It is hard to know how difficult achieving rankings with a new search engine optimization project will be because so many factors play into it and Google is always adjusting its algorithm. By understanding search engines you can help clients understand how difficult an SEO’s job is at times.

So how does Google’s algorithm work?

The Anatomy of a Search Engine:

This is a basic breakdown of a much more complex process.

• A URL Server sends over lists of URLs to be crawled.
• The crawlers download the web pages then send them to the store server. The store server compresses and stores the web pages.
• Every web page is given an associated ID number called a docID then sent to the indexer.
• The indexing function is performed by the indexer and the sorter.
• All of the documents (webpages) are converted into a set of word occurrences called hits. Each hit records the word, position in document and other variables.
• The indexer sends these hits into a set of “buckets”, creating a partial index.
• The indexer separates out all of the links in every web page and keeps important information about them in another file. This file contains information about where each link points from and to, and the text of the link.
• The links database is used to compute PageRanks for all the documents. The sorter takes the barrels, which are sorted by docID…., and resorts them by wordID to generate the inverted index…… The searcher is run by a web server and uses the inverted index and the PageRanks to answer queries.

A much more in depth process of this can be found at - http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

In laymen’s terms this is what it happens:

Say someone is looking for information about blu ray players. Google takes the billions of documents on the web and converts them into wordID’s. Then it looks for instances or patterns of the wordID’s across all of the documents and ranks the documents based on how often the wordID’s appear. For example,

Blu ray player

Based off of the table above you can see that document 134 shows up in every document making it the most relevant and thus potentially ranking very high in the search results. Google has to sort through millions of documents on the web that could be talking about Ray-Ban glasses that are blue, blue ray jackets, Tampa Devil Rays jerseys that are blue, Devil Ray players, Blue Apple players and so on. In addition to looking for wordID’s, links and other on-pages factors are taken into consideration when trying to rank a site. This gets very complex really quick.

Key Takeaway: Google has to create an “association” or see that your site is relevant for a given keyword out of billions of documents. That association could take months if not years to create and it becomes even more difficult to create as you move closer to the top 10 results. *We know Google has around 200 ranking factors so it would be a good idea for a client to implement as many on-page elements as possible, to send a clear message to Google as to what the page is about, since on-page elements tend to be easier to control then the link building aspect.

Knowing the basic process is good but how much information does Google have to sort through in order to find the most relevant webpage for a search query?

What Does It Take To Get a List of Results?

• More than 1 million computing hours have gone into preparing Google’s index
• More than 1 billion searches are performed on Google every day
• More than 1,000 man years have been spent on developing Google’s algorithm
• Google’s Caffeine index contains over 100 million gigabytes
• In July of 2008 Google processed 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs. What does that equate to: That is the equivalent of, “fully exploring every intersection of every road in the United States. Except it’d be a map about 50,000 times as big as the U.S., with 50,000 times as many roads and intersections.” Google computes this every day.
• Google’s database of indexed pages is 5 million terabytes – A stack of DVDs holding Google’s index would be as tall as 3,192 Empire State buildings.

This is the task of an SEO, to try and help Google effectively sort through all of the web pages and then to help a client rank for a certain search query. This is why it takes time to potentially rank for a given keyword. As SEO’s optimize pages and build links Google is sorting through the tremendous amounts of data every day in order to better understand which pages should rank in the top positions.

As you can see a lot of time and energy has been spent by Google in order to bring back relevant results to users. It does not stop there. Since new web pages are being created daily, Google has to keep up with all of this new information. Because of that Google and other search engines need to be efficient and effective in how they manage all of this information.

Google is Always Changing

Even if a client has everything in place and is able to get to the first page of the search results, Google is always changing and tweaking its algorithm so it is an uphill battle.

Google made over 500 changes to their algorithm last year and Matt Cutts has stated,

“Overall, our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites……This change is just one of the over 500improvements we expect to roll out to search this year.”

The news came on January 19th when Google announced another algorithm change.

While the majority of these changes are small, a number of big changes took place last year that affected nearly 50% of all search queries.

For an up to date timeline of Google’s changes over the years check out SEOmoz.org. Since Google is always changing the way they rank sites it makes an SEO’s job that much more difficult. Keeping up to date on the latest changes and industry news is never ending for an SEO.

Obviously there are many more factors to consider when getting into an SEO campaign but I have found that helping clients recognize how much work it takes to get sites to rank can improve the overall relationship in a positive way.

Stats above can be found at:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/underthehood.html

http://adam-thompson.me/2011/02/03/google-how-big/

Content Marketing

Content marketing is not just about words, it’s about anything and everything that conveys a message to your customer. This includes images, videos, other rich media, and obviously the actual words on your website. Because of Pinterest’s appeal to aesthetics, it is now necessary for websites to seriously consider the images they use. This means stock photography is a thing of the past.

An Example

An important thing to remember about Pinterest is that images are the “hook” to your content. For example, say you have a great recipe for rice pilaf and you have just blogged about it on your food blog. Then a subscriber of yours sees it, and thinks the recipe is rice-tastic and then proceeds to Facebook it, Tweet it and Pin it. But let’s also say that you only included one image with your recipe and it’s a stock photo you found on Google images that’s pixilated and grainy. Well, when your awesome subscriber goes to pin this wonderful recipe and hits their “Pin It” bookmark (to be discussed later), the only image they can pin, to share your recipe, is the pixilated and grainy stock photo. Now, at first you may not see a huge problem with this. Well friends, here’s the issue… take a look at this example of the Food and Drink Pinterest feed.

Look how pretty! You’re pixilated grainy image will get lost in all the amazingness of other, good quality images. You won’t get any repins, or more importantly visits, because your photo doesn’t look appetizing compared to all of these great food shots. This is why images are now crucial to your content strategy.

Pinterest Share Tools

The “Pin It” Bookmark

The “Pin It” bookmark is something Pinterest has developed to make pinning new content easy. You install it by dragging and dropping it to your bookmark tool bar on your browser.

When you want to pin something you see on a page (lets continue with the recipe motif since I love food and I love to cook), you click the “Pin It” bookmark and it gives you options of images it found on the page for you to pin. For example, if I find this delectable recipe for garlic cheese rolls on RaptorToe.com and want to pin it, this is what I see:

Then I hit the “Pin It” bookmark, it gives me several image options based on how many image files were found on the particular page.

I can choose what image I want to pin, then add a description, and choose which board I want to pin it to. From there I can share it to other social networks if I wish.

Give pinners only GREAT options for images.

“Pin It” Share Button

You don’t want to leave it up to chance that pinners will choose the best image that conveys your content. Good news! You can install the Pinterest share button on every post/page of your site to give YOU more control of how your content is shared. You can specify the description to keep messaging consistent and in-brand along with specifying the image shared. Pinterest also provides an advanced code for multiple Pin buttons per page (used mainly for Ecommerce websites). How great are they?!

Pinterest “Follow Button”

If you have created a company or brand profile (if you haven’t already, you should) you can add a follow button to your website. This way, users can keep up with YOUR pins on Pinterest.

Consider This

Here are a few things to consider when implementing images:

• WHY are you using the image? Are you using an image just because? Does it have a purpose?
• What is the message you’re trying to convey and what message does it support?
• Can the image “stand alone”? Can the image convey the message by itself?
• Is the image compelling enough to draw a click?

Because Pinterest is like crack for ADD-ers, you probably have about .05 seconds to catch the eye of a Pinner. Asking all the above questions will help focus your images so Pinners will be anxious to share your content.

Search Engine Optimization

It’s well known that social media is playing a big role in Google’s ranking factors. Pinterest is now the next big social thing, and brands need to jump on the bandwagon if they are doing SEO.

Pinterest SEO Benefit

Yes, there is SEO benefit.

Pinterest recently updated their look and functionality so some of the SEO benefit has been lost. Previously with every pin, your website received one branded, do-follow, anchor text link. This is no longer that case. You now get one no-follow, image link. Some might argue the benefit is lost. I say, along with others, a link is a link is a link. You want your back link portfolio to look natural, what’s more natural than image links? And guess what, Pinterest links don’t go away.

Tracking Pinterest

One great thing about Pinterest is that is drives traffic. With most analytics packages it tracks under referral traffic. If you use Google Analytics, like me, it’s pretty simple to gather information.

To find referral traffic in GA (Google Analytics):

• Go to the left sidebar navigation. Click “Traffic Sources,” “Sources” and then “Referrals.”
• This will give you a list of all the sites that drive traffic to your website. In that list you will find “Pinterest.com” if you are receiving traffic from pins.
• Click “Pinterest.com” in the list, it will pull open the list of all the individual pins that send visitors. If you have goals or ecommerce tracking set up, you can then see which pins actually drove leads and sales. Very cool.

Affiliate Marketing

How Pinterest Makes Its Money

It has recently come to light that Pinterest has been attaching their affiliate code to URL’s when a pinner clicks through to a website. They have been using a program call Skimlinks to achieve this. According to Adrianne Jefferies’s blog post, Skimlinks crawls through all Pinterest links and checks if the URL points to a merchant store with an affiliate program (like Amazon). When they find one, the program automatically changes the URL to include the Pinterest affiliate code.

The Controversy

The controversy has been over Pinterest’s neglect in disclosing their affiliate program. I personally don’t take offense, and honestly don’t care. But I can see how not being forthcoming can rub some the wrong way. Those that are most perturbed are other affiliate marketers that have been making money off Pinterest by tagging URL’s with their code.

So for those of you who already have or are planning on implementing an affiliate program, Pinterest beat you to the punch.

To Wrap It Up

Pinterest appeals to a very specific demographic, and that requires change in your current online strategies. Don’t miss the boat on this, Pinterest is sticking around. Part 3 of the series will address branding, and how Pinterest can benefit your brand.

And in case you missed the first post, take a look at Pinterest… What Is The Big Deal? – Part 1

And so begins our three-part series discussing Pinterest basics, along with how a company can use it to build its brand and reap SEO and social media marketing benefits.

The Basic Definition

So let’s get down to the basics: Pinterest is a social media platform that allows users to share and collect pictures and videos which link back to the original source whether it’s a corporate site or a blog. If you want to join Pinterest you have to either request an invite or be invited by a friend alreadyon the network. One of the benefits of Pinterest is that it is that easy. And once you join, it becomes addicting as you see what your friends are pinning, get ideas for projects or find the next meal you want to cook.

Basic Vocabulary

Pins: A pin is the Pinterest word for a post. You can pin images shared by other users (repin) or you can pin an image from an external site (pin) by installing the Pinterest bookmarklet on your browser. You can also share your pin on Facebook and Twitter. This is an example of a pin:

Boards: Users pin images to boards that are organized into various categories. This can range from ‘Fashion’ to ‘History’ to ‘Home Décor.’

You can also add contributors to your boards, meaning you can allow other people to pin or repin items to your boards. If you are planning a party with other people and you want a place to share ideas a board would be a perfect place for that. Here are some examples of boards:

Likes: Without pinning an image, users can share their opinion by ‘liking’ an image or video they see.

Comments: Users can leave comments on images or videos others have pinned

Following: Pinterest, like Twitter, allows for users to follow one another, whether they are immediate friends, aesthetic contributors or Pinterest mavens. When following, the user is also given the choice to follow all pin boards or to follow a select few.

Followers: These are the people that are following your personal boards and recieve updates in their feed when you pin or repin an image or video.

Feed: As users login into Pinterest, they can see a live feed of images being pinned and repinned . Users can choose to see a feed showing everything being pinned, choose specific categories, or just see the people they are following.

A newer feature on Pinterest is now you can allow your feed to go on your Facebook Timeline.

What’s The Big Deal?

There have been countless articles and blog posts written recently about Pinterest because the number of users has sky-rocketed. The audience is mostly women right now, but is always expanding. Businesses are realizing the potential this platform has for branding or search engine optimization (SEO).

The next post in our series will go into depth on how this growing trend can be beneficial to branding and should be a part of content strategy.

It was late on a Friday night. My wife and I had been busy all day and all night. Now it was nearly 10:00pm, and we had not had dinner. I called into a favorite local place for takeout. We were both starving and were excited to have a late dinner date at home together.

When I got back home and opened up my meal (chicken), I found an incredibly small amount of chicken. I was very disappointed. In my opinion, I would have gotten more chicken in a kid’s meal from McDonalds.

The Thing This Business Did Right (Social Media Marketing)

When I was picking up the meals, I had to wait a few minutes for them to finish it up. While waiting, I noticed something on their counter, by the registers. They were promoting the fact that they were “now on Facebook,” and asking for people to come and like them on Facebook so that they could be notified of Facebook-only specials.

This was a great way to help people become aware that they were now on Facebook, and gave their customers incentive to like and follow them. To learn more best practices, see this post about best social media practices for 2012.

My Social Media Action

In my disappointment that night, remembering that they were now on Facebook, I snapped a picture of my disappointing meal, “liked” them on Facebook (it killed me to do that, but I had to), and then posted my picture on their wall, explaining my displeasure.

Their Social Media Reaction (Social Media Marketing Mistake)

I got up the next morning anxious to see if they had replied. What I found was not a reply from them, not a direct Facebook message, but that my post had been deleted from their wall! “Are you kidding me!!” I said out loud (and by out loud I mean LOUD). I am pretty sure that I startled my wife who was not completely awake yet.

My Social Media Reaction to their Reaction

Needless to say, I was not happy about them removing my post. I emphatically and rather quickly, reposted the picture with my displeasure of the portion size and then made a comment asking them to “please not remove my post” from their wall.

Their Reaction to my Social Media Tirade

It did not take them but 1-2 hours before they found my post and removed it once again. They still did not contact me privately either. No apologies, no trying to make things right and no explanation. They simply removed my post once again.

Now the Gloves were Off

Now in all fairness to them, they had no idea I knew anything about social media. However, that shouldn’t matter. The fact is there are going to be unhappy customers and you need to address them in your social media channels as well as converse with those that are happy. It could have been a simple apology, and a message along the lines of “we will contact you to resolve this.” Then everything after that could have been behind “closed doors” as it were; but that’s not what they did.

I was more than just an unhappy customer at this point, I was angry. Instead of reposting on their Facebook wall where they would likely take it down yet again, I simply went looking for online review sites to leave negative reviews for them and to tell of my experience with their “customer service”.

Lessons You Should Learn from This

• Your social media properties are an extension of your customer service. DO NOT IGNORE your customer’s complaints on these properties.
• Engagement is key to success with social media, with both good and bad experiences. Here are some interesting facts on small business and social media marketing.
• With unhappy customers, address them quickly on the “public” forum in which they posted and the contact them to handle it “behind closed doors.” If you handle it right, you will not only have a customer for life, you will have an advocate telling everyone about how professionally they handled your complaint. For the record, I have also had this experience as a customer, and I am an advocate for that business now because of the way they handled my experience.
• Addressing bad experiences professionally and promptly with social media is a great way to advertise your commitment to a high level of customer service. Every company gets complaints, so don’t feel like you have to hide anything.
• Like it or not, customers have a power over your business that they have always had – wait, did I say “that they have always had’? Yes, I did! Word of mouth has always an incredibly powerful factor in hurting (or helping) businesses. The difference is you have a chance to be part of that conversation now.
• Some customers will be angry enough to leave negative reviews on review sites, such as Yelp, Google Maps, or Foursquare, when you ignore their outburst on the internet.

If you’ve seen any similar examples of bad social media, share your experiences of social media marketing mistakes in the comments below and start a discussion on what could have been improved.

It can be difficult to track the exact position of keywords in Google since a number of things can affect the outcome. Personalized search, local results, and different data centers can all dramatically influence the rankings you see. Google’s algorithm changes more than 200 times a year, so rankings also fluctuate from week to week or day to day. Overall, you should be looking for trends in your rankings.

With that in mind there are numerous tools that can help you track rankings. One way to track rankings is to use filters within Google Analytics. More information about this is available on Yoast’s blog.

This information can also be gathered through Google Webmaster Tools. In your Webmaster tools click on “Your Site on the Web” and then on “Search Queries.”  This will give you the average position on Google for your site for a given term.

Paid options also exist that allow you to track very specific terms.  Rank Tracker is a paid option that automatically checks your search engine rankings and shows you if your site has moved up or down in the search results.  It can also help you discover profitable keywords you may not have considered on your own.

The SEO Moz tool is another good option that will track rankings from Google, Bing and Yahoo in any country.  This tool pulls rankings automatically and provides some nice charts to show progress.

Authority Labs in another paid tool that provides fully automated reports, allowing you to track local results, international keywords, and a large volume of keywords.

Advanced Web Ranking and Rank Checker are additional services that can be useful for tracking web rankings.

There are a lot of good ways to track search engine rankings.  If you have additional SEO services or tools that you like to use for tracking rankings, feel free to leave a comment.

Here are the details.

MySEOCommunity.com is a new global social & search community, and they are celebrating the launch of their new site. SEO.com is thrilled to be one of the contest sponsors!

If you are interested in participating, head over to the MySEOCommunity.com contest page for all the official details. There are a bunch of other great non-cash prizes as well, making all the prizes add up to over $2,000. Can you say Booya?

So what are you waiting for Dr. Ivannablog? (Insert mad scientist geeky giggle here) Enter the contest today as the contest ends on March 5th, 2012. The sooner you enter, the more time you will have to promote your post, and get more attention, and possibly earn that $1000 Grand Prize!

Good luck from all of us at SEO.com

A link farm is a website with a high number of links to different websites with no relevance or category logic, grouping, organization, or relevance to the domain name.

If you land on a site and there are hundreds of links all over with many unrelated topics, you’ve probably landed on a link farm. Link farms ARE spam and will be considered as such by Search Engines. The key purpose of link farms are to easily and illegitimately send signals to search engines to assist in ranking.

A few important things to keep in mind when it comes to link farms:

1. If you’re using link farms in any way for your SEO, STOP! It will not serve your clients end goal to rank well and long.
2. If you take a client on or have a website where you find your website has somehow been included in a link farm take corrective action to be removed.
3. And most of all, remember that SEO is ALL ABOUT RELEVANCE. Links farms are the exact opposite of obtaining the correct relevance signals to rank organically. The best and most legitimate way to build an quality SEO marketing campaign is through legitimate digital marketing initiatives like guest blogging, public relations, high level directory link building, internal blogging and user generated content, social media and keeping your business at the forefront of news and minds so that natural links are acquired.

It’s important to do everything you can to diversify your link portfolio and make your links appear as natural as possible. This means having different types of relevant links coming from various different domains and IP addresses.

Online public relations and search engine optimization tread common waters. While each discipline and its methods may differ, they both build organizations (and websites) through relevant and quality content. Some companies feel torn choosing between the two, but they fail to understand the interconnected impact of utilizing both search marketing and online PR. Because SEO is about optimizing your entire web presence, it inherently includes things like social media and PR. In fact, it seems these two disciplines actually have room for a relationship of synergy.

PR Scratches SEO’s Back

Most people recognize that SEO is more than just on-site optimization, meaning that off-site optimization is increasingly more important. Part of off-site optimization means creating quality content that people want to share. Building authority for a website includes links from articles, blogs, news, and more. At this point online public relations is beneficial in an SEO campaign because it helps attract quality links to build site credibility.

The role of public relations in an SEO campaign is growing in significance. On the surface, online PR means understanding the client, knowing their industry, and creating an image using content that reaches the target market. By reaching the target and providing value, the role PR plays is significant for building your brand. Bringing it back to SEO, there is no point in generating content if people are not interested. Through the use of online PR, content can be SEO-friendly, relevant, and help solidify an online presence because it ensures people are interested.

The Benefits of Bonding

SEO relies on quality content to be picked up and distributed, and PR can successfully swoop in to help. Consider Google’s organic search algorithm. Google continually tweaks the algorithm, and while most of these improvements don’t always impact your online presence, there were three pretty substantial changes in the last year that had a profound effect on positioning.

1. Panda Updates (reducing content farms)
2. Freshness Updates (ensuring content is relevant)
3. Social Signals (gauging social media marketing interactions)

Creating quality, relevant content that fits most search engine’s criteria and SEO purposes can include a press release. The content of a press release should reflect the keyword research for the SEO campaign to broaden the scope of links. From the search engine’s perspective, an online press release contains:

1. Trusted backlinks (Panda Updates)
2. Timely content (Freshness Updates)
3. “Sharing” icons (Potential Social Signals)

Clearly, the cooperation of online PR and SEO can be beneficial for a brand.

The PR and SEO Cocktail

Creating a cohesive strategy utilizing PR and SEO can be brilliant because the integration maximizes reach. By implementing keywords in a press release, SEO advantages continue. Interesting online stories and releases spread fast and easily, and by being SEO optimized, they have extra mileage. Even after a story or event is over, the content can continually generate traffic and interest months afterward. Better yet, the interested audience may also include journalists who want to publish your story or feature your release on their site, creating a bigger brand buzz. Additionally, the links a story creates not only generate traffic, but they help boost rankings as well.

In order to get the best return from publicity and positioning efforts online, these two disciplines can successfully integrate to generate interest, build authority, and cover more ground. An SEO strategy is the key to improving your overall web presence, and PR sparks intrigue and assists with organic rankings by producing fresh content. If you’re interested in learning more about the collaboration of online PR and SEO, SEO.com is hosting a How to Optimize Your Press Release webinar on February 23.

Client Spotlight: Aquarium supply company becomes an industry asset

Many people connect the stunning display of a saltwater aquarium with high-end hotels and dental offices, and few ever think they can afford one. However, there are opportunities to experience this luxury for less because building your own aquarium is possible and affordable.

Bulk Reef Supply is an online retailer of affordable saltwater aquarium supplies. Back in 2007, owners Andrew Duneman and Ryan Batcheller recognized that typical pet stores lack helpful resources that educate people about owning a saltwater aquarium. With opportunity in mind, they started Bulk Reef Supply. The company not only sells all the products you need to build a complete aquarium but also provides helpful videos on how to build and maintain them. They shine in the industry as an educational tool and vendor for anyone curious about owning a saltwater aquarium.

For those interested in saltwater aquariums, knowing where to start and how much money and time to invest is difficult to figure out. Likewise, many customers worry about managing and maintaining their aquarium, especially while on vacation.

“We want people to know that this isn’t as hard as they think,” said Richard Mast, director of marketing for Bulk Reef Supply. “We offer educational videos and we have customer service representatives with aquarium experience. We are trying to be the one source for any and all questions.”

The company really sets out to be the most responsive in the industry. With their vast variety of products and supplies, customers know their questions will be expertly answered in a timely fashion.

To take it a step further and truly help educate sea life enthusiasts, Bulk Reef Supply will launch a new interactive website within the year that includes a video explanation of many of the products found on the site. Eventually, people will be able to surf the site and learn what they need to know for their aquarium adventures including how to start a saltwater aquarium.

“Five years ago we wanted to be a resource, and today we remain a reliable resource. We separate ourselves from other companies because we take it to the next level,” Mast said.

Bulk Reef Supply is an excellent place for the novice, but the company can also provide experts with precisely what they need to keep their aquarium looking amazing.

Tips and Tricks: A clean surfing experience increases conversion

Consumers today are practically buried under an avalanche of product choices, and as the number of competitors begging for attention increases, so does the anxiety consumers feel. The best way to alleviate that anxiety is by simplifying your site. A clean surfing experience helps provide consumers with much needed assurance throughout the conversion process. Because you have mere seconds to engage a customer, the significance of a good design and easy checkout process cannot be overstated. Here are some areas you should consider adjusting to improve your site.

Limit content so you don’t distract from your call to action.

Too much text on a homepage can overwhelm, confuse, or bore the customer. If you clutter your homepage with content, they may leave the site without exploring any additional pages. To keep it clean, your homepage should directly lead your customer to what you want them to do. For example, if you’re selling clothing, make the apparel the focus of the page and provide easy to find “buy now” buttons.

Keep content clear and concise.

Being creative for creativities sake with your content can lose readership and sales. You want your content to be engaging, however, it shouldn’t be overly clever or confusing and you should avoid using industry jargon. To be honest, it never hurts to go back to the basics, so make sure your content addresses who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Make sure your call to action is noticeable.

Decide where you want people to look first on your site. If your call to action involves clicking a button, make the button big with contrasting colors to draw in more attention. Although the feel of your site needs to be clean and simple, the call to action must be bold and obvious.

Search marketing can only do so much to help increase your conversion rate. Once consumers click on your site, the site should seal the sale and an effortless surfing experience is critical for conversion.

Industry events

Online Marketing Summit: San Diego; Feb. 6-10, 2012

Search Engine Strategies Search & Social Accelerator Conference: San Diego; Feb. 9, 2012

PubCon: Honolulu; Feb. 13-15, 2012

SearchFest: Portland; Feb. 24, 2012

Search Marketing Expo West: San Jose; Feb. 28 to March 1, 2012

SEO.com events

Webinar: Tips to Improve Your Local Marketing — Feb. 9 at 11 a.m. MST

Webinar: How to Optimize Your Press Release — Feb. 23 at 11 a.m. MST

SEO Director

A director may be one of the most important hiring decisions as far as online marketing personnel goes.  A talented SEO director can make or break an SEO strategy.  This individual is ultimately responsible for measuring and growing online marketing metrics.  Finding someone who has vision and is well-rounded is critical.  Look for a director who has experience in research, analytics and actually reports on metrics.  Experience writing and implementing SEO strategy along with other online verticals such as conversion optimization, paid search and lead generation are just a few skills you want to add to your check list.

SEO Specialist

A search engine optimization specialist is going to be your Director’s right-hand man.  Look for someone with a history in quality link building.  A good SEO specialist will have examples of past work success and will be able to give guidance when building a solid link building portfolio.  Someone with experience in customer relations or engaging in customer interaction will be important, especially in today’s online environment where social media is large part of any successful online marketing strategy.

Link Builder

A good link builder is worth their weight in gold.  Anyone can find links to sites with low page rank or domain authority.  A solid link builder will understand quality link building and how to build a link portfolio that looks natural to the search engines.  They should not be satisfied with just link building but link maintenance as well so that overall link quantity continues to rise year after year.  It is important to find someone with networking skills that will build relationships which will convert into .edu, .gov and other high value links.

Content and Copywriter

We have all heard that “content is king”.  While this remains true, that content must be unique and engaging.  Consumers are demanding a better surfing experience and the search engines are continuously updating their algorithms to look for content that is truly written around what searchers want to see.  A good copywriter can write onsite content, informative press releases, occasional industry blogging, and engage in social media updates.  Each of these tactics will only become more important as your online presence grows.  Critical skills also include someone is who is great at research, and can write quickly while remaining articulate and creative.

Outsourcing

As a final part of your SEO team consider hiring experts in the respective field.  Having someone analyze your strategy and link portfolio with fresh eyes, one who knows what to look for, will give you an advantage over your competition.  Keep in mind that there are many options for SEO agencies and consultants.  Look for an agency, like SEO.com, that rank for related search terms in the SEO industry, can provide good case studies of past successes, and can map how they are going to show you success metrics for your campaign.  An agency will typically have all of the above resources at your disposal, as well as tools and the capability to efficiently build links to your site that would otherwise be outside of your reach.

Be Honest – Is Your Business Worth Talking About?

In the last six months, did your business create anything that caused people to turn their heads and take notice? I mean a product, a piece of content, a video series, a service, or anything else at all? If you can’t honestly answer yes, then why would anybody want to link to you? Duke Cannon is a perfect (but crass) example of a company that gets this, and boy are they getting links for it. Forgive me for getting so basic, but we have to get this out of the way. Natural links go to businesses that are making people talk. Do that.

Ok, that’s out of the way.

Go Find The People Talking About You

Assuming you create some kind of buzz with your products or content, you’ll come across people talking about you. If you’re big, invest in social media monitoring like Trackur to see what they’re saying and where they’re saying it. If you’re just getting going, set up a few Google Alerts around your brand name and keywords. Stay on top of what they’re saying because you might want to reach out to one of them (I’ll give you a good example of how to do this in a minute). And also, you should be where they are. If people talk about you on Twitter, you need to be there too.

Contact Those People

When you come across that glowing review of your new product, promptly contact the author. Tell them you’re grateful they wrote the review, and be generous with your praise. They may have even linked to you in their review, but if not, find a nice way to ask them to. They already love what you do, so they’ll probably support you if you tell them how much a link would help you.