Boise Search Engine Marketing

As most of you search professionals know, SES Chicago and WebMaster World’s PubCon are occurring at the same time this year – the first week of December. In talking with some other SEMPO members, several of us were conversing about who was going to which conference and why. I’ve decided to go to PubCon over SES and here’s why…

First, I’ve been to SES three times now. I went to SES New York in April and before that I had been to SES San Jose two years in a row.  I learned something from each one although the longer I’m in this industry the less I learn each subsequent time I attend – but that’s to be expected right?  If you haven’t been to SES before though, I’d highly recommend it.  I think Friday was the last day for early bird pricing so if you missed it you might want to scrounge up a discount elsewhere (maybe join SEMPO – you get a 15% discount as member – not to mention all the other great member benefits).  Also, SES is offered multiple times per year and usually my preference is the San Jose event because it’s the biggest and easiest for me to get to travel-wise.  And then there’s the Google Dance party at the Googleplex which is usually a great time! Not that I’m all about the parties but they are a refresher after a day full of sessions and networking.

Another, and really the primary, reason I’m going to PubCon is because I’ve never been. I’m looking forward to seeing some new speakers I’ve never seen before as well as some of my favorites from previous conferences I’ve attended like SMX and SES.

And what really pushed me over the fence I wasn’t really on to begin with was having to choose between Las Vegas or Chicago in December.  Love Chicago but by December I’m ready to warm up a bit!

Which conference will you be attending?

I was recently interviewed by Carol Krol for a B2B Magazine article regarding blended search –specifically Google Universal Search and Ask3D - and how it impacts search marketing strategies.

Both Google and Ask have launched blended search models. So now when you search you get results other than traditional web sites. You may see videos, news, images, blogs, even music in addition to (or often replacing) some standard results. Danny Sullivan did a great job describing and providing examples of Google’s Universal Search in his blog post on Search Engine Land last May. Ask3D offers a similar experience where you can get more than just a standard web site in your results. You can follow their blog about the new Ask3D product that was introduced in June. They’ve even gone as far as including vertical and music (that you can listen to from the results page) listings.

What does this mean for search marketers? It means blended search models offer a lot of new opportunities for companies to market to and communicate with businesses customers. The ability to provide relevant content via multiple conduits will result in more tailored and suitable communications across a broader set of customers so in that sense it will be a boon for the companies who actually take the time to do it. Blended search also enables companies to capture more listings on a SERP if they offer the most relevant content in multiple formats - i.e. news, images, video, books, etc. - that are now blended in results with products like Google’s Universal Search and Ask3D.

How will it change search marketing strategies? Well for starters, blended search may change more than just search marketing strategies. Entire marketing strategies will likely shift to adapt to significant changes or improvements in search experiences since search engines are where so much product, solution and service research is being initiated. With blended search, other mediums - like images and videos - that will get more visibility through search and can be highly effective marketing vehicles for communicating with business customers, will gain more of an emphasis in the marketing mix. Universal Search and Ask3D will require a focus on optimizing all content, not just text.

Campaign measurement, as a result, will be more complex in that there are more data points to measure. However, with any effective metrics and analysis, the key is to hone in on the key metrics that drive the ROI to keep the measurement effort in balance. Figuring out how you should value an image view vs. a video vs. an article view is going to present an additional challenge.

Universal Search and AK3D are great innovations in search as searchers don’t typically think of using other types of search “verticals”. With Universal Search and Ask3D results, searchers get visibility to relevant content that isn’t limited to web pages. These improvements for searchers, however, will necessitate the need for companies to take an even more strategic approach to developing relevant content and optimizing it for their specific customers’ needs - regardless of the medium.

These new blended search models create a whole new set of challenges and opportunities for SEO professionals. It’s a significant challenge in many cases just to optimize web pages since, for large companies, it requires getting everyone up to speed on SEO and then getting them to implement best practices. Now these SEO pros will be tasked with optimization of all types of content rather than just text and site architecture, each with its own set of best practices and unique quirks. The challenge for SEO professionals will continue to be to prioritize efforts according to where they are going to get the best return.

I’m often asked by clients what they can expect from their SEO investment as they typically want to hear they’ll rank number one for every keyword associated with their business – and preferably in under two weeks. 

Let me start first with the bad news:  there are no guarantees any degree of SEO effort will make you rank number one or even in the top ten for a given keyword or phrase. 

The good news, however, is that SEO can and will help search engines better understand what your site is about and will enable your site then to be served in results for search queries that are relevant. 

SEO is a long-term effort and on-going (that whole journey, not destination analogy).  Neither I, nor any other SEO provider, can guarantee you top rankings for any keyword.  If they do make that promise, be very cautious and make them put their money where there mouth is – i.e. tell them you don’t pay unless they get you there.  Also, even if your site does pull off a top rank for your target keyword today does not mean you will hold that position or even the first page tomorrow.  An example I saw recently was where Apple was ranked #1 for “laptop” in Google.  Then Google changed their algorithm (likely reducing the weight of the links to the site since the site itself is not at all optimized for the term) and they dropped to page four – literally over night.  You can imagine what that must have done for their “laptop” search query referrals.

The expectations I like to set with my clients is that I will give them the best recommendations for optimizing their web site for search engine visibility and regardless of whether they rank well for the targeted terms following implementation, their site will in fact be crawled more thoroughly and will provide the search engines with more focused and more targeted content from which to evaluate relevance. 

There are many factors (some speculate that it is in excess of 200) that are considered when a search engine is determining rank for a particular query.   Some are well-known in the industry and there are best practices around implementing those.  Many, however, are kept secret by the search engines (Google likes to refer to it as their “secret sauce”) as they don’t want webmasters manipulating and spamming the search engines to gain top rankings for sites that don’t offer relevant, valuable content for their users.

The factors you can control right now are on-page optimization (content and meta tags) and your site structure (to make it easy to crawl and index by the search engine spiders).  As part of my SEO service, I will give you specific guidance on how to create a crawlable and indexable web site (fortunately, your site is already easily crawlable and indexable – thank you for not developing it in Flash!)  and will provide detailed guidance on how to create more relevant content (from both a search engine and user perspective) which will give you the foundation for being successful in organic search results.

A factor that will take longer to overcome is the age of your site.  All else equal, a younger site will rank lower because it doesn’t have the track record of a site that’s been around a lot longer.  Also, newer sites tend to have far fewer links to them.  If they haven’t been around long, then it’s unlikely that many other sites or blogs are linking to it.  Links are incredibly important in SEO as the search engines see links as votes of authority from other sites.  And it’s not just the quantity of links that matter; it’s the quality as well.  In fact, one link from a high-quality site (longevity, popularity, relevance and source all come in to play here) can provide much more link “juice” than 100 links from small, non-authoritative sites that don’t have related content.  Also, if the engine senses that the link was acquired only for SEO purposes it may be considered spam and may count against you. 

I realize this doesn’t provide any concrete expectations but it will provide the a good foundation for a web site to be successful in organic search in the future. 

You may see results in two weeks; you may see them in a year.  It all depends on how well you address the basic and advanced SEO tactics and also on the off-page factors – some of which you may not be able to influence quickly or at all.

Again, I’d like to stress the importance of the age of your site and the links to it.  These factors alone may inhibit your ability to achieve high rankings in the short term.  I realize most clients are nervous about the  ROI of an SEO investment, but if implemented the recommendations I provide, as well as an on-going effort at the off-page optimization (link building, e.g.), will put your site in the best position to garner natural search referrals.

Just so you know I’m not blowing SEO smoke, other people in the industry have had plenty to say along these lines so here are a few links (or search for “SEO expectations” and you’ll see a lot more along these lines). 

Realistic SEO Expectations

Creating a Positive SEO Experience

Setting Realistic SEO Expectations