Web Ink Now

Search Engine Optimizing a crap-filled site just makes it a little less crappy

People often ask me about search engine optimization. In particular, many ask what search engine marketing techniques they can use on their site to "get high rankings."

Inevitably with most of these requests, I find that the site that they want optimized sucks. It's poorly written. It goes on and on in an egotistical way about what the company's products do. It's filled with gobbledygook.

I tell these people that they need to understand buyers and create some great content that people want to consume. That way, they will get high rankings as the search engine algorithms reward the great content.

Usually I get pushback. People say they just want to an agency to "tweak our existing Web pages."

"Sorry," I say. "Search Engine Optimizing a crap-filled site just makes it less crappy." And I go on to give examples of how valuable Web content drives high rankings.

I’m amazed by how some interesting content (a blog post, an ebook, or a web page) can generate high rankings for a tiny company, way above the big famous organizations.

Consider these examples from my own efforts:

A few months ago, I did a blog post about my participation at the Milken institute global conference. This is a big event (over 3,000 people attend), it has been going on for more than a decade, is covered by the business TV networks like FOX Business and Bloomberg as well as dozens of magazines and newspapers, and speakers include Nobel prize winners. This year Arnold Schwarzenegger and Google CEO Eric Schmidt were some of the speakers. Yet my little blog post is on the top page of the search results for the phrase Milken institute global conference.

Early this year I published The New Rules of Viral Marketing ebook. Prior to putting out the ebook, my site and blog were ranked way down in the results for the phrase viral marketing. Now, because of an ebook that has been downloaded 150,000 times, my site and my blog are ranked numbers 11 & 13 out of 4.8 million hits.

My content is ranked number one for the phrase online media room out of 17 million hits.

High search engine rankings are not a result of manipulation. They are a result of excellent content.

What are the search terms your buyers use to find products and services like yours? Where does your company rank on Google for those terms?

Three months ago, Mike Volpe at HubSpot blogged about his experience speaking with a friend at EMC, a huge company (roughly ten billion US $ revenue). Mike and the EMC person discussed the most important search terms for EMC and came up with two critical ones "data storage" and "information infrastructure."

They then Googled those terms. Remarkably, EMC was nowhere near the top of the search heap for the phrases. Mike came to the obvious conclusion: "EMC is a Laggard Playing by the Old Rules of Marketing."

I thought that was an amazing thing. Here is a company that spends well over one billion US dollars on sales and marketing and they are nowhere near the front page on Google for two of the most important phrases in their industry.

As Mike at HubSpot said: "This is like opening the Yellow Pages in 1990 and looking under 'car rental' and not seeing an ad for Hertz!"

Last week I Googled those phrases again, wondering if they EMC had implemented any Web marketing programs to boost their results in the past three months:

Google search for "data storage"
Google search for "information infrastructure"

At the time I checked, EMC was ranked number 115 in the Google search results for "data storage" and number 76 for "information infrastructure."

Not so great for a company whose tagline is "where information lives."

EMC is not doing a good job at helping buyers find them via search engines.

How about your company? You should be able to answer these questions:
Do you know the most important search terms that people are using to find products and services like the ones you sell?
Where do you appear in the results?
If you aren’t satisfied with your results, what great content can you create (a blog or an ebook or some news releases) to help boost your ranking?

Disclosure: I am a member of the HubSpot board of advisors.

Are you unique on the Web? Why you must carve out your own search engine real estate

One rarely discussed but very important aspect of search engine marketing is choosing product and company names so that they will be easy to find on the Web via search engines.

When you consider the name of a new company, product, book, rock band, or other entity that people want to find on the Web, you typically go through a process of thinking up ideas, getting a sense of whether these names sounds right, and then perhaps seeing if you can copyright or trademark the ideas.

I would suggest adding one more vital step: Run a Web search to see if anything comes up for your proposed name; I urge you to drop the name idea if there are lots of similarly named competitors—even if the competition for the name is in a different industry. Your marketing goal should be that when someone enters the name of your book or band or product, the searcher immediately reaches information about it. For example, before I agree to a book title, I make certain those names are not being used in any other way on the Web. It was important for me to "own" my titles on the search engines: searching on Eyeball Wars, Cashing in with Content, and now The New Rules of Marketing and PR brings up only my books or reviews, articles, and discussions about them.

Many people ask me why I use my middle name in my professional endeavors, and I’ve had people accuse me of being pretentious. OK, maybe I am a bit pretentious, but that’s not why I use my middle name—Meerman. The reason is simple: there are so many other David Scotts out there. One David Scott walked on the moon as commander of Apollo 15. Another is a six-time Iron Man Triathlon Champion. Yet another is a U.S. Congressman from Georgia’s 13th district. Good company, all, but for clarity and search engine optimization purposes, I chose to be unique among my fellow David Scotts by becoming David Meerman Scott. On Google I am unique and have nearly 100,000 hits to my name.

The lesson here is that if you want to be found on the Web, you need a unique identity for yourself, your product, and your company to stand out from the crowd and rise to prominence on search engines. As you are thinking of names to use for marketing, test them out on the search engines first and try to carve out something that you alone can own.

Optimizing Social Networking sites as a tool to reach your buyers

Social Networking sites are an excellent way to deliver information to people who might want to do business with your organization. Particularly if you use a thought leadership based approach, sites like MySpace, Squidoo, and the other social networking sites reaches your buyers and helps you to achieve your goals.

Although social networking sites certainly aren't advertising, you can still use the sites to lead people into your buying process. For example, The Alternate Routes' MySpace page has links to the band's latest album, touring schedule, and online ticket purchasing tools; Volkswagen's Miss Helga MySpace page links to the automaker's other sites; Vince Ciulla’s Squidoo page links to his extensive set of content pages; and John Edwards links to a place where visitors can make online donations from his MySpace page.

OPTIMIZING SOCIAL NETWORKING PAGES

Here are some ideas to get the most out of using social networking sites for marketing:

> Target a specific audience. Create a page that reaches an audience that is important to your organization. It is usually better to be thinking a small niche market to target (for example, people who want to do their own car repairs but don't know how to discover what’s wrong).

> Be a thought leader. Provide valuable and interesting information that people want to check out. It is better to show your expertise in a market or a buyer's problems than to blather on about your product.

> Be authentic and transparent. Don't try to impersonate someone else. It is sleazy, and if you get caught you can do irreparable harm to your company’s reputation. If your mother would say it is wrong, it probably is.

> Create lots of links. Link to your own sites and blog, and those of others in your industry and network. Everybody loves links—it makes the Web what it is. You should certainly ink to your own stuff from social networking site (like your blog), but also link to other people’s sites and content in your own market.

> Encourage people to contact you. Make it easy for people to reach you online, and be sure to follow up personally on your fan mail.

> Participate. Create groups and participate in online discussions. Become an online leader and organizer.

> Make it easy to find you. Tag your page and add your page into the subject directories. Encourage others to bookmark your page with del.icio.us and DIGG.

> Experiment. These sites are great because you can try new things. If it isn't working, tweak it. Or abandon the effort and try something new.

And remember, there is no such thing as an "expert" in marketing using social networking—we're all learning as we go!

I want to learn from you too. Let me know if you're doing something cool or that is working for you.

Online viral thought leadership marketing works – here is the proof

I am a huge fan of online thought leadership.

Rather than the old crap about "branding" with slick and expensive advertising that people ignore anyway or being being "on message" with the media hoping some journalist throws you a bone, thought leadership based marketing delivers valuable information that people want to consume, reaching your buyers directly and branding your organization as one to do business with.

Alert readers of this blog may recall that six months ago I published thought leadership content of my own called "The Gobbledygook Manifesto". You may recall that I worked with Dow Jones Factiva to analyze 9 months worth of press releases (380,000 of them!) for meaningless, overused, hype-laden words like "mission-critical" and "cutting-edge."

The Gobbledygook Manifesto was published on my blog and I also issued a press release about it.

Now that six months have passed, I want to report back with some interesting metrics:
> 8 bloggers tracked back to my original post
> 18 comments were left on my original post
> As of this writing, there are 753 hits on Google for the exact phrase “gobbledygook manifesto” (which I made up). There were zero hits the day before my original post so I can safely say that I introduced this phrase to the Web and those hits are a result of my work. The many bloggers and media people who have written about my original work created all of the hits.

> I am particularly intrigued that The Gobbledygook Manifesto secured a mention on Wikipedia under the entry for "mission-critical." It is not only cool that someone mentioned my stuff in this entry, but excellent marketing for me too. Each day I receive traffic to my blog from this Wikipedia entry.

OK, what about ROI? I can definitely track inquiries from companies and conference organizers back to my thought leadership content and I have booked many a bunch of speaking gigs, new consulting clients, and corporate seminars as a result. I do absolutely no "traditional marketing" for my business—it is all thought leadership based in the form of my blog, my books, my magazine articles, and my site.

The best way to reach your buyers directly is through online thought leadership strategies including blogs, Web news releases, ebooks, and viral marketing. Imagine if people learn about you on the Web first, so when they to contact you, the sale is already partly done.

Here is a post I wrote from several months ago on thought leadership including eight tips on how to develop thoughtful content.

Search Engine Marketing resources for entrepreneurs and marketers

One of the best things about building a marketing plan using the new rules of marketing and PR and using thought leadership strategies is that you create Web content that your buyers want to read. Instead of advertising to people, you create content that is welcome and appreciated by your buyers and helps them solve problems.

As many smart marketers know, a well crafted white paper, e-book, or Webinar contributes to an organization's positive reputation by setting it apart in the marketplace of ideas. This form of thought leadership based Web content brands a company, a consultant, or a nonprofit as an expert and as a trusted resource.

This form of content is also terrific search engine marketing fodder. As I work with technology companies and entrepreneurs on thought leadership strategies, inevitably, the question of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) comes up. People want to know how to make the content they create work as hard as possible.

I'm an expert in thought leadership strategy, but not in SEM. I can recommend the following to resources to entrepreneurs and marketers who want to learn much more about SEM:

Turning Clicks Into Leads Through Search Engine Optimization: A How-to Guide for One-Person, Small, and Mid-sized Businesses by Dianna Huff -- If you've wanted to know more about SEO but find it all too technical, then this guide is for you. Written for one-person, small, and mid-sized businesses, Turning Clicks Into Leads Through Search Engine Optimization is an easy-to-read, easy-to-use guide for optimizing your site and compelling site visitors to take action. Dianna's guide is a quick and easy read and immediately gets to the essence of what you need to know.

Web Marketing for Dummies by Jan Zimmerman lays down what you need to know in the engaging style of this popular series. I've read some dozen Dummies books (Writing Copy for Dummies, Dogs for Dummies, France for Dummies, QuickBooks for Dummies…) and they always teach me something and make me giggle. Jan gives you the scoop on search engine rankings, pay per click, and driving traffic and much more.

Read them both and get really smart!

Brand Journalism: Learning from IBM, Ford, and JWT

Yesterday at the SIIA Information Industry Summit I moderated an absolutely killer panel discussion formally titled Advertising and PR for Everyone: Who is Winning the Race for Marketing Dollars?

We discussed what the panelists called "Brand Journalism" which is exactly what I've been talking about for years – most recently what I refer to as The New Rules of Marketing and PR – the idea that smart organizations of all types publish content on the Web to reach buyers directly.

My two fantastic panelists were:

Colleen DeCourcy, Chief Experience Officer of JWT (a WPP Group agency). JWT is the largest advertising agency in the US and works with organizations like Jet Blue, Nestle, Shell, Pfizer, and the USMC.

Ben Edwards, Director, New Media Communications at IBM. I have been familiar with Ben's work from when he was Tokyo Bureau Chief of The Economist. I lived in Tokyo for 7 years and for most of that time was Asia Marketing Director for an electronic news division of Knight-Ridder.

Unfortunately, Manning Field, SVP Branding & Advertising for Chase Card Services was a no show. Too bad, he missed a great discussion.

You can watch the entire discussion on video via Scribe Media.

Donna Bogatin covered it on ZD Net. Favorite Donna quote: "'Users are in control' packs the same mythical punch as 'every vote counts'." (I agree, Donna!)

Several people blogged it:
John Blossom, Shore Communications, captured a great deal of notes from the panel. Favorite quote from John Blossom: "This is THE trend to watch in media." (I agree, John!)

The always thoughtful Ken Doctor has a different take: "Call it what you want, but "brand journalism" isn't journalism. It's public relations, customer connection, engagement -- whatever you want to call it -- on the new steroidal Intel chips. And it can produce good stuff that's useful to us as buyers of goods and services. But it's not journalism." (Let's do a crossfire at a conference sometime, Ken!)

Favorite quote from Barry Graubart "Storytelling becomes much more important in this new environment." (I agree, Barry!)

Colleen DeCourcy and her colleagues at JWT worked with Ford Motor Company to create the information portal called Ford Bold Moves, which documents the future of Ford. Includes Ford-produced video and user comments. Ford is really putting themselves out there by letting people talk about them on a Ford-generated Web site.

Ben Edwards detailed the remarkable corporate publishing efforts at IBM and explained the very open and permissible environment for self-publishing, available to any employee (over 380,000) worldwide. IBM provides blogging tools to their employees and has 3000 or more employee bloggers. (Wow!) Ben's role is to help market those blogs so the audience can find what they need more easily.

IBM distributes more than 300 RSS feeds which they use their buyers directly. They also offers podcasts, for example, 10 minutes from their top IP attorney.

IBM has even developed content for Youtube - for example, this Art of the Sale series of mockumentaries.

These are people who truly understand how to use content to drive action. They know that when people visit your company’s Web site, they aren’t there to hear your slogan or see your logo again. They want information, interaction, and choice—and you’d be a fool not to give it to them. Smart marketers who want to communicate with buyers directly, raise their company’s online visibility, and increase sales need to put the new rules to work.

Please watch the video or read the ZDNet and blogger reports for much more on this remarkable discussion. Thanks Ben and Colleen for participating.

Here are some of the questions I had prepared for the panel but that I did not get to ask:
> What is different about corporate publishing vs. traditional advertising?
> How is advertising on social media sites like MySpace different from broadcast & print?
> How to determine audiences for the content? Segmentation by buyers?
> What is the role of "Storytelling"?
> What do you see happening in Second life?
> How do you measure results? Metrics?
> Is the traditional media model based on brand advertising sustainable as a high-margin business?

What do you think? Is Brand Journalism going to catch on?

The Social Media Press Release Live at the Social Media Club

Yesterday was the second monthly meeting of the Social Media Club Boston. You could say it was the Todd and Todd show— Todd Van Hoosear of Topaz Partners hosted the event in his famously engaging style and the guest speaker was Todd Defren, Principal of Shift Communications. I had gotten to know Todd squared over the past few years, so was looking forward to the evening.

The Social Media Club is the place where people come together to discuss the new world of social media. The idea is "if you get it, share it." I've gotten a lot out of the club so a few months ago I kicked in my dollars as a co-founder. Anyone who is involved in social media should join. There are a dozen chapters in three countries—not bad since the club was formed in August 2006. Howard Greenstein was at yesterdays meeting which was held in the Network World conference room. He's one of the driving forces behind the club.

Todd Defren talked about his groundbreaking social media press release. The template was launched in early 2006 to make it easy to for people to remember all the various tags and other features (such as associated photos and audio feeds) of a well executed news release.

A few months ago, I interviewed Defren for my newest book The New Rules of Marketing and PR (coming in June 2007 in hardcover from Wiley). "All news release content will ultimately wind up on the Web," he says. "So why not put it out in such a way that makes it accessible to anybody who can use that content? Both traditional and new media journalists are used to working in a hyperlinked environment and are used to people providing context through social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and buttons to add to DIGG. The template makes it easy to remember to do all of those things."

Defren's template is an excellent tool to use as you develop your news releases because it helps you get the most out of all the available features that can make the release more useful and easier to find.

At the club meeting, Defren outlined the goals for the social media press release template:
> Democratize access
> Make news release available to anyone who wants to read it
> Embrace accuracy
> Embrace context through social bookmarking and tagging
> Build community via blog conversations of the release
> Be findable

Basically every news release becomes a mini Web site.

But I would take the template further to say that news releases are NOT just for the press! Buyers are reading news releases and you need to write them to reach buyers. Google News, Yahoo News, vertical market sites and RSS feeds all deliver news releases to consumers. The template helps to identify the things that BUYERS want to see as well and that should be the focus. In my opinion journalists are secondary. Radical? Maybe.

So I think the social media press release needs one more component—search terms. Communicators should be thinking of the search terms that their buyers use and add them as appropriate to the release. Todd, consider adding a new box in your template that reminds people to identify search terms. Remember, a news release is for reaching all of your constituents directly, not just the media and many people find a release on the search engines.

Web Ink Now a finalist for Best Media Blog in the 2007 SIIA Codie Awards

How cool. My Web Ink Now blog is a finalist in the SIIA Codie Awards for 2007 in the category of Best Media Blog.

The Codie Awards celebrate achievement and vision in software, education technology and digital content. Presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), these awards represent the only-peer reviewed honor in the industry.

Best Media Blog -- The news & media blogs' primary focus is to report and analyze current events, newsworthy stories, news personalities, the media itself, and other themes related to news, media and current events about the business of media.

I am in fantastic company. The other finalists are:

Searchblog, Battelle Media
Best of the Web Today blog from OpinionJournal.com, Dow Jones & Company
Web Ink Now blog by David Meerman Scott
Contentblogger.com, Shore Communications, Inc.
Treonauts.com, Treonauts
WonderBranding: Marketing to Women, WonderBranding

Congratulations to John, John, Michelle, Andrew, and team Dow Jones

Your Online Media Room as (free) Search Engine Optimization

I've often written about the online media room as a terrific form of marketing to reach your buyers directly. The online media room (sometimes called a press room or press page) is the part of your organization's Web site that you create specifically for the media. However, smart organizations understand that all kinds of people visit your online media room, not just journalists, and specifically create media rooms as a marketing tool to reach buyers directly.

When news releases are posted in the online media room on your site, search engine crawlers will find the content, index it, and rank it based on words, phrases, and other factors. Because news release pages update more often than any other part of a typical organization's Web site, search engine algorithms (tuned to pay attention to pages that update frequently) tend to rank news release pages among the highest on your site, driving traffic there first.

As part of my upcoming book The New Rules of Marketing & PR, I interviewed Dee Rambeau, an expert in online media rooms. Rambeau works with PR Newswire on MediaRoom, an outsourced online media room used by professional communicators in companies and non-profit organizations.

"There’s no question that a well organized media room often has higher search results and drives more traffic because of the way the search engines work," says Rambeau. "A news release dynamically builds out a new set of content in your online media room, with each news release generating its own indexable page, which the search engines all capture. Google and the other search engines love fresh content that relates back to similar content on the other pages of the site. Aggressive companies take advantage of this by sending news releases frequently to get high rankings from the search engines. Frequency has a great deal to do with search engine rankings—if you do ten news releases, that's great, twenty is better, and one hundred is better still."

Great advice, Dee. Too bad that so many organizations still think of news releases as only for journalists.