by Stone Reuning

Though the likes of Facebook and Twitter have taken the marketing world by storm, many of our online experiences though still start through search. With well-known brands and small businesses alike now using social media marketing in earnest, it\'s worth exploring how to get more from your company social pages, namely helping them rank higher in online searches, alongside your corporate website.

After a few tweaks, your social media pages can give you more opportunities to dominate page one of Google and other search engines. Here\'s an example. If you look at our properties, SEO Advantage isn\'t only our company name - it\'s also an important keyword and source of traffic for us. So we want all our web properties to dominate for that term. If you seach on \"seo advantage\", you\'ll see first our corporate website, then our Facebook page, our Twitter profile, our reviews on Kudzu, our marketing blog, our LinkedIn profile, and also a press release or article we\'ve recently written.

The best thing is that most social media platforms allow for some customization that lets you optimize them, even if the standard no-follow tag applies to links. Here are 5 things you can explore across the various social media platforms you\'re currently using.

1. Grow your following. Tthis seems to hold true for Facebook and Twitter as it does in the general realm of web sites - the more followers you have, the more authority your social media page carries. (Except when it comes to websites, you\'re usually evaluating links, not followers, and the exact number can be a little harder to assess.)

Of course there are great benefits to having a large number of followers even beyond ranking higher. But did you know that the people you follow may also impact the search engines\' assessment of relevancy? That\'s right, there may be benefit to following people in your direct line of business most importantly, as this helps strengthen the signal of what your business is all about.

2. Optimize your profile page\'s meta tags and URL. Twitter creates your page title from your username and your name. Your bio becomes the description tag. Kudzu is using our company name and address as the title tag, which is great for local searches. Take note of which parts of your page are comprising the meta data and make sure it\'s optimized accordingly. You can also nab your own name as part of your Facebook page URL now, too. (It used to be that you had to have a certain number of fans.) And your Twitter URL includes your username, so choose wisely.

3. Post links to your newly produced content to help it get indexed faster. Though social media sites use the no-follow tags, new content seems to be getting indexed faster when posted to Twitter and other social media sites. One reason may be that it gives an opportunity for your followers to link to it from other sites, like their blogs, for example. Since your Tweets and Facebook updates get exposure for pages you reference faster, your linked content can also gain exposure much faster than previously.

4. Optimize your updates. This will depend on the platform, but especially Twitter can offer opportunity here, since tweets themselves can show in search results.

The title tag for a tweet is around 42 characters: the first 30 characters or so of the tweet together with the username of the account tweeting it. So make sure any keywords appear as close as possible to the front end. You may also want to append RT@username at the end of your tweets when retweeting, and keep your tweets to 120 characters or so to avoid truncating.

On Facebook, keep your updates related to your company\'s line of work as much as possible. This helps build the theme for the page.

5. Build links to your social media profile pages. As with any web page, inbound links matter. Include links to your pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. in your site footer or elsewhere so it can be found from every page of your site easily.

In closing, one word of advice. As with your regular online marketing and SEO efforts, the needs of the users take precedence. The above points are tweaks only. Build up the value of your social media accounts by serving your customers and followers well, and the rest will follow.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Moran

If you have a business-to-business (B2B) Web site, you\'re probably tired of all the trite advice you see out there from experts who are clearly speaking to those in the business-to-consumer (B2C) industry. I mean, each time you read these opinions about what you should do, do you find yourself asking, \"How is that realistic in my B2B business?\" And you might be wondering where the really smart B2B marketers look for their new ideas. And the answer is...those crazy B2C Web sites. Let me explain why.

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No matter that all of your customers are businesses themselves, each person you sell to is also a consumer, and they spend far more of their time online being a consumer shopper than a business shopper. What that means is that every time they come to your site, they bring all the sensibilities of a consumer to your business interaction. They expect you to be just as easy as Amazon.com—being a B2B company doesn\'t change what they expect.

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$\"Print$

Image by dailyinvention via Flickr

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So, when you are trying to figure out how to improve your B2B experience, look to B2C for your inspiration, because they probably got there first. Which of these things wouldn\'t improve your Web site?

Providing customers the choice of buying online or offline
Making products easy to return
Providing chat or phone support for those unable to understand your Web site

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Now, not all of these things are affordable for you, but you might be able to do something better than you are doing now. Don\'t believe me that your customers want what they get as consumers? Take a look at the history of B2B experiences:

It wasn\'t long ago that most B2B companies did not accept credit cards, requiring credit checks and paper billing at the end of each month.
B2B sites didn\'t offer any form of sign-in or other means of personalization, but now several do.
B2B sites never posted ratings and reviews, but now a number of them do.

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If you expect that B2B user experiences will remain wholly unaffected by B2C experience improvements, you haven\'t been paying attention to what\'s been happening. Your cheapest market research on what\'s next in your business might be to look at businesses that you aren\'t in.

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Just a note to regular readers. I am disappearing for the next few weeks for my annual August vacation, but I will see you in September.

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$\"Enhanced$

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

The only way to avoid hearing criticism is to be deaf or dead.

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The only way to avoid being criticized is to never have been alive.

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As history books have shown, even the dead can\'t escape criticism. So, those of us who are alive must simply learn to deal with it; even as we often try to avoid it.

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As much as we hate it, criticism isn\'t all bad. Criticism, regardless of how it was intended, can help us adjust and adapt to situations. It can provide useful insight, justified or not, into our lives and give us the opportunity to become a better person.

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Rarely do we enjoy hearing it, but criticism is a needed component for growth as a person.

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There is an old Arab proverb that says, \"if one person calls you a donkey, forget it. But if five people call you a donkey, buy a saddle.\"

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Or, take a lesson, and perhaps try a different approach.

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In most circumstances, you can freely ignore criticism coming from a single source, or perhaps a few dubious sources. But be careful about ignoring criticism from someone who knows you pretty intimately and is likely point out things that other people won\'t--or can\'t.

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Regardless of the source, if you find yourself hearing similar criticisms from multiple avenues, it might be a good idea to take stock in what\'s being said. Failure to do so will only result in the same mistakes being made time and time again.

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Of course, not all criticism is justified. Sometimes we get criticized for things that other people don\'t understand. Often ignorance or lack of information, combined with a healthy dose of bias, can bring someone to criticize something that they really don\'t get. I have recently found this to be true of myself. People just don\'t know the full story of what is going on in other people\'s lives, but they often find it easy to criticize anyway.

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Preacher, Henry Ward Beecher stepped up to the pulpit one Sunday morning to deliver his sermon. As he put his bible on the pulpit there was a paper with the word \"fool\" written on it. He lifted the paper for the congregation to see then announced, \"Generally I receive letters from people who write letters and forget to sign their name. This letter is different. The person signed his name but forgot to write the letter.\"

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There is nothing you can do about unjustified criticism other than to let it roll off your back. Don\'t let it get to you, don\'t let it bother you or change you. But take note of what you hear; if the same criticisms keep coming up from multiple and trusted sources, then it may be justified. In which case you need to accept it, learn from it, and change what is necessary to become a better person, employee, business owner, spouse, parent, grandparent, friend, etc.

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Criticism is a part of life. But, what we do with it makes us who we are.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Manoj Jasra

\n Search Engine Strategies is less then a month away and this year it\'s taking place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to catch up with Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager at LinkedIn, to get some insight into his session on PPC and SEO best practices--specific to B2B. Read our conversation below:

[Manoj]: Your session at SES is related to SEO/PPC strategies with regards to B2B, how does LinkedIn become part of equation?

[Andrew Chang]: Millions of people visit LinkedIn each day to connect and re-connect with colleagues and business associates. Our members come from all walks of life - accountants, financial advisors, attorneys, web developers - and they are well-connected and active professionals that many B2B marketers are trying to reach. For this reason, we built and launched our own self-service PPC advertising offering called LinkedIn DirectAds (http://www.linkedin.com/directads) that allows anyone with a LinkedIn account to place text ads on prominent pages and target those ads to only people you\'re trying to reach.

A quick example of how this works: One of our most successful customers is an e-learning company that\'s trying to attract the attention of primary school teachers to sign up for a Master\'s degree program in Education. Over 214,000 LinkedIn members have identified themselves (in their LinkedIn profiles) as being in the \"Primary/Secondary Education\" industry. Within a few minutes, the e-learning company created a text ad and start displaying the ad only to those 214,000 members when they visited LinkedIn. Teachers click on those ads to learn more about the Master\'s programs and the e-learning company pays for those clicks.

[Manoj]: How has the game of lead generation changed in 2010?

[Andrew Chang]: Two ways: Social media and mobile. The increased use of social media services like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter is forcing businesses to rethink how they spend their time and budgets. On LinkedIn, thousands of LinkedIn Groups have sprouted up and liked-minded professionals are engaging in conversations that span the buying cycle. Businesses should be thinking about how they might engage with prospective customers within these groups, encouraging their employees to participate in these conversations. Increased mobile internet access worldwide requires that businesses take a second look at how people experience their website, emails, and other marketing assets from mobile devices.

[Manoj]: I\'ve always thought that the importance of SEO never weakened over the years, what do you think?

[Andrew Chang]: Even though I work in online advertising, I always recommend to business and website owners that their websites and web content is optimized for both search engines and social media. I\'ve noticed that in recent years this has become easier to say but more and more complex to do. Just take a look at the Google\'s Webmaster Central Blog and you\'ll see that it\'s not just about having the right content on your pages and getting high quality websites to point to your content. With YouTube videos, tweets, and other online assets now crawled and indexed in search engines, you need to think about SEO for more than just your website content.

People don\'t realize that your presence on LinkedIn can be optimized for search as well. At a personal level, your own LinkedIn profile often appears in search results when people search for you by name. To make a great first impression, you should make sure that your LinkedIn profile is current and complete. Here\'s a link to our learning center where you can learn more: http://learn.linkedin.com/profiles/overview/

Companies also can have their own pages on LinkedIn and you may be surprised by how many people click over to your company\'s profile after visiting your personal profile. Anyone at at company can edit the company\'s profile on LinkedIn. To learn more, check this out: http://learn.linkedin.com/company-pages/\n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Fleming

\n Now that you\'ve chosen your keywords to create ad group themes, you want to have ads that will move targeted users from whatever they\'re doing online to being aware and interested in your product or service. Remember, since the Display Network operates by completely different rules and the users are in a completely different state of mind, the ads should be different than Search Network ads.\n\n

With Search, users are somewhere in the buying funnel; whereas with Display most of the users are likely not in the buying funnel at all. Therefore, the goal of the ads in the Search Network is to persuade the user that your solution is the best choice out of all of their options to make their life better; whereas the goal of the ads in the Display Network is to make users aware that you have a solution that could make their life better.\n\n

Here a some general characteristics of ads that are effective at starting users down the buying funnel:\n\n

1. Benefits - It\'s not about you or even what you\'re offering. It\'s about the improvement of the user\'s life in a way that\'s more valuable than the cost associated with the purchase. Communicate that and then prove it on your landing page.\n\n

2. Relevance - You\'ve picked keyword themes for your ad groups that will show on sites with those themes. So, is your ad relevant to the users hanging out on those sites? Make sure it is. You may find ads that don\'t perform how you hoped because they are being delivered to the wrong kinds of sites. Make sure the ad and sites are a good match.\n\n

3. Sneak Peek - Let them know what they will learn about your offer after they click on the ad. This can help in two ways. It may deter some users from clicking because they are not really interested in what would be found. This is good because you are filtering out some users that may have clicked on your ad without being truly interested in what you\'re offering. So, you save money on the wasted clicks that you would have received.\n\nAlso, it can give insight to the user about what kind of information they will receive once they click through. This is good because you are interrupting their current activity and asking them to go on a detour. So, if you can assure them it will be worth it, they can be more likely to click through and give your landing page a chance.\n\n

4. Call to Action - Tell the users what they should do once they get to your landing page. This is similar to #4 except you\'re not only telling them what they\'ll find, but what they should do on the landing page. And since your primary goal is to get them to enter the buying funnel, you want to....\n

5. General Offers - Most of these users are not ready to commit to a customer relationship right away. So, a good strategy is to hook them with something that is helpful to them in their pursuit of gaining the benefit you have claimed they would gain by becoming a customer. Therefore, offering free sample, the ability to calculate ROI or savings, a free information download, or whatever is applicable to your business is a logical conversion step for this audience. Your offers can get more specific if you get to the place where you\'re writing ads for specific sites and you are targeting those specific users.\n\n

I remember a professor of mine always said, \"There are no rules, just strong tendencies.\" These are good \"tendencies\" to follow when creating your Display Network ads. But, as you get to know your audiences more and more and test your ads, you will adjust according to what works for them.\n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Jennifer Laycock

\n Earlier this week, I explained the concept of micro goals in regards to social media and why it\'s so important to track such a large collection of seemingly insignificant numbers. I walked you through both the universal micro goals and how to establish campaign specific micro goals. Today, it\'s time to look at how those numbers can be of value to us over the span of a social media campaign.

Looking for What Works and What Doesn\'t

The single biggest benefit of tracking things on the micro goal level is the ability to quickly identify the areas of your campaign that are performing well and the ones that aren\'t. Micro goals are all part of the wonderful world of metrics and each of them acts as a clue in the mystery of campaign results.

Making sure each of your metrics lines up carefully with your campaign efforts and goals will go a long way toward equipping you with the information you need to refine your campaigns.

Finding Problems within a Campaign

Let\'s say you\'ve just launched a new piece of viral content on your blog and you\'ve pushed it out via social networks. The content is aimed at educating your target audience about a new product offering and does it via a creative and entertaining video you\'ve hosted on your blog. You launch the content, seed it with influencers and watch the traffic start rolling in.

Traffic spikes and sales don\'t just stay flat, they drop. What happened?

If you have established and kept tabs on a set of micro goals for your blog, the story may tell itself. On the surface, the campaign looks strong. Traffic, links, social mentions are all up, leading your team to celebrate with nice graphics like this:

\n $\"goodmetrics.gif\"$ But if you dig a little deeper and look at all of your micro goals, a different picture begins to emerge:

\n $\"blogmetrics.gif\"$ Despite the uptick in traffic and links, we see a distinct decline in engagement related metrics. Time on site has dropped, the number of pages per visitor has dropped, comments are down and less people are converting. Each of these micro goals matches up with a drop in sales.

It\'s also enough data to make us go back to our campaign and ask ourselves what might have led to this combination of metrics.

Match What You Know with What You Planned

In this instance, we can go back to the original campaign idea and look at it from the perspective of the metrics. There was clearly interest in the video because we see a rise in traffic. The content clearly resonated in terms of word of mouth, because we see strong numbers of social shares and a nice increase with links.

When we take a second look at the content, however, we might realize the $250 price point and the fact that it\'s an add on accessory to a $700 piece of electronics gives us a naturally small target audience. That means that while the video we\'ve created has broad appeal, we\'re not focusing in on our targeted audience. For our next campaign, we\'ll want to focus more on the specific needs of our target audience and focus less on getting a broad launch and more on reaching into targeted communities.

Variations in Metrics Tell us Different Tales

Of course different metrics on your micro goals might help you come to different conclusions.
Let\'s say the video was for a brand new cell phone battery extender that cost $20, fit on a key ring and delivered an extra hour of battery life to a phone. This is the type of product nearly anyone can use and the price point qualifies it as an impulse buy. In this case, perhaps our metrics look something like this:

\n $\"blogmetrics2.gif\"$ You\'ll quickly notice our metrics are up across the board with the exception of our conversion rates. We\'ve got moderate increases in links, traffic, social shares and comments. We\'ve got zero movement in our conversion rates. We\'ve got a very strong increase in time on site and pages viewed per visitor. This tells us something. On the surface, everything looks good.

The problem here is that a huge jump in pages per visitor and time on site simply does not mesh with zero change in sales. There\'s simply no reason why an increase in targeted traffic that has demonstrated an interest in the product via their use of the site wouldn\'t result in conversions. This means we need to go back and look more closely at the site itself.

More than likely, the issue here is about usability. Ask a friend to watch the video and take action. You might be surprised to find out they can\'t locate an order now button or they\'re hunting for shipping prices and giving up in frustration. A few quick fixes to your interface may result in a sudden jump in conversions and a slight decrease in time on site and pages per visitor.

You Can\'t Fix it if You Don\'t Know it\'s Broken

Of course the above examples are only looking at the micro goals for your blog. This same type of examination in other social media outlets and even across the board for your campaign can often give you a completely different perspective on the success (or failure) of your campaigns.

Stop looking solely at traffic or conversions to determine the success of your campaigns. Sometimes it\'s a lack of RSVPs or a dramatic increase in social shares on a specific network that clue you in to the changes you need to make. Either way, if you aren\'t gathering data, any decision you make will be based on your best guess rather than supported logic. Take a look at your campaigns and dig deeper into the metrics of you campaign. You may be surprised at what you learn.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

One of the first things you need to do when developing your website is to perform research on your target audience. Without it, you won\'t know who you are trying to sell to, or how to reach them with your content.

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The best way to attract the specific customers you want and make sure you are meeting the needs of your audience is to write your content specifically for them. But even knowing who your audience is doesn\'t mean you\'re able to speak to them on their level unless you know where they are in the buying process.

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$\"I\'m$
\nContent designed to inform won\'t do a good job of selling, just as content designed to sell isn\'t what people need when they want to be informed. Therefore different pages of your site need to be targeted, not for a different audience, but the same audience in different places of the buying cycle.

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There are essentially three phases of the buying cycle that need to be addressed: Researchers, Shoppers and Buyers. Generally, people start in the research phase, then move into shopping mode, and finally are prepared to buy the product or service they are in need of. A single site can help these people move from one phase of the buying cycle to another and, hopefully, to the goal of getting a conversion.

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Not everybody will land on your site starting with the research phase. Some will hit only as they are ready to buy, some will shop and leave, and others will be there for the duration of the process while also moving in and out of other sites as they go from research to buy.

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$\"Researchers$

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Researchers

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Most people start out in the research mode as they get an inkling in their mind that there is a product or service they want. Unfortunately, they don\'t quite know what they want or what will meet their specific needs. So, they set out to do some research.

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A significant majority of searches performed every day are informational based - where people are looking to gain some knowledge about something, not necessarily looking to buy a product or service. That\'s not to say that these people don\'t become shoppers at some point, but research is where they start.

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Broad category pages and blog posts are generally the best place to target these types of searchers. They are looking for content that helps them gain a better grasp on the topic, so you need to write content that provides the information they need. Don\'t try to sell them... just inform them with whatever information is necessary for them to begin to be convinced enough to move to the next phase.

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Blogs are especially good at hitting this because information-based searches are often very broadly focused. As informational searches get more specific, the topics (and keywords) you can reach them with will increase as well.

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\"Research\" content is the bait you use to get people to your site. It allows you to become a source of information for their query and gives you the ability to start earning trust.

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Shoppers

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The next phase people move into is the shopping phase. This is when they know they want to buy something, only now they are trying to learn more about what solutions are out there that will meet their needs.

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Think of this as window shopping. They are looking around trying to figure out what they like, don\'t like, or has the \"features\" that will help them accomplish their goals. They are comparing products, looking at the details, and using the new information gathered to help them narrow down their list to only what they believe will give them the best satisfaction.

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You generally want shoppers to land on your main product category pages. This will give them some information and a whole lot of products to explore. If you have multiple product sub-categories within categories, use your keyword research to help you determine which sub-categories are the best place to land shoppers, based on how they searched.

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You want to optimize your category pages so shoppers land closest to the products that meet their search query without pushing them to a specific product. Pushing them to a product page before they have all the information they need will simply push them away from the sale.

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Buyers

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Buyers are those who are using the search engine to deliver them the right product with the right features. They are performing very specific searches designed to get them to specific product pages that match their criteria for a purchase.

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These guys are ready to buy, and there is no need to try to pre-sell them. Getting them to product pages that have specific details and features listed is the fastest route to a sale. If you deliver these searchers to informational pages or even category pages, you run the risk of sidetracking your visitors. You\'ll move them out of buy mode and back into shop mode. Instead of getting a sale, you just have another window shopper.

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Knowing your audience is important. But knowing them in broad, general terms is not a substitute for knowing what they need when they search. Obviously, knowing the need of each searcher is impossible, but you can optimize your pages to meet the needs of your audience at large depending on where they are in the research, shop, and buy process.

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This allows you to give your visitors more of what they want, when they want it. Get the right content to them early in the buying cycle, and they are more likely to stick with you through the buying process. Get them different content late in the buying cycle and they may buy now! Of course, this is providing that what they want earns those trust points that will turn into sales. Sales are not made by the products you offer... it\'s in the content you write.

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$\"Inconceivable$ This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx\'s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert\'s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for \"inconceivable content\" on this blog to find them all.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Miriam Ellis

I couldn\'t help him. After 45 seconds of conversation with a local business owner who phoned me out of the blue, his voice literally quivering with rage, I knew my words could bring scant balm to his personal inferno of a Gilead in which the negative review had been left and the whole world, he was sure, was laughing at him.

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I never know what squirrely local search scenario I will find myself embroiled in when I pick up the receiver these days. This unfortunate gentleman had apparently come across a popular article I wrote last year that summarized business owners\' capabilities to edit, remove or respond to user reviews in the diverse top review entities. He wasn\'t looking to hire me, he just wanted some advice and I\'m usually game for that, though I like it better when it seems like the caller will actually take my advice after taking some of my time. My hopes were not strong for this when I hung up the phone.

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The basic scenario was that the business owner had received a bad review on Google, was sure he knew who had left it, was convinced it was left out of personal vindictiveness and wanted the review demolished and the reviewer punished. A tall order. I gave him the best advice I could:

\n\n $\"don\'t$

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I have never been one to scorn emotions. In this case, the business owner was so upset, he sounded like he was barely able to keep from yelling - at me, a total stranger who had nothing to do with his situation. I began by sympathizing with him, sincerely. Criticism is hard to take, whether deserved or not, and perceived injustice is one of the bitterest pills of all to swallow.

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I then brought up his Google Place Page and saw that he had very few reviews - less than ten, 80% of which were glowingly positive. I read the text of the offending review. I read it aloud to him in a dispassionate voice and he confirmed that this was the bad review and proceeded to launch into further angry details about how he knew who this person was and how this person was out to destroy his business. Strong words. It became evident that the negative reviewer was someone with whom the business owner had some type of personal problem - I didn\'t ask what it was. I felt I needed to make an effort to bring this situation into perspective for this business owner who had so blown things out of proportion, that he literally felt his whole business future was threatened by this one negative review. This is what I told him:

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1. My perusal of the review revealed what I consider typical of negative reviews - a disgruntled customer complaining. Nothing out of the ordinary. One person, in the midst of other satisfied people, claiming not to have received the services he paid for. To anyone not initiated into the dark details of whatever personal conflict was going on, this review was no worse than someone saying the food at a restaurant was blah, and certainly less bad than claims of food poisoning which are sitting on the local business profiles of thousands and thousands of eateries while doors remain open for business. And, nothing to compare to the absolutely nutty reputation management problem that Beth Haven Baptist Church may have to cope with, as was recently pointed out to me by my friend, Mike Blumenthal.

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I made an effort to point out to the business owner that this review, which seemed to him to spell out doom, looked like just about every other negative review I\'d ever read and that, in the mix of many positive reviews, it would seem like one crabby soul in a sea of contentment. He was genuinely surprised to hear this outsider\'s viewpoint, I think, and I hope he was listening as I recommended that his company implement a staff-wide program for gathering positive reviews from happy customers to push down the bad review as time went by. I recommended he branch out and start getting reviews from other review sources, and that he meet this negative action with a deluge of positive effort.

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2. The business owner\'s hope was that the review could be deleted, but I had to point back to the article he\'d read and remind him that, sadly, Google is infamous for their lack of accessibility. There is no one to phone, no one to email, nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide...Bottom line, you can\'t get Google to remove a review because you can\'t speak to anyone there.

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Other review entities have taken a much more friendly stance on giving business owners, whose data they have, after all, co-opted, control over whether various reviews appear on their profiles. Google has made commendable recent strides towards enabling users to report problems to them via the Report A Problem link in Maps, but this link does not seem to be intended to cover review disputes, and so far, the only link I know of that you can click regarding this issue is the \'flag as inappropriate\' link. To date, I\'ve never heard a single case of that causing a bad review to disappear. If you have, please tell me about it! I told the business owner that I wouldn\'t hold my breath about the flag link doing anything, but that it wouldn\'t hurt to try.

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The most proactive advice I could give him, in the absence of a way to have the review removed, was to claim his business listing (he hadn\'t done so and had never even heard of doing so) and to refer back to point 1; start actively seeking positive reviews.

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3. So, at this point in the conversation, I had given the business owner the best advice I could: try to see the review as one unhappy blip on the radar that can be counteracted with other happy blips, and claim your listing so that you can begin to gain at least some control of your business data. Overall, I was advocating a positive mindset and actions that could be undertaken to positive effect. But this just wasn\'t enough for this agitated business owner. I think what he really wanted was revenge for the humiliation he felt he was suffering as a result of his adversary\'s actions. Frankly, I just can\'t go there, but for the sake of example, let\'s play that scenario out in two different ways.

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\"You\'re a busy small business owner,\" I pointed out. \"You don\'t really want to spend money and hours in court do you?\"

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\"Yes! I don\'t care. I\'ll spend money. I\'ll sit in court. I want to stop this person. He\'s out to wreck my business,\" he asserted, vehemently.

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Well, it\'s his dime and his time, but I can\'t think of any worse outcome of a negative review than that the business owner would end up blowing money on a lawyer and spending hours sitting in a chilly, uncomfortable court room (if it came to that). What an inconvenience! And for what gain?

\n\n

Let\'s say he hires some lawyer to send some type of cease and desist letter, demanding that the offender remove his review. Well, Social Media and Internet Reputation Management have both been around long enough now for anyone who is paying the slightest attention to have noticed just how huge the reaction can be when a company decides to try to silence an unhappy customer and that unhappy customer happens to have a blog or an account on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. The company never, NEVER comes out looking good and more attention has been drawn to the negative situation than could ever have happened around the initial scenario of this single, bad review. Not a winning move, and I tried to tell the business owner this.

\n\n

Let\'s look at the second imaginable scenario. The offending reviewer is frightened off by the letter printed on scary legal stationery and the owner pays the lawyer\'s fat fee. The reviewer removes his review, crawls away into a dark hole and is never heard from again. Hooray!!! But wait...what about that next guy? That next reviewer who got sand in his salad, a double charge on his credit card or a lousy auto repair job? When he leaves his bad review, do we start all over again, marching furiously back to our attorney\'s office? Get out that scary letterhead again, we bark, rubbing our palms together in furor. Who cares if I can\'t be on the job today, winning new clients, making money, running my business? At least I\'ll get that guy!

\n\n

To my mind, no one but the lawyer will stand to benefit from this merry-go-round of litigation over something as utterly common as an unhappy customer standing on his 50 pixel soap box, complaining of dissatisfaction.

\n\n

\"Reviews aren\'t going away,\" I advised the caller. \"You have to learn to understand the game and play it with aplomb.\"

\n\n

In a rather combative tone, he told me that that this whole thing would go away if it ever happened to some famous politician or business. I felt it my duty to inform him that, in fact, some goofy friends of mine had actually experimented with hijacking the business profiles of Google, Microsoft and other quite large companies, and that while this had pointed out some of the weak spots in the system, the system had not gone away.

\n\n

Reviews are not going to go away any time soon, and unlike my little red ball in the photo accompanying this article, you shouldn\'t bury your head in the sand about this. If point of fact, it has been posited that a profile of all-positive reviews can look fake while a few bad ones add the leavening of reality and trustworthiness customers find believable. What I\'m saying here is certainly not news, but it was news to this business owner who is representative of that very large segment of the business world which has still yet to hear about the basic functions of Local Search. No shame in this. My firm still gets calls from people who aren\'t sure exactly what a website is, even now in 2010, so it\'s small surprise that busy SMBs have yet to encounter so under-promoted an area of marketing as Local SEO.

\n\n

But to ignore this extremely significant part of running a modern business would be foolish, indeed, once you know it exists, and the gut reaction of hiding from tough situations is not one you can sustain if you hope to succeed.

\n\n

As I ended my call with the business owner who would not be mollified by my proactive, positively-slanted advice, he was still talking about getting that lawyer and making that guy pay. He was trying to ask me for legal advice and I had to tell him, politely, that I\'m not in the business of making people pay...I\'m in the business of making business pay off for my clients. And you don\'t achieve that if you\'re wasting time tilting at windmills. As embarrassing, hurtful or enraging as it can be to feel you\'ve been unjustly accused, success is the best revenge.

\n\n----------------------\n\nPhoto Credit: Amy McTigue\n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Jennifer Laycock

\n \nA few weeks ago I wrote a handful of articles on how to develop a proper social media strategy by developing goals, breaking those goals into supportive goals and matching goals to appropriate tactics. Those three articles outline the foundation that needs to be laid for any good social media plan, but your job doesn\'t stop there. In fact, if you want to do things properly, your job is just getting started.

First, let\'s quickly recap what your process would look like if you were to map it out based solely on those three articles. For each of your primary goals, the process might look a little something like this:
\n\n $\"microgoalprocess1.gif\"$ You would have started with your primary goal, broken it down into supportive goals, matched those goals to appropriate tactics and determined which social media outlets best allowed you to implement those tactics. After a few weeks or months, you\'d sit down and ask yourself if you\'d met your primary goal.

There\'s really nothing wrong with going about the process this way, but there is a better way. What you need to do is understand the area between the outlets and success...that grey area where things can go right or wrong and you can be completely oblivious.

Understanding Micro Goals

Within that grey area is where our micro goals are going to live. These goals will sound familiar to most of you, because they\'re actually the types of \"goals\" that get kicked around by people who know very little about social media strategy. Things like number of Facebook followers or number of RSS subscribers. Things that on the surface are almost worthless, but when combined with a solid strategy actually become crucial to the long term success of your campaigns.

Micro-goals are basically the various numbers you can tally up from your involvement in different social media outlets. They can easily be tracked and tallied over time and they give you a concrete gauge of your interactions with consumers and how those interactions are changing over time.

Establishing Micro Goals

You\'ll need to have worked your way through your strategy to the point of selecting your social media tools before you\'ll be ready to establish your micro goals. For the most part, there are universal micro goals that will need to be tracked across the board for all companies. These will serve as the starting points to help you realize what you should be tracking.
\n\n\n $\"universalmicrogoals.gif\"$ You\'ll also need to have a solid understanding of your goals and supportive goals so you can fine tune your micro goals to your specific needs. For example, everyone will want to track the number of RSS and Email subscribers to their blog, but only some companies will need to track the number of PDF downloads or the number of leads generated from the blog.

Here are a few examples of specialized micro goals that might be tied to specific campaign goals:

\n $\"specialtymicrogoals.gif\"$ If you are using Facebook to drive people to events or sales, RSVPs will become an important part of you campaign and an essential micro goal to track. If you\'re using Flickr to build up press relations with bloggers and mainstream media, tracking the number of times your Creative Commons licensed photos are used will be important to track.

Sit down with your team, talk through your strategy and examine the list of actions consumers can take on each of the social media platforms you plan to utilize. Then add these to your list. Your finished product should give you quite a hefty list of things to track over the course of your campaign.

The Next Steps

Now that you understand what micro-goals are and how to establish them, you\'re ready to learn how to put them to work to improve the performance of your campaigns. In my next post, I\'ll talk about how to use these newly defined micro-goals to fine tune your social media efforts as you\'re moving forward with your campaigns.\n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

Note: Recently I\'ve gotten some ribbing from friends and colleagues about my exceedingly numerous multi-part posts. In order to wean myself off my favorite form of not-having-to-think-about-what-I\'m-going-to-write-about-next, I\'ve combined all 12 parts of this series into a single post. Enjoy! :)

\n\n

Part 1: Guilty of Crimes No One Committed

\n\n

A lot of people subscribe to the \"Guilt by Association\" theory in online marketing. This theory suggests that you are who you associate with. I agree there is some definite truth to this mindset, but, like a lot of things, it can also be taken to a paranoid extreme. This fear leads some people into a paralysis that ultimately hinders their online marketing efforts rather than helping them.

\n\n

\"Guilt by Association\" extremists work hard to keep themselves squeaky clean. They tread extra carefully with who they associate with in an effort to ensure that they are never found guilty of crimes they haven\'t committed. In order to stay \"pure\", they avoid having online relationships with some who they believe may have broken some rule at some point that, likely, nobody even cares about.

\n\n

Part 2: Google\'s Guidelines Don\'t Rule the Web

\n\n

With Google controlling so much market share, many business owners and online marketers are scared of doing anything that might seemingly violate Google\'s Guidelines. We know Google looks at both positive and negative attributes, including your associations, when developing your overall trust profile. But we often do ourselves a disservice when we let Google\'s Guidelines dictate everything we do on the web - even in areas that don\'t have any specific connection to Google.

\n\n

There is nothing wrong with keeping a clean profile and ensuring you don\'t do anything that violates the search engine guidelines. There is also nothing wrong with making sure you associate your online profile with people you know will help you and not hurt you. But there comes a point where it borders on paranoia, at best, and counter-productive, at worst.

\n\n

Part 3: You Have No Control Over Who Associates with You

\n\n

One of the problems with worrying too much over your online profile is that you have little to no control over who associates themselves with you. Anybody can link to you, anybody can scrape your content, anybody can share your post with their friends, and anybody can retweet you. If you\'re unhappy about who\'s doing any of these things, your sole recourse is to contact them, ask them to stop, and then cross your fingers.

\n\n

Google (and the other search engines) know this. They knew it back when they made links a part of their algorithms. They knew it when people started scraping and duplicating your content. And they know it now in an age of RTs, Likes, Mixxes, Stumbles, and whatever else we do with content we like.

\n\n

Google will not hold you responsible if someone promotes you and then goes off and violates Google\'s Guidelines.

\n\n

Part 4: You are Responsible for Who You Associate With

\n\n

If there is one constant in the world of online promotion, social media profiles, and search engine rankings, it is that you do have some responsibility for who you choose to associate with. In the real world, it is often said that you can tell a lot about a person by the friends they have. If you\'re associating with thieves, liars, spammers, and cheats, you don\'t have to be a thief, liar, spammer, or a cheat to get the reputation of one (or as an enabler of one). Either way, your associations affect you.

\n\n

Part 5: You Are Not Responsible for the Entire History of Who You Associate With

\n\n

There is some truth, both in real life and on the web, that you can learn a lot about a person by who they associate with. But it is also true that you cannot not be held accountable for the actions of every person you\'ve shaken hands with.

\n\n

In the social sphere of the web, retweeting or liking someone\'s single message is not an endorsement of every tweet, post, thought, or blog they ever published. Even the worst offenders do something right! Making note of the positive doesn\'t suddenly hang all their negative around your neck as if you\'ve endorsed it all.

\n\n

Parts 6-10:

\n\n

yada yada yada

\n\n

Part 11: Everyone\'s Got Some (Negative) History

\n\n

No matter how squeaky clean you want to keep your social media profile, the only way to stay squeaky clean is to not associate yourself with anyone. The only person who does not have something negative in their profile is likely the person who has no profile whatsoever.

\n\n

Or you can check the complete historical profile of every person before you RT, Stumble, Like, or whatever. Of course, even with those who pass the test, what guarantees do you have that they won\'t do something shady in the future? Not only do you have to check the historical profile before you connect with them, you have to keep checking back to make sure you still want to be connected with them.

\n\n

Part 12: We Are All Violators

\n\n

Sooner or later, whether you like it or not, you\'re going to violate some guidelines somewhere, including Google\'s. It\'s inevitable. Which is why we can\'t live and breathe by every guideline that Google puts out.

\n\n

Keep in mind, those who try hard to stay violation-free are often those that violate guidelines the most. They just hide it better.

\n\n

And the search engines likely know this too.
\n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Moran

I recently got this question and stared at it. Long and hard. There were so many things wrong with the question that I didn\'t know where to start. But since this is a blog post, don\'t fear. I\'ve figured out where to start by now. I hope when you are at the end of the post that you know where to start, too. Duplicate content is a subject that everyone asks
\nabout, but I find that few people truly understand what it is or what search engines do with it, much less the answer to how to avoid the duplicate content penalty.

\n\n

The first reason that I started staring at the question was because of how it was worded. Here is an excerpt from that e-mail:

We want to start put lots of content in our blog and hope those articles we put will show up in search result (and we can catch long-tailed keyword search). It looks like it is quicker to establish content partners and just use other people\'s content. Will the content still show up in the search result if it is exactly the same as the content in another website? If not, how much percentage difference should we have? 80% the same?

Gee, the whole approach is so wrong. Taking other people\'s content and trying to change it just enough to fool the search engines—where do we start?

\n\n

$\""Kopirkin"$

Image via Wikipedia

\n\n

First, I\'ll try to answer the questions. SEO gurus describe this situation as the \"duplicate content penalty,\" but the phrase is somewhat of a misnomer, because the search engines are not really penalizing your site—they are just showing content that they believe is unique (by removing duplicates). So, if your content is substantially the same as another page on the Web, Google and the other engines won\'t show them all—they\'ll just show one version, or they\'ll show one ranked substantially higher than another that is somewhat different, but too similar to show close together in the results. This makes sense, because searchers don\'t want a page full of search results that all have similar pages in them.

\n\n

Fine, you might say. How do I make sure that mine is the one that is shown? The best answer is to make your content original, because if someone else rips it off, the search engines will probably show yours. They try to show the one that was posted first or the one from the best site, so because the rip-off sites steal so much content, the search engines detect properly (most of the time) whose content it is. If they get it wrong, you can assert your rights under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) with Google or Bing (or whatever engine you are struggling with). Likewise, if you are the one pasting content from other sites, Google will probably know not to show your version and the real owners can assert their DCMA rights against you. (Most countries outside the U.S. afford you similar protection for your copyrighted material.)

\n\n

To get to the burning question, no one knows how high a percentage you need for your pages to be hidden in the results, but some search gurus claim it is as little as 30% of the copy on the page. Having said that, I think it is the wrong question.to be asking.

\n\n

Your goal shouldn\'t be to grab other people\'s content and post it for your own benefit. If that content is protected by copyright, then what you are doing is illegal if you haven\'t received permission from the copyright owner. Second, your site is likely to become an eclectic mess of opinions and writing styles from people who aren\'t you. In your haste to create lots of content, you probably aren\'t creating very good content. Your branding and your expertise should be out front—you do that by creating original content that shows off what you know and explains why people should buy from you. It might sound harder at first, but it works a lot better in the end because you\'ll get the search rankings and the search traffic you crave, but also the customers, too. You see, getting search rankings isn\'t your end game. Even if you manage to fool search engines with your purloined content, you are unlikely to win customers that way.

\n\n

So, if you are trying to do something at low cost, go ahead and hire people to write your content. But don\'t just accept whatever they crank out--that is cheap but not usually very effective, Instead, make sure that they are writing content that shows off what you know. Give them some of the ideas and inspect everything they do to ensure that it meets your quality standards as well as your brand message. It might sound hard to do, but I have found that it\'s easier in the long run because you don\'t have to undo any content that shows you badly, and because good content can work for a very long time.

\n\n

$\"Enhanced$

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Fleming

\n So, you\'ve come to realize that there\'s a whole Display Network out there through Google AdWords that, if utilized correctly, will take your online business to new heights. But, you\'ve also realized that\'s a big \"if utilized correctly.\" You may have been burned by the Display Network before (formerly called the Content Network). Maybe you just jumped right into AdWords because you knew you wanted more traffic for your site. You heard how easy it was to get it by whipping up a few keywords that were relevant to what you were offering and by writing a few ads to entice the searchers to your site. Then, since you were never taught that the Search and Display networks operate by completely different rules, you went ahead and turned them both on and started getting more traffic.\n

Man, getting traffic can be so easy.... and dangerous to your bottom line. The truth is, there is an art and science to getting traffic just like any other vocation. It takes skill and knowledge to be successful. So, when it comes to utilizing the Display Network, you need to gather the knowledge that is going to enable you to use the tool correctly to accomplish your goals.\n\n

Here we go...\n\n

Keywords\n\n

Google reads keywords within a Display Network ad group differently than a Search Network ad group. On the Search Network, your chosen keywords are matched to queries that users perform within search engines. On the Display Network, Google determines one theme from all of the keywords added to your ad group. Then, it matches that theme with the themes of specific pages in it\'s Display Network and your ad is eligible to appear on that page.\n\n

For example, let\'s say I\'ve added the following keywords to my ad group -\n\n

acoustic guitar lessons\n
easy guitar lessons\n
free guitar lessons\n
guitar lessons\n
guitar solo lesson\n
online guitar lessons\n
rock guitar lessons\n\n

There really can be no mistake about what the theme of this ad group is...guitar lessons. Well, Google has a bunch of domains and pages in it\'s Display Network that it\'s determined also has that same theme, like this one....

$\"My$ \nTherefore, your ad and those pages are matches and you are now eligible to enter the auction for those the specific ad spots available on those pages.\n\nNow, just like you should be testing and optimizing the keywords you use in the Search Network, you should do the same with your keyword themes in the Display Network. Which keyword theme will perform better for my marketing goals, \"guitar lessons\" or \"guitar tabs?\" Only one way to find out. Test.\n\n

You may even use a group of keywords that describes a keyword theme you\'re going for. So, instead of explicitly using your root keyword \"guitar lessons\" in all of your keyword choices, you could come up with a list of keywords like the following...\n\n

strings\n
capo\n
acoustic\n
electric\n
tune\n
les paul\n
gibson\n
rock\n
tabs\n
guitar\n

So, here we just played some word association with what we\'re offering to feed the Google algorithm monster some words to chew on to come up with a theme. They will determine the sites that match and then you will determine if the sites are a good match for you. It\'s kind of like you are the giver and Google is the taker in the old game show $25,000 Pyramid...

$\"Pyramid.png\"$ \nJust like you keep keywords that perform well and eliminate keywords that don\'t perform well in your Search Network campaign, so you do the same with these ad group keyword themes. These themes act like hunters to go out and find sites that will accomplish your marketing goals.\n

Here are some rules to remember when choosing your ad group keywords:\n\n

1. Match types don\'t matter (except negative). Google is simply looking for a theme.\n\n
2. Up to 50 keywords are analyzed. Even 50 is too many if you ask me. You are looking to communicate a specific theme of the websites you\'d like to try your ads on. This should not take many keywords to communicate this theme.\n\n
3. Negative keywords matter. If there are words on pages that signal that your desired audience is not reading this page, then you can add them as negatives. So, if you sell guitars but not classical guitars, you may want to add \"classical\" as a negative keyword.\n
\n4. Volume of keywords doesn\'t matter.\n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter

Keyword research is a funny thing. You can gain a lot of knowledge about what words people use when searching on the engines, but it tells very little about what a person wants when they search using a particular keyword or phrase. The intent behind the search is the missing component, and I don\'t know of any keyword tools that get far enough inside the searcher\'s heads to know what exactly the searcher\'s intent is.

\n\n

Many people, when performing keyword research, look primarily at the search volume of a phrase and whether the phrase appears relevant to what they do or sell. On that analysis alone keywords are chosen or rejected.

\n\n

Search volume isn\'t always the best way to choose keywords.

\n\n

A targeted phrase isn\'t always as it appears

\n\n

$\"You$

\n\n

A lot of phrases can change meaning significantly just by changing word order or the addition or removal of a qualifier. Lets say you sell a brand of underwear called Awesome Underwear. Well, if a keyword phrase is \"awesome underwear suck,\" clearly that is not a phrase you want to target or use on your website. Or perhaps you see searches for \"awesome underwear wedgies.\" In most cases this would be caused by people searching for information on how Awesome Underwear causes wedgies, a major complaint spreading like diarrhea throughout the internet.

\n\n

On the other hand, what appears to be a negative phrase for one company can actually be a positive for another. Perhaps there is a company called Bad Ass Undies that\'s known for creating underwear that actually prevent wedgies, even in the toughest of boy\'s locker rooms. In this case, searches for \"bad ass undies wedgies\" is performed by people looking for more info on how the undies work and if, alas, they truly can stand the wedgie test. If you\'re optimizing the website for Bad Ass Undies, \"wedgies\" a word you definitely want to target.

\n\n

As I said earlier, sometimes changing the word order can have a profound effect on whether a keyword phrase is a viable one or not. A good example of this is is \"wedding planning\" vs. \"planning wedding\". Some may be looking for a person to manage their wedding while others may be looking for tips on how to plan a wedding themselves.

\n\n

Finally, there is always the case where a phrase changes meaning without changing word order but by changing the inflection used in the searchers mind.

\n\n

$\"Cordless$

\n\n

This happened to me the other day as I was looking for a headset for my phone. I saw a box on the shelf that read \"cordless telephone headset.\" My first thought was, \"oh, look, a cordless headset.\" But alas, it was merely a headset for a cordless phone. Two very different things but both use the same words in the same order.

\n\n

Before deciding to optimize your site for \"cordless telephone headset\" you need to determine what it is people are looking for. Get this wrong and your visitors will quickly leave.

\n\n

The best tool I\'ve seen for determining visitor intent is Google. Do a search for your phrase and look at the results. If the majority of the results are cordless headsets then you have to assume this is what people mean when they type in that phrase. When people land on your site using that phrase, these are the products you need to display. If you show corded headsets for cordless phones instead, you\'re going to have higher bounce rates.

\n\n

Understanding your visitors intent with keywords doesn\'t always boil down to the obvious. This is a good check for all of your keywords. Sometimes there are other industries you may not be aware of that are using the same terminology. A quick check in the search results can be quite telling as what your keywords actually mean.

\n\n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Jennifer Laycock

\n Every now and then Search Engine Guide\'s Associate Editor Stoney deGeyter finds himself on the phone with a potential client trying to talk them into putting their conversation on hold and giving me a call. Why? Because they\'re in a position where they need to focus on both social media and search engine optimization to build a successful site, but they only have the budget to do one at a time...and at this time, they need to put search engine optimization on hold and focus on social media.

As much as Stoney enjoys working with companies to make sure their sites are search engine friendly and their content is fully optimized, the truth is his services are not always going to deliver the best bang for their buck. There are times when it simply makes more sense to focus on social media. In fact, making the right choice of where to start your marketing efforts can be essential to generating the additional revenue needed to invest in BOTH Social Media and SEO. (sound familiar? You must have been here Tuesday...)

\n $\"00411809.jpg\"$ If you\'re in the position of trying to figure out where to start, here are three key ways to decide social media is your best starting point. (On Tuesday, we looked at when it\'s best to begin with Search Engine Optimization.)

Clue #1 When You are Launching a Brand New Web Site

If your business is new to the web or you\'re just getting ready to launch a new site, social media may be the best place for you to start. Brand new sites often take time to achieve rankings because they lack the age, the content and the links that are important parts of search engine algorithms. These three things take time to gather, but social media is a highly effective way to speed up the process.

At its core, social media is about building and expanding the conversation around a particular product, service or company. A natural byproduct of this exposure is links, often highly relevant ones. These links lay an important foundation for later search engine optimization efforts. At the same time, the ability to analyze the value of social media related traffic and the topics that drive the highest levels of conversation and conversion factor heavily into the long term content strategy required for good search engine optimization.

Clue #2 When Your Product or Service is an Impulse Buy

Maybe you are one of those companies that has been blessed with an amazing product that\'s both affordable and extraordinarily unique. You sell the kind of product people see and say \"I want that!.\" Generally, these products are cheap enough to qualify as an impulse buy (think kid trends like SillyBandz or adult temptations like Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes in a Jar) but sometimes they\'re just plain jealousy-inducing cool (think any product by Apple.)

These are the products that we buy because we want them, not because we need them. These are the perfect types of products for the social media world. Especially if they\'re new. Millions upon millions of Internet users take to blogs, Facebook, Twitter and hundreds of other sites to share their daily lives. This includes talking about the things they love and the things they want.

If this is the type of product you sell, chances are high you\'ll be better served by a word of mouth driven social media campaign than by making it easier for people to find your product. This is a great clue you should prioritize social media.

Clue #3 When You Sell Something People Don\'t Even Know They Want

Sometimes your biggest battle is simply getting people to notice you. If you\'re breaking new ground by targeting a new niche or introducing a new product or service that\'s never been offered before, social media is where you need to start.

Let\'s say you are introducing a completely new piece of core cardio exercise equipment like nothing else on the market. You\'re going to be faced with the type of challenges that make social media an essential first step in your online marketing campaign. You\'ll need to build awareness of the product (to drive search activity later), educate about the product (to drive purchase activity later) and gain exposure for the product (to drive word of mouth.)

Consumers can\'t search for the product they don\'t know exists. Social media allows you to get your product in front of you target audience by relying on existing conversation channels populated by your product\'s target audience.

It\'s a Chicken or the Egg Argument, but it Depends on Your Goal

If I had my way, every company would have the ability to fully invest in both social media and search engine optimization. (They\'d have budget for PPC, conversion analysis and analytics to boot!) That\'s not the reality of business though, so we\'ve got to find the best way to work with what we have.

Much like the chicken or the egg argument, it depends on your ultimately goal. If your primary goal is to eat and eat now, the egg is your best bet. It\'s fast, it\'s easy, it\'s tasty and it\'s good for you. If your primary goal is to make sure several people can eat for awhile, then the chicken is the better bet. It will regularly produce small amounts of food to keep you going while you seek out other sources of nourishment.

Search and social can work in the same way. Both are important, but both have to be viewed in the context of their potential. As yourself what the primary goals of your online marketing campaign are for the next six months and then reconsider the points made here. More often than not, either search or social will rise to the top as an important priority. Invest your funds there and establish a solid base for moving forward. \n

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Jennifer Laycock

\n Every now and then I find myself on the phone with a potential client trying to talk them into putting our conversation on hold and giving my Search Engine Guide\'s Associate Editor Stoney deGeyter a call. Why? Because they\'re in a position where they need to focus on both search engine optimization and social media to build a successful site, but they only have the budget to do one at a time...and at this time, they need to put social media on hold and focus on search engine optimization.

As much as I enjoy working with companies to build sustainable social media strategies, the truth is my services are not always going to deliver the best bang for their buck. There are times when it simply makes more sense to focus on search engine optimization. In fact, making the right choice of where to start your marketing efforts can be essential to generating the additional revenue needed to invest in BOTH Social Media and SEO.

\n $\"MP900442221.JPG\"$ If you\'re in the position of trying to figure out where to start, here are three key ways to decide search engine optimization is your best starting point. (On Thursday, we\'ll take a look at when it\'s best to begin with Social Media.)

Clue #1 When You Have an Established Web Site, but No Traffic

Let\'s say you\'ve been doing business online for several years. You have an established web site and you\'ve been using it successfully to generate leads or drive sales. You have a nice amount of traffic and fairly good conversion rates. You\'ve just reached a point where you\'d like to increase business and your existing efforts aren\'t cutting the mustard.

This is a good time to bring in a search engine optimization expert. A good SEO will be able to sort through your analytics and match what they find to solid keyword research in order to determine the most effective way to get your product in front of potential customers who may be looking for it. They can build off the foundation of age and credibility you\'ve established to seek out new clients and get your site in front of more targeted searchers.

When this is the case, investing your money in search engine optimization to pick up the customers who are actually looking for (but failing to find) your product or services, makes the most sense.

Clue #2 When Your Product or Service has a Research Based Sales Process

There are some products people fall in love with at first sight. We call these \"impulse buys.\" There are other products that require a fairly lengthy research process before a purchase is made. These are the types of products that align perfectly with search engine optimization.

If you sell a product that costs more than $25 and that has competition from other similar products, you likely fall into the realm of research based sales. This means people will start with broad searches (i.e. portable dvd player), move on to information gathering purchases (i.e. best portable dvd player under $100) and finally search with a specific product in mind (Phillips PET741B/37.) For these types of products, it\'s absolutely essential to make sure your site is properly optimized. If you\'re not connecting with these customers at multiple points during the research process, you\'re highly unlikely to connect with them when it comes time for them to buy.

Clue #3 When You Sell Something People Already Want

If you\'re spending tons of money on offline advertising (billboards, radio, tv, print, etc...) but your site isn\'t properly optimized, you\'re making a huge mistake. In fact, if you sell any product that\'s already well established and popular, but you aren\'t getting the type of traffic and sales you\'d hoped for, it\'s probably a good idea to focus on SEOing your web site before you do anything else.

A quick trip to a free keyword research tool can be very revealing when it comes to this clue. If legions of consumers are searching for the very thing you\'re selling...search engine optimization should be your first stop in the world of online marketing. If it\'s not, you\'re simply leaving customers sitting on the table for your nearest competitor with a marketing budget to scoop up.

The Best Internet Marketing Campaigns are Integrated

In an ideal world, every company would have the budget to invest in a truly integrated online marketing campaign. They would be focusing on search engine optimization, analytics, paid search, social media and online reputation management. The teams for each of these specialties would be working in tandem to test, refine and launch the most effective campaigns possible.

Since this isn\'t always possible, it\'s important to focus your funds in the area that delivers the strongest and fastest reward. This will often enable a company to increase sales and profits enough to justify investing in the next item on their marketing list. Ideally, this cycle continues until you\'ve got a strong marketing presence in all areas of the web. Until then, invest those first funds wisely.\n

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