search behavior:

Atypical Performance Trend #1 – Increasing Rankings but traffic staying flat or decreasing

I was recently working on an SEO client where we were killing in Google in terms of Rankings. We were ranked number 2 for the client’s most competitive and traffic driving term. We had also achieved top ranking on numerous other high search volume terms. Yet, month over month we were reporting search traffic remaining relatively flat since January. To help shed light on this very frustrating situation, we turned to Google Insights. Below is the Search Trend of the Top Volume Keyword:

Upon showing this trend to the client, he understood why their search volume had not increased since January 2008. The search volume that existed had fallen since we started the campaign, so flat traffic was actually a win when overall interest in the product was declining.

In situations like these, it is important to emphasize to clients that as search marketers, we don’t create search volume; instead we help our clients capture a greater percentage of the search volume that already exists.

Atypical Performance Trend #2: PPC Client Conversions dropping over time At SEER, our PPC team creates optimization plans, where every 5 to 6 weeks we set goals on how we plan to improve our campaigns. One goal we may set is to increase our conversions over time. We then outline our plan to reach this goal. Recently, I set the goal to increase conversions for a client and, week over week, I optimized the account to reach this goal. I expanded our keyword list, optimized ad copy, ensured our positions were staying competitive and, to my dismay, week over week conversions fell. Again, I looked to Google Insights for my answer. Below is the search volume trend for the top converting keyword in this campaign:

Again, like in the above example, this graph brings clarity on falling conversions.

Again search marketers do not create interest; we just help to ensure that when the interest is there, our clients are getting a bigger slice of the pie than our competitors.

Atypical Performance Trend #3: Unexplained Sky Rocketing Performance: Now, Google Insights can be a double edged sword. It can definitely help you justify stagnant or declining performance, but search marketers often have to put their egos aside when a client’s performance suddenly skyrockets and ask is it solely the result of their hard work? I wrote a blog entry a while back that explains a situation I ran into when volume and performance spiked as a result of offline industry PR.

72 Hours of SEM Heaven and Hell-How to Use PPC to Capitalize on Unexpected-Offline PR

Below is the graph of the top searched term in this scenario.

From February 2008 to March 2008, conversions increased over 200%. I would love to say my optimization efforts were the reason for this dramatic spike, but just as my efforts did not result in the decline of performance in the above examples, my efforts were not entirely the reason for this spike.

Now, I don’t want to sell myself short here, as I put my client in the right position to take advantage of this spike, but giving me all the credit is definitely not the entire picture!

As Search Marketers we often have to break out of our bubble of rankings, bids, and keywords and take a look at the world around us to help explain our numbers, both good and bad.

Google Insights can help us understand market factors that are bigger than search and simply out of our control.

@BonnieSchwartz

If you were Vinny, how would that experience have helped or not helped you choose an agent?

Here’s how this came to me…

This week we turned down the opportunity to work with a great organization because they required us to come in with a presentation for their selection committee. We don’t have canned presentations for “pitches.” Instead we like to sit down with a potential client figure out who they are, what makes them unique, what their needs are and THEN see if we are a good fit to help. After explaining this, it was still required for “participating firms” to have a thirty minute presentation or the deal was off (yes it had to be 30 minutes). So for now we walked away (remember walking away from deals is one of my ways to grow a stress free agency.)

When I am given the opportunity to speak with people about SEO/SEM, I tell all of them that the decision of selecting a search company is one that will be made with the GUT. Why? Because every SEO/SEM company is going to sound the same, talk the same game, and use the same shtick.

Every company will have slides on:
• The team’s experience
• How they alter on-site factors
• Their linking strategy
• Results for past clients
• Bid management
• Blah, blah, blah

While some may have one or two unique features, most people purchasing search marketing services (especially SEO) still don’t have enough knowledge of the space to know if those differentiating factors mean anything to their bottom line.

At the end of the lineup, most search companies will sound the same, leaving you to scratch your head and say, “What now. They all sound the same, so how do I pick?”

For those of you seeking great search companies, you will need to be Vinny Chase. Look for the company that shows some passion, something different, and is at least somewhat discriminating about the opportunities they take on.

If you want a second or third place search firm, ask them to come in and do a presentation or answer an RFP. The ones that jump at the opportunity without qualifying you are hungry for business.

In the search space where rip off artists are everywhere, the GOOD search companies that you WANT to work with will at least want to speak with you before running off to blindly answer an RFP/presentation. The ones that come on in with presentation in hand without first asking you about your goals and how you plan on achieving them, etc, etc might be dangerous, so do your due diligence on them.

All in all, If you want to make Medellin you need Billy Walsh (), not some suit!

Finally, let’s not forget the lesson learned at the end of this episode: After seeing so many canned, unoriginal presentations, Vinny decided to stay with Ari. When he arrived at Ari’s office to tell him, Ari proceeded to deliver the exact same type of canned presentation as all of his competition, prompting Vinny to can him!

The client may think they want a full presentation at the beginning of their search for a great SEO company, like Vinny thought when he began his search for a new agent, but they’re better off getting a company that doesn’t try to fit themselves into a mold and actually takes a chance doing something unique.

Inspiration for this post:
Rachael Levenson – she brought up this episode while in the car coming back from a results & ROI review up with a current client. Rachael, we gotta take more road trips!

Entourage – please come back soon. Without The Wire, Sopranos, and Sex & the City, the lineup is looking weak.

1. Am I having fun
2. Are the people I work with challenged and having fun too
3. Can I keep the lights on

When I looked at our growth it was shocking, it got me reflecting – how did this happen?!

Here are my thoughts to how to create & maintain growth (if that is what you want) with minimal stress, I hope you enjoy.

Love what you do, have some stinking passion!

Everyone says this, but you’ll get KILLED by people who just out “heart” you. Since I LOVE search, I have a better chance at getting great results than the guy who is in search because it is a great way to make a ton of money. You know why? Certain things will bother me, I will obsess over things that just don’t add up. The guy who sees it as just business goes to sleep easy when the margins look right, I go to sleep easy when the ROI for our projects is kicking!

Don’t hire douchebags who have no passion & put tenacity over tenure!

Sure every company has “role players” minimize those chumps, they don’t add value to clients, they are easily replaceable. Instead automate as many processes as possible so that every person you hire is working on strategies and not tactics. Don’t confuse passion with staying in the office late or coming in on Saturdays either!
People interview well, so be OK with firing quickly, don’t drag down your superstars with average players. I’m not proud of it, but we’ve let a few people go who were not a good match in less than 3 weeks. I hope they have found what their passion truly is.
Realize you can’t teach these things and hire people who have them (sometimes) regardless of experience:

* Work ethic
* Pride in your work
* Passion
* Analytical mindset

Realize your team is talented and could go anywhere else

Don’t kid yourself. By not hiring douchebags you’ll realize that talented people can move on easily. Create a culture that throws this reality on the table and fights hard to keep your team with YOU! That means give real freaking raises! People know when they contribute to the growth, and if the company is doing well they have a hand in it. I think this also helps you retain people with you hit a downturn, cause your team will know that you stick by them and share in the wealth when times are great. Getting rid of or minimizing tactical tasks also gives people strategic challenges to work on daily.
No one is on your team to make YOU rich. What are their goals, aspirations, etc. Knowing that humanizes the company and serves as a constant reminder that people aren’t widgets – they have goals too.
If you have people on your team who consistently work 65+ hours a week, change that or give them equity / profit sharing – let them know that you WILL not build a business predicated upon them burning themselves out – either take less clients and charge higher rates or improve processes – don’t burn them out.

Be high touch if you charge high rates
Many companies charge high prices for their services (to me if your blended hourly rates are 175+ you are charging a good rate). If you do, you better be high touch and have great results darn it! It never ceases to amaze me at the opportunities we get to work on simply because our clients know we really care and that is in stark contrast to many other companies in the agency space – be high touch, call your clients regularly.

Be Analytical
Find ways to minimize clients needing to ask this question -
“What is your work doing for my bottom line”
Ask every client how they will judge the success of the campaign, if they don’t know, DON’T WORK WITH THEM!!!! At some time this question will be asked, if not by them, but by their boss. And if you have no definition (that you all agreed to at the onset of the campaign) for what success is it will come back to bite you!

Be Transparent / Honest

* If someone has unrealistic expectations, tell them. If they don’t change em, don’t work with em.
* If you can only “hope” something is going to work, SAY IT!!!
* If you aren’t happy about how things are going, vocalize that!
* If your numbers suck (assuming you are analytical), spend all your time developing a plan to IMPROVE THEM, not a plan SPIN THEM, say they suck and move on.

I don’t think any client expects you to bat 1.000. Honesty, even about your flaws, agency problems, etc, builds TRUST. And building TRUST is something that is hard to break.

Turn business away, regularly
If you take on every piece of business that comes your way, you’ll have to hire douchebags at some point to just stay on top of it all. Take on new business as you can find superstars to work on the accounts. If you don’t you’ll ultimately have a “B team” and unless you change your prices based on the team assembled, NO client wants to be working with the B squad.
Do what is right before what is profitable
If you make every decision in your company on what’s going to earn you the most money, you’ll lose. If your “clients” truly feel like you are their advocate who puts their interests before your own (to a point) you’ll win. That is simple.

Don’t work for Jerks
Good “clients” realize that if you truly put their interests above yours there will be times when you’ve put in so many hours that then you’ll have to bill, but you could ask any client we’ve ever had…not a ONE of them has ever had an invoice for 30 minutes or 1 hour. As a result, the right clients don’t abuse this and we can keep doing what is right!

Not to mention working for Jerks adds stress – jerks usually abuse you, get you to do more more than they paid for, are abrasive, change the rules of what success is, don’t pay, etc to me this all equals stress. Get your jerk radar on get good at asking the right questions so you can identify these folks and not fall into the trap of working for them (regardless of how much money they are willing to spend with you)
Fire clients who treat your people poorly, we’re all adults! Show your people that you won’t sell them out for the almighty dollar and they’ll stay – if you sell them out for the almighty dollar then they have every right to do the same to you!

Volunteer
Helping others is a great way to keep you grounded on even the most challenging days! When you work with (NOT JUST DONATE MONEY) and spend your time helping others who have a much more complicated life than you, it helps you realize that no one is going to go hungry, homeless, or die if your agency doesn’t do X or Y. Have FUN!
Great people + Build trust w/ Clients + High Touch + Great results = Minimal Marketing / Sales Team and Minimal Stress

Following these steps above has allowed us to experience growth, and have a lot of fun with a great group of good people without:

* Paid search ads
* Booths at tradeshows
* Sales people
* Marketing people
* PR people
* Media Kits
* Mailings
* Whitepapers

And a whole slew of other tactics we are taught to do in order to grow our companies. I did some of these in my first 6 months, sure, but soon realized that by following the above we were going to be much more successful.
Some of this could change someday, but our foundation is not built on PR, Marketing or hype, instead it is built on great relationships and great results.

We have fired 2 clients (one of which was our largest at the time) and have lost NONE, yeah not a ONE in 5 years – because we care. And our clients and friends are in turn are our sales team they introduce us to others who are seeking good partners, thats how we have grown.
Note: The one marketing “thing” we have done is improve our search rankings.

This blog post inspired by:
Cure for startup stress
80/20 rule
Guts Companies that blow the doors of doing business as usual
Planning for our client thank you party

Another one – 10 rules for startup success
Our Clients
Our Team
Liz, Wil Sr, Tameka, Nora

Thanks!

You know after seeing SEO just get crapped on by Amex, and reading this SEOMOZ post, This SEOMOZ list, the recent work by SEM compare & hearing the number of people mention how often they get phone calls from crappy SEO companies almost weekly, combined with the spam that even I get.  I am going to do whatever I can to pitch in and help.

It is pretty obvious that I’ve always tried to do what I could to clean up the space in my own little way, whether it is the conversation I had last week with a prospect who didn’t fit SEER’s model, but I told – Hey, call me before you pick someone I’ll make sure you don’t get hosed to posts & I try to write about the issues that plague our industry when time allows.

But today I am asking for help, this idea is totally off the cuff, from the gut but help me round it out.

I was thinking, can we as SEO/SEM professionals do unbiased audits on companies?  NOT because we want the business ourselves, but because we want to clean up the industry?  I was thinking could we have a group of SEO professionals who fit the following criteria:

• Has 4+ years experience
• Is in-house or works for a company that does little to NO advertising
• If you are asking why to little/no advertising,  I think SEO companies who advertise HEAVILY are needy for new clients, if so I think that adds to the likelihood that they’ll “pitch” people they should be doing unbiased audits for
• Can devote 2 hours per month to review proposals submitted for review (proposals would have to be over 25k for now)
• Has an existing track record of trying to provide unbiased information and help the industry along

So far that is all I got, but remember I am writing this from the gut.

I can tear apart a proposal from an SEO company in 30 minutes, which means if I devote 2 hours a month I can hopefully help up to 4 people  do one of two things:

• Feel more confident about whom they selected
• Realize some more questions they should ask before moving forward (or leaving the company altogether)

So the problems I see:

• People pitching instead of helping
• Confidential proposals shared with outsiders would be problematic (see below)
• Companies wanting to sue instead of fixing the problems that cause them to not cut it (Looks like iCrossing filed a suit against marketingsherpa)
• Involvement / time commitment – many of the people I would hope would come along to help are BUSY, but either way I’ll go this alone if I have to and find a way to tip toe around the landmines.

In theory if we could get 50 SEO’s each able to do 4 reviews a month that is 200 companies reviewed, and maybe privately we can rate the companies so that going forward we’d not have to waste our time.  I know this is hairy, but I just am sick of the complaints about SEO, but they are warranted, SEO companies are shady and I for one want to be a part of the solution instead of the problem.

Any idea on how to keep myself out of the courtroom before I start taking requests?

Thanks!

–Wil

A recent client experience showed me how powerfully the offline world can impact what is happening online and how important communication between the client and a PPC firm is for integrating online and offline marketing successfully.

Our client’s industry was featured on Good Morning America recently. Upon being featured, our client called us first thing and asked how SEER could help capitalize on the interest.

Now our client was lucky as they had quality high ranks in the natural results when the news story broke. You or your client may not have this good fortune, which makes having a fast acting PPC firm even more essential to capitalize on unexpected PR buzz, which as the story below illustrates, can have incredible influence on people’s search behavior.

Immediately, we saw a surge in online conversions and spend due to the buzz Good Morning America created. This buzz was not even generated by promoting our client, but actually just the industry our client operates in. Seeing this, we added Good Morning America ad text into our rotation to speak to the people who had just seen the segment.

The new interest began to quickly push us up to our daily budget cap by mid-morning on a campaign that previously had been 100% visible all day. To fully capitalize on this new interest, we bumped up our budget. We thought 50% would keep us live all day, but as the day went on 50% became 100%, which quickly became 200% and ultimately ended up being 650% to ensure complete visibility. Only by knowing this new buzz had taken place were we able to realize our full potential by ensuring 100% visibility as consumer demand skyrocketed.

Watch out for Sneaky Competitors.

We were so proud of ourselves! Our ads were the only ones that were capitalizing on the GMA story. However, this was not the case for long. Since this was a story about our client’s industry, not just our client, by evening our competitor had copied our GMA ads.

Next time we may want to use a strategy promoted in this great post by NickyCakes.
Basically, the idea would be to “Fake Out” your competition by finding out their physical address and setting up a campaign with “not so good ads” and low bids only in their area. This way they will not be able to see your stellar ad that you would prefer they did not copy.

Brad Geddes, in his post about click fraud, explains another potential strategy. You may want to block out a competitor’s IP address. Geddes warns to make sure you are blocking the correct IPs, and explains that some hosts have thousands of users sharing the same IP.

Besides ad text changes, which can easily be copied, and budget increases, what else can online marketers do to capitalize on offline promotion?

We began to bid on words discussed in the promotion. This allowed us to find new words that were less costly, but relevant because the search demand for these words was new. These new words proved successful at a much lower CPA than what our current campaign was averaging. We also bumped our positions on our current keywords, with the idea that the new demand would increase our conversion rate and thus, keep our CPA in check, which proved correct.

Look at the content network for ripe places get an Ad syndicated.

My colleague at SEER, Laura, wrote about this concept of getting the most out of the content network, which became very applicable in light of the PR. We negotiated with the different content networks to get our ad listed on the online syndication of the PR.

We got an ad shown on the story on GMA’s site. If this is not possible, posting an ad to syndicate “Run of Site” may still be worth it.

You may have to look beyond Google, Yahoo or MSN to find the content network that has ad space on the relevant story. An easy way to tell is to look for the advertise link in the ad block and see which network is syndicating the ads. If you can accomplish this, you will be getting a very relevant ad in front of the audience who may have just seen a promotion on TV. Now, instead of potentially going to your competitor, your ad is in front of this reader for them to click on and convert on your site.

“Ah, we were done,” we thought. All the changes were made and our campaign kept sailing and converting for the next few days, but we were not quite done yet…

Interestingly, once GMA launched the story, we saw other networks shortly after follow suit with their own take on the story. NBC picked up the story, followed by the Today Show, and so the process of changing ads, adjusting budgets, increasing bids, finding relevant new keywords and finding content networks started all over again.

In summary, below are key insights we learned from this experience for successfully integrating offline and online marketing:

• Open communication with clients is essential
• Know what is happening off line in your industry
• Be prepared to increase your budget 10 fold if a major network provides PR for your actual client or even just their industry
• Watch out for sneaky competitors
• Look for new keyword opportunities that may have low competition
• Look for new content network opportunities
• Look out for other networks, which may follow suit
• Act fast to capitalize on this buzz!

This buzz is still happening as I write this, so only time will tell when the effects of a promotion on a show like GMA will die down, but so far it has been an exciting ride – a little taste of PPC Heaven and Hell.

For a good 72 hours we had a combination of quadrupling conversions (Heaven), and sleepless nights as dropping everything to ensure no stone was left uncovered to capitalize on this once in lifetime Buzz was essential (Hell).

If our client did not communicate with us and give us the flexibility to increase budgets, change ads, look for new keywords and content opportunities, and if we in turn did not act quickly, we would not have been able to fully capitalize on this incredible PR.

If you said site B you’d be wrong. Even though the stats KILL site A it is just not the case that the best content always wins out.

How can Suite 101’s page on red wine (Page A), that is a general site with no theme, outrank Winelibrary’s Video on California Pinot Noir (Page B) on a search for California pinot noir??

Because content is NOT king, maybe someday it will be, but right now, that is NOT the case!

What kind of sparked this research was simple, I was following Jason Calacanis’ twitter feed (yes I am addicted to twitter now, see me here) when he praised this video of Gary Vaynerchuk.

Right off the bat, I like Gary. I met him briefly at Affiliate Summit in Vegas but really got a dose of his personality in this video (I have NEVER heard of Winelibrary TV but now I am hooked).

If you watch the video, I LOVE everything he is saying but then… I hear this at 2 minutes 15 seconds: “don’t worry about your SEO rank or how to title your blog posts”, What!!!!!!!!! (Disclaimer: this comment is about 2% of the whole video, I know I am focusing on a small part. The other 98% is awesome.)

Don’t obsess, yes, but don’t worry at all?! I think that is bad advice.

A search for “content is king” on Google showed me this:

In this video where Matt Cutts himself recommends that webmasters think about what users are going to type to find their content. He even recommends getting those keywords into the site. Optimization is NOT bad.

But the search engines are just not smart enough “yet” to make sure that the best content always wins out, and we’re not talking about #1. There can always be more than just 1 site with great content on a topic and there can only be one #1!. I get that.

What I’m talking about top 10, top 20 where so often lower quality sites can creep in. Often times replacing great content sites who have chosen not to optimize and stick to a “content is king” philosophy, where basic best practices are not followed.

Not following best practices as it relates to SEO leads to:

• Poorer results for users all over the web
• Allows lower quality sites to outrank you and pollute the web

Lets give an example of how far the search engines still have to go to determine relevancy:

Have you ever searched for a plural versus a singular and saw the difference in the SERPS? Here’s an example, check out a search for nursing college and nursing colleges.

There is a wide disparity, and I can’t image that Google really believes that Ohio-state.edu should be the second most relevant result for “nursing college” and not worth being in the top 100 for the word “nursing colleges” (as of my search) what if we complicate things by searching for “nursing university”?

With that said, search engines definitely still have a ways to go, and while they are not perfect they NEED a boost now, they need a little help, and honestly I think that that is what good SEO does.

Here’s a step by step example of WHY people with great content who are NOT doing SEO basics, like how to title your blog posts are hurting and not helping! I’ll use Winelibrary.com as an example:

When I type in “red wine” I get this:

• A relevant about.com page (they do SEO basics)
• 2 sites about health
• A Wikipedia page (of course)
• And redwine audio’s site

No wine library in the Top 100! I think they deserve to be somewhere in the top 100, don’t you?!!!

I can’t tell you the countless times I have used search engines to help me find a good bottle of cheap wine while out at the wine store or before I head out for dinner and I NEVER saw Gary’s site. Why are you holding out on me bro?

OK, MAYBE this is not a term that winelibrary should rank well for. So, I did a search for “wine reviews” – This seems to be LOCK STEP with the idea of the show. I love Gary for not being a freaking wine snob, I hate those guys too!

Do a search for “wine reviews” or “wine reviews online” on Google or Yahoo, and they will not show Winelibrary.com and I think that is a BAD thing for wine enthusiasts and people who want to learn about wines. I honestly feel that if Winelibrary.com were to rank well for these terms that it would help wine enthusiasts all over the world.

At this point, forget the business equation of:
higher rank = more traffic & more traffic = more business for winelibrary.com (which is not part of the 80/20 principle Gary mentions)
And forget the ego boost:
higher rank = more visibility & more visibility = more notoriety (also not 80/20)

I kind of imagined a Gary & Matt (Cutts) Conversation going something like this:

I could see the conversation between Gary & Matt Cutts right now:
Matt: I love wine man, your site is great!
Gary: Thanks man, its all about just being real about the wine and the Jets bro, glad I could help, You a wine guy?
Matt: A bit
Gary: What kind of wines you like?
Matt: Well I love pinot noir, but the other day I wanted a great California pinot noir and did a search and found this site:
Some pretty BLAH content, I noticed that you had this video & this video, good stuff.
Do me a favor man, please put the title of the video in your title tag and post a transcript so me and millions of others find your stuff instead of suite 101 and a stale about.com page.
Gary: We don’t need no stinking titles, just good content man! Content is KING, didn’t you see my gigaOM video?
Matt: Well man, you know I do have to take some time out of my schedule to chill with my wife and play with the cat! We’re working on it but for now, just a few best practices will make sure I get better wines after a long day fighting spammers, not to mention you’d actually push the crap further down by helping your stuff move up.
Gary: Content is King man, I don’t need to optimize, that’s SEO stuff!
Matt: Darn, oh well, let me go talk to these 400 spammers who are going to tell me they did nothing wrong, but in the meantime, make my job a bit easier and optimize just a little bit, k?
Gary: Yeah, Go J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets!

Comedic Interlude Over:

Seriously, by not optimizing your site with just basic best practices you are allowing:
Thin affiliate’s, scrapers, and low authority sites to get information (possibly poor information) out to wine lovers & possibly giving them a bad experience with wine.

To his defense Gary didn’t crap on SEO but in passing he briefly mentioned not to worry about putting the right keywords in and let content win out.

So I quickly wanted to respond by saying, I think this new approach to saying hey I am not going to optimize my site and you shouldn’t either can lead to a bad user experience when searching for things on the web.

I also look at the best buys section of wine library (cause I am always looking for a good cheap wine) and notice some good stuff there too, yet because the site isn’t following basic best practices it is not ranking well.

Gary, while I don’t like the Jets, (Go EAGLES) here are some tips to help you sell more wine to help you buy the Jets maybe a day or two earlier:
I would take the best buys section and first do some keyword research to see how people search for lower cost wines, starting with Google Suggest:

Then a little Yahoo Search Assist:

This exercise took me about 3 minutes
Winelibrary.com already has a page that has great wines called “best buys”
When looking at the admittedly quick research it seems that people search for wines under $10, $15 and $20 dollars. Winelibrary already has a page that has wines under $20, could you also develop one for $10 and $15? Because the research shows that there are people out there searching for wines at these prices and you have credibility in helping people select wines, you would be HELPING them.
Heck, maybe you could do a video on wines under these price points. Given the way the economy is, we don’t want to stop drinking great wines, but we may have less money, and I’d listen to your opinions.

If not for growing your business, how about for actually helping people on the Internet find good wines under these price points from a GREAT source, which you are. Remember your 80/20 rule, help me, and many others find great wines, you guys are a credible source, with yes, GREAT CONTENT, even if it needs a little boost to make it findable.

If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for us, the wine loving public!