© 2009 Didit

Search Engine MarketingOnline Marketing Summit 2009

Kevin Lee, Chairman & CEO, Didit

© 2009 Didit

Didit transforms businesses through digital media technology and strategy in search engine marketing and targeted digital advertising.

Performance Trust Account (PTA): $25-100K guarantee.

We don’t do SEO, we have mastered auction media & run PowerProfiles.com a D&B partnership.

2007

2007 & 2008

© 2009 Didit

What do you want to learn?

I've taught classes in SEO / Paid Search that take 14 hours to complete. Some SEM conferences cover this topic in four days with four tracks.

Clearly we can get very specific or cover some of the more general best practices. That all depends on you.

What do you want to learn?

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Top PositionOrganic or Paid, top position is required for high volume search visitors and high visibility.

© 2009 Didit

SEO isn’t about ranking for dream keywords

Good search position can be a byproduct of good content development and a good search-engine-friendly site.• Standing start, DNB.PowerProfiles.com• Blogs• Content rich sites

SEO isn’t geeky, but having a good CMS written by geeks is critical.

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Branding and Search

SEMPO survey says branding is an objective.

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Branding and Search Yet brand lift was rarely a measured metric.

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Google measured brand lift 4-days later

Yet brand lift was rarely a measured metric.

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Branding and Metrics

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Brand Receptivity, the Psychic Postal CarrierSearch engine marketing is like direct marketing with a Psychic Mailman (postal carrier):

•Keywords are like mailing lists – scarce, valuable•Search listings or ads are like the envelope•Your web site … the material inside the envelope•Messages hit the searcher at the perfect time•The searcher is thirsty for info, leaning forward and open to information•Search fulfills the needs of searchers, and helps you accomplish your marketing goals

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Who is your SEM target audience?

Your target audience for your site and your SEM efforts may extend beyond the obvious:•Prospects•Customers •Channel partners / resellers•The Press and Analysts•Employees (who may use the web site as a resource) •Potential employeesConsider the needs and behaviors of all important constituents.

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Google, Yahoo, MSFT’s MissionThe search engines number one priority is relevance, particularly Google.

Keep your hand up if you truly believe that you are the most relevant of all possible results for your

Boss’ keywords?

There lies the SEO quandary. The search engines have a direct interest in making sure you are NOT at the top unless you belong there.

Can you give yourself a little edge when your competition does an inferior job at SEO, yes…

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SEO is not a gameOrganic search results appear based on a search engine spider (crawler or robot) visiting your site.

Alternatively, your site may be included in the results partially based on the fact that a human-run directory has listed your site.

It takes work on your part to make sure your site is “search engine friendly.” That is organic SEO.

If you belong in the results for a search, then getting there is an SEO challenge. If you don’t belong in the results no amount of energy can get you there permanently. The engines police against irrelevance and reward relevance.

© 2009 Didit

Defining Success in Organic SEO:Don’t go crazy trying to track and manage organic search position across specific keywords. Instead, get your great content as search engine friendly as possible. You’ll get more traffic and if your content is targeted so-too will be your traffic. High quality traffic drives:•Sales•Registrations and leads•Large number of pageviews (sticky visitors)•Longer time on site (minutes spent interacting and reading• Interaction with the site (commenting, blogging)

© 2009 Didit

SEO Success Depends On:A) How many other sites are seeking to get organic or paid traffic on a similar keyword set and content

B) How many sites have similar (or identical) content with better “reputations”

C) Magnitude of resources (human capital, PR and other capital) which those sites are putting into organic SEO

D) Your level of SEO investment and execution

E) Changes in the engine algorithms that favor one site type over another

F) Whether your supporter assets can be fully leveraged.

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How Hard Should You Fight?

Ironically, for organic SEO, the worse your site is now, the higher ROI you’ll get on SEO investments• Sites with poor SEO normally have some easy fixes• Larger sites have an advantage due to more content•Older orgs that are well known have a natural advantage• Value of a visitor will impact ROI of SEO• Competitiveness of sector will impact ROI. If you are only fighting three other orgs for high position on key industry terms or product terms, your job is easier•Do your constituency use search heavily when researching issues?

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If you are the most relevant and not there:Fix what’s wrong. What do search engine spiders do?

1. Find good content2. Identify that content and separate it from extraneous information

3. Grade the content for clarity4. Extract the essence of the content5. Assign the content a source reputation score

6. Understand the context of that content 7. Assign communities, explore interrelationships

8. Catalog the URL of the content9. Keep the content information fresh (re-spider)

© 2009 Didit

Google Webmaster Central

Most of what you need to know about SEO is available at Google’s Webmaster page:

How can I improve my site's ranking?Sites' positions in our search results are determined based on a

number of factors designed to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search results. These factors are explained in more detail at http://www.google.com/technology/

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. For more information about improving your site's visibility in the Google search results, we recommend reviewing our webmaster guidelines. They outline core concepts for maintaining a Google-friendly website.

© 2009 Didit

The Google Toolbar for SEO

SEO practitioners rely on more than just Google Webmaster Central. We love the Google Toolbar:

Toolbar Shows PageRank plus more useful SEO info:

Sites' Back-linksCache

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Readability of Content by Search EnginesSearch Engine spiders can’t see everything on your web site the way a human visitor to the site can. Search engines can only read/interpret text.

Text must be in spider-friendly readable formats:

1. HTML (file extension doesn’t matter), names of elements embedded in HTML + Alt Tags

2. PDFs (properly formatted)3. Word documents4. PowerPoint files5. text files / RTF files / CSV files8. a few other selected file types.

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Content Search Engines Can’t Read Files the search engines can’t read accurately:

1. images (only knows name and AltTag)2. graphics3. animations4. fancy Flash movies5. JavaScript DHTML Content6.dynamic content and media (AJAX, iFrames)

The search engine can’t even tell when you have a navigational element that is an image what that image actually looks like to the surfer.

© 2009 Didit

Back to Basics for optimal site-side SEO SEO is about going back to basics for textual content so that the engines get what they need.

•simple•compelling •Descriptive (both the body and the title tag)•clear•complete

Many old or simple websites do particularly well for SEO because the developers had to rely on text and copy. Think eBay, CraigsList, blogs.

© 2009 Didit

Inverted Pyramid Style for CopyHow many people have written a press release or a journalistic story?

Writing for publication in newspapers or magazines or for press releases uses a a concept called the inverted pyramid style. Start with the meatiest part of the story, even the story’s conclusion, and then support that conclusion or the essence of the story with more facts or emotional copy.

Each page of your site has a concept that describes that page, as well as how that page fits into your site. Keep that core concept in mind when writing the copy for the page.

© 2009 Didit

The Content Management System (CMS)

Many of you don’t have control over your CMS. You work with a web vendor and that’s what you get. Consider a blog like the free Wordpress software if you can’t make your CMS Spider Friendly.

No Javascript, Flash or pull-down form navigation unless mirrored in text

Navigational Breadcrumbs and Sitemap linksText link navigationGood URL formation - No Session IDs Unique Title Tags, Some Other Meta Control

© 2009 Didit

The Almighty Anchor tagSearch engine spiders have moved toward weighing external variables when determining relevance. The most important concepts to understand are.

Links from trusted, reputable sites will generally improve ranking (Yahoo, DMOZ.org)

An anchor link is one that includes the keyword or phrase as the underlined portion. Most engines consider the words or concepts in anchors when determining relevance.

It’s quantity but more importantly quality of links

© 2009 Didit

The Almighty Anchor Tag & LinksCommunities exist online for every industry or topic. Some search engines are weighing links between community sites as more relevant.

Do not buy into link farms. Build your links with online PR and leverage your network/eccosystem.• Bloggers• Suppliers• Distributors• Customers• PressReciprocal links between sites are rumored to be less effective or even ineffective.

© 2009 Didit

The Meta Tag you need, the Title Tag

There are several Meta Tags, most common are:•Meta Title•Meta Description•Meta KeywordsAll you really need are unique descriptive Title Tags for each page that take the user and the engine into account.•Remember if you rank the title should be interesting•Essence of the page•Should match the content on the page

© 2009 Didit

Reputation Management and SEO

Reputation management: You want as many positive / effective Google/Yahoo/MSFT listings for your name as possible. Typical vehicles are:

1.Blog Posts2.Job posting sites3.Sites that provide a custom URL:

1. Yelp2. MerchantCircle 3. DNB.PowerProfiles.com (contact me for

trial)

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The Value of Paid Clicks

1. More high quality traffic

2. Better Quality Score

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Genius?

Idiot?

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Pareto(80/20)

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Who are the audiences?

What do they respond to?

Are there audience members you don’t want?

Can you rescue a poorly performing segment?

Audiences, Not Clicks

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Geotargeting

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- Average conversion rate: 1.5%

- New York City conversion rate: 2.1%

→ You can bid over 25% more for NYC.

Geotargeting: Conversion Rate

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Geotargeting: higher spenders

New York shopping cart: $178

Average shopping cart: $122

→ you can bid more for NYC.

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Dayparting

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Demographic Targeting

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The POWER SEGMENT:the Perfect Storm

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Predicted Lead Quality

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Post-click behaviors

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Evaluation, analysis and testing

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Data-driven click modeling

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Predictive… orReactive

© 2009 Didit

Conclusion•Stay Educated on best practices•Make SEO best practices part of Standard Practices•Use the right vendors and technology.•Find the right mix of in house and outsourced

Copies of PPT? kevin@didit.com.