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ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • The JWTSC-SEO site will launch this week! An announcement email will be sent out when it's complete.
  • While our name accurately suggests our expertise in SEO, it's not all we do. We're also knowledgeable in Blogs and RSS. Look for our latest article on Blogging in an upcoming issue of the IHRIM Journal. Email Us for more information on how we can help you setup a Blog or RSS feed for your business.

SEARCH ENGINE STRATEGIES CONFERENCE 2005

Sean Mulholland, JWTSC

After attending the 2005 Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose I couldn’t help but notice how much the crowd has changed. I’ve been attending SES for several years – before search was ‘hot’ if you can imagine that – and in earlier years SES was comprised of mostly techie types looking for tips and tricks to optimize websites for organic rankings. Paid search was in some ways relegated to the back room, and topics such as linking, tags, keyword density, and the difficulties of optimizing dynamic websites filled the air.

In 2005 SES feels like a completely different crowd. Pale IT guys were still in attendance, but well dressed marketers made up much of the crowd. Not only were the attendees different, but the conference was too. The expo area was rife with ‘booth babes’ and ‘Win a free [insert trendy gadget here]’ contests. But the real difference was in the content. Now the tech side of SEO only got about 20% of the show, the rest was all marketing. It’s about time.

Search Engine Marketing is just that – marketing. All the technical wizardry of rankings, impressions, clicks, etc. all serves a greater goal, whether it be recruitment, product marketing, lead generation, etc. But now we’re starting to see more traditional marketing goals being applied to search. Marketers are using search as a means to a greater goal, i.e. to introduce or reinforce a brand to online users, optimize press releases for better placement on news search engines (40M+ readers), and management or repair of a brand or company image.

Emerging technologies such as Blogs and content syndication through RSS all had multiple sessions devoted to them at SES. How does this fit in with search? Well, there are Blog and RSS search engines, but the real reason they’re here is because SES has shifted from a purely techie conference to a marketing conference, but since the Blog and RSS side of online marketing is quite technical, it’s only natural that the same professionals working with search would pick up on this as well.

So what were the major takeaways of SES 2005?

Branding through Search Engine Marketing

It’s common knowledge that a well ranked site is seen as an authority on its topic, but now marketers are starting to see the value of putting their brand in front of the millions of eyeballs looking at search engines every day. New product introductions factor search into their marketing efforts, recruiters are starting to optimize their careers sites and post pay-per-click ads along with Monster and HotJobs listings, and established brands are optimizing their sites to increase their online presence.

Press Releases and PR

A recent Pew Research Center study shows that 44% of people surveyed check news online at least once a week. Sites such as Yahoo News and Google News are major news aggregators that reach over 30 million online news readers each month, but how do you make sure your PR is on top? Just like traditional PR firms pitched stories to editors, now we pitch stories to news search. What makes a good pitch? A well optimized release. A well optimized press release can put a story in front of millions of readers, and it also has tertiary benefits for regular SEO as well.

Blogs and Content Syndication

Like search, Blogs are hot. A post on a blog can spread like wildfire across the Internet, instantly evangelizing a new product or broadcasting the failure of another. Participating in this new frontier can yield great benefits to a marketer. Recruiters can help their company to befriend new talent and sell a positive company image. Marketers can use Blogs to participate in conversations with their customers to improve existing products and launch new ones.

With RSS content syndication, marketers are able to syndicate their content across the web. That means that by updating your RSS feed, all those subscribed to the feed will be updated as well. A recruiter with a jobs RSS feed can update his feed and it will automatically be syndicated to satellite sites and candidates who have subscribed to the feed. A marketer can update his feed with new products and get the same effect. Even better is that there are dozens of RSS aggregator search engines which will auto update their listings with your feed.

STUDENT BLOGS OFFER NEW RECRUITING TOOL

Robert Brumfield, Assistant Editor, eSchool News

In the never-ending drive to attract new students to their institutions, some college and university officials now look to student blogs as a fresh addition to the recruiter's toolbox.

A recent blog entry from Manan, a 20-year-old student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., details everything from a project for his technical writing class that he finds interesting . . .

"We have to design a pamphlet or an instruction manual on 'How to wash dishes?' It is ... meant for aliens who have just landed and have very little or no knowledge of what things is like on Earth."

... to his assessment of the campus social scene ...

"Before I came here ... everyone was complaining that the girl-to-boy ratio is very thin (1:8), but now that I am here ... I don't think it is that bad. There are some decent-looking girls on campus."

Manan, an aerospace engineering major, was chosen by Embry-Riddle to document his first year of classes in a blog made available to the general public through the university's web site. As part of the school's recruiting plan, he and seven other students were asked to post periodic journal entries representing student life.

Manan and many others like him are part of a rapidly growing trend in higher education. Recruiters, alumni associations, and other university departments are finding that student blogs offer a glimpse at college life largely unavailable through the down-to-business language typically employed by campus web sites to inform students and parents about classes offered in the fall semester--or the date by which textbooks must be returned to receive a full refund.

Given all the administrative functions a university's web site must fulfill, school marketers and other campus officials are realizing that prospective students have few ways to learn what it feels like to be a student at the institution. And that's where blogs can help, they say.

Kari Chisholm, a former recruiting consultant for Lewis and Clark College who is now president of a company that designs internet strategies for politicians, says universities are making use of blogs for a number of different purposes.

"The Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania is using its blog to communicate in a very in-depth way about procedural things: Round Two interviews, a snowstorm in Philadelphia," Chisholm said. "Often, these questions come up at different points in the calendar year, so providing the information in [a blog format] dramatically cuts down the number of phone calls [Wharton receives]."

According to Chisholm, the editorial range of these online endeavors runs the gamut from banal administrative content such as Wharton's blog, to Lewis and Clark's student blogs, which Chisholm said were not even edited for typos by his staff during his time at the school.

Chisholm said student blogs can function as valuable recruiting tools. But he also offered several caveats.

"We didn't just pick seven random students and hand them the keys to the kingdom. They had to be, first of all, good writers," Chisholm said. Writing samples were submitted to Lewis and Clark along with the applications to aid staffers in their decision-making process.

"Second, they had to be good kids," he said. "They were students referred to us by faculty [and other trusted university officials]. We picked the good ones, had the dean of students approve them, et cetera."

After the students were chosen, Chisholm said, his staff "put the fear of God into them."

"We reminded them that everyone they know--faculty, boyfriend or girlfriend, your mother, your RA, the rest of your family, too--is going to read it. Then we let them know that we're never going to take [the blogs] down," he said. "If you're doing tequila night, getting blitzed, we don't want to hear about it. And you don't [want to write about it,] either, because one day, when you're applying for a job, your boss is going to read about it."

Chisholm said that, in his three years overseeing the blogs at Lewis and Clark, he experienced no problems with content.

He added that the sense immediacy and authenticity that such a hands-off editorial practice brings to recruiters can be valuable.

Michael Stoner, whose consulting company, mStoner, develops web strategies for educational institutions and nonprofit organizations, said this type of editorial approach to dealing with student bloggers is good for several reasons.

"I do think that [making students aware of the permanence of their blogs on the university web site] is not only a responsible thing to do in terms of [preserving the institution's reputation], but I think it's responsible to help teach these kids about the consequences of communicating in this format," Stoner said.

"I know that there are people who contributed to newsgroups in the early nineties, who never imagining that someone would Google them in 2005," he said. "I think it's only responsible when dealing with a young person who is somewhat inexperienced in communicating through this medium to help [her or him] understand what some of the consequences are of communicating in a forum like this. In this case, it's also serving an institutional interest."

Wichita State University in Kansas has started its own student blog program this year, aimed at giving alumni a way to connect to the 21st-century students at WSU.

WSU modeled its program on one run for several years by the University of Missouri's alumni association. That UM model follows current students and has expanded to include blogs from recent graduates hunting for jobs as well as from students studying abroad.

WSU officials have specifically told their first three freshman bloggers that inappropriate materials will be edited out of their entries.

Connie Kachel White, director of communications for the alumni association at WSU, spoke about the institution's editorial policy.

"In my position here, I actually wear two different professional hats. One involves straight journalism and communications. I'm a proponent of the immediacy of the blog," White said, referring to the reader's sense that the in-the-moment thoughts of the blogger are making it to their computer screen unedited. "I like that from [the journalist] side of my job."

She added: "The other side of my job has to do with university advancement. There's a strong promotional element to [the student blogs]." She said the university's interests require that officials keep some editorial handle on what's being posted. "We're trying to keep some of that immediacy while trying to maintain a safety net," she explained.

Given these concerns, White said her staff hasn't had to exercise any control over the content so far, except for possibly correcting some punctuation.

Stoner said the anecdotal evidence he's gathered suggests that recruiters, students, and parents have had many positive experiences with student blogs, and he's heard of no negative experiences.

"Of course, I'm not a school president or chancellor who's really concerned about legislative appropriations or ... [doesn't] need the kind of problems that could arise from an inappropriate blog post," he said.

"But from my standpoint, it's pretty much a no-brainer that if you're appealing to teens, you've got to reach them at their level," Stoner said. "We recommend [student blogs] to all our clients."

SURVEY: SEO 'MISSION CRITICAL' TO 43 PERCENT OF MARKETERS

David Utter, Staff Writer, WebProNews

While having a web site tops the mission critical list for respondents, SEO was nearly as important to them.

A Harte-Hanks survey on marketing notes how its respondents from 281 companies plan to spend on their marketing efforts. More than one in two plan to make investments in search optimization.

CSO Insights prepared the survey, which was conducted online in April and May. Twenty-five percent of the respondents represented firms with $1 billion or more in revenue. Almost seven out of ten were US-based companies.

Having a web or micro site was "mission critical" for 53 percent of those respondents. Search engine optimization merited that status for 43 percent, while email marketing initiatives tallied with 41 percent.

Nearly half of the firms noted new customer acquisition as the main target marketing priority for this year. Only 11.5 percent saw improving customer longevity as first priority. That seems to be disconnected from the conventional observation about existing customers: it's more expensive to get a new customer than to keep an existing one.

Digital marketers will be open to approaches that better ensure online security and privacy for their customers. 60 percent said security was among top-level concerns for interactive marketers, and 59 percent listed privacy as an issue.

THE BUSINESS END OF SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Kent Lewis, Contributing Writer, WebProNews

In 1995, just having a Web site was cool, but promoting it was simply unheard of. Back then, Google was just an infinitely large number used by geeks and mathematicians to determine the probability of getting a date with Pamela Anderson.

Fast forward to 2000: almost all businesses had a Web site (some even funded by a business plan sketched out on a bar napkin), and Google was a becoming a popular method of locating sites of interest. Some marketers even allocated a small portion of their Superbowl media budget for search engine programs.

It's now halfway through 2005, and things are just a little bit different these days. Not only are a vast majority of businesses online, but they derive a significant value from that presence: reducing costs, generating leads and converting sales. Google is now a verb and its stock just broke 300. In this day and age, search is essential to business success. Search engine marketing has been validated repeatedly as the most cost-effective (and measurable) form of lead generation available to marketers today.

So how did we get from Google noun to Google verb in less than 10 years? There has been a sea change, in both technology and mindset. Businesses understand the value of the Internet as a sales and delivery channel. Marketers understand the value of the Internet as an awareness, branding and lead generation tool. Web sites have evolved from brochure ware to highly interactive business and sales tools, and search engines are the primary driver of visitors.

There is a disconnect, however, that has arisen over the past few years. As Web technology and marketing methodologies mature, there is a greater opportunity for fragmentation. Internal departments (sales, marketing, IT and operations) are becoming more siloed and competitive. External advertising, public relations, direct response and interactive agencies are fighting for the same marketing budget.

Like many marketing initiatives, search engine marketing integrates into all marketing disciplines and touches all internal teams in some manner. In order for businesses to have a strong bottom line, the top line has to support search engine marketing initiatives. By determining where and how search engine marketing impacts internal and external resources and activities, businesses can build a framework for success. Key elements are outlined below.

Branding

One of the most intangible and difficult to quantify elements of a business is its brand identity. Search engine marketing has an increasingly important role in the development and evolution of a brand, starting with the name. If a new company decides on a name for which a .com domain is not available, it increases the danger of impeding its name recognition, as the URL may be difficult to find. In a similar manner, choosing a unique brand name may allow for better trademark protection, but makes search optimization more challenging (in terms of generating awareness via popular search terminology). The same applies for new product and service names. The short answer is to purchase trademarked terms via pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, as you control the keywords, copy and landing page. With PPC, you only pay for each visitor, thus getting the benefit of free impressions or "branding." PPC is also an excellent way to build and protect the goodwill of existing trademarked terms.

Marketing

The marketing team typically develops a plethora of collateral materials and tools to promote their company. Search engine marketing offers the business an opportunity to leverage those materials and tools to generate additional visibility. For example, media kits, direct response campaign landing pages and ad copy are all useful in creating optimized content for search engines. Monitoring (and participating in) newsgroups, blogs, threaded forums and discussion lists offers insight into customers and an opportunity to build a relationship with key constituents. This also makes the Web an ideal tool for crisis communications, investor relations and grassroots marketing efforts. Since most marketers now control corporate Web sites, having a content management system (CMS) that is search engine friendly, is also critical.

Sales

As discussed earlier, search engine optimization (SEO) and PPC, are highly cost-effective and measurable lead generation tools. Seamlessly integrating SEO and PPC efforts into the sales process has been a focus of successful companies in the past few years. Plugging in various lead generation and sales funnel activities (affiliate programs, downloads, registrations, demos, orders and inquiries) to the customer relationship management (CRM) platform will ensure higher sales volume and margins.

Operations

Few search engine marketers have a holistic approach to their craft. Most look at their role strictly as way to generate revenue on a cost-per-click or cost-per-lead basis. A more valuable and enlightened perspective is to understand that there are other valuable constituents that search engine marketers can positively impact besides leads and sales. Any company with a high level of visibility in search engines will benefit from cost-effective recruiting efforts, reinforcing credibility with vendors, partners and shareholders and an ability to decrease costs and increase margins through analysis of detailed return-on-investment (ROI) data originating from search engine marketing efforts.

If you or your company still believes that search engine marketing is only good for feeding the sales funnel, you should continue spending your entire marketing budget on one of those 60 second Superbowl spots.