10e20 Blog

This is a look at Vanessa Fox’s informative webcast called Search Marketing 101 - Does My CEO Really Need A Facebook Profile hosted by Search Marketing Now.

When people think of social networking, Vanessa feels they tend to think of the high profile stuff like MySpace and Facebook and these are great examples, but she stressed that there are all kinds of social networking. Social Networking is anywhere people are talking online. From a corporate perspective, what you are interested in - is where people are talking about you and are talking about the topics you care about (competitor brands, issues that involve your brand).

Examples:

• Digg
• Faves.com
• Amazon (is social networking because of customer ratings and reviews)
• Blogs (big place where people talk about things - voicing opinions, posting comments)

This is a recap of a teleseminar I attended which was given by Steve Harrison. It was “Seven Things You Absolutely Must Know to Get Publicity in Major Magazines and Newspapers.” The intent of this call was to give information on how to get publicity and to impart this information; he provided mini interviews with various people involved in PR. Based on the information the speakers provided - there were actually more than seven things to know - there were 14!!

Silent Endorsement

He stressed that just one feature article about you in a major publication can bring you a flood of orders - overnight. When you get publicity, you get something that no other kind of marketing can give you - a ‘silent endorsement’. People assume that if you are the one who has been written up in something like USA Today, they figure you must be the best at what you do. It is a silent endorsement.

Yesterday, Chris Sherman from Search Marketing Now presented another webinar jammed packed with useful information. This session entitled ‘Multi-National Search Marketing: Effective Strategies for Global Marketers‘ was sponsored by iProspect and moderated by Claire Schoen.

Chris was a perfect speaker due to his experience covering search and search engines since 1994. He is the author of several books, including ‘Google Power’.

Chris started out the presentation by outlining that he’ll cover why we might want to go global, what types of campaigns work best and how to do it.

The first slide discussed the fact that a lot of people perceive that Google has taken over the earth. Yes, Google is dominant and if you are running a search marketing campaign, you understand that Google’s reach can give you that global coverage. Chris said we may ask ourselves why should we should bother going multinational since Google has a global reach. But, Chris believes there are other opportunities out there.

On Thursday, Christine Churchill, President of Key Relevance presented an informative webinar on How to Select a Paid Search Management Application.

This session presented by Search Marketing Now and sponsored by Marin Software was an excellent introduction in how to determine whether you need a third party search management application and if so, what considerations you need to make when selecting the application.

Ms. Churchill started by demonstrating that the projected growth of paid search is high. In fact, US paid search advertising revenues were $11.76 billion in 2007 and are projected to grow to $26.79 billion in 2011 (JPMorgan and Company reports “Nothing But Net”).

All indications point to paid search continuing to grow. New players are entering into the market and those involved are increasing their spend. Double digit growth is expected.

Yet - with all this growth, there are still many difficulties associated with managing PPC.

On Tuesday, Seth Godin, author of bestselling books and agent of change presented an informative session call 14 Trends No Marketer Should Ignore. This enthusiastic and informative presentation, sponsored by SEMpdx and Corvent provided a wealth of info on New Marketing.

According to the promos on this session, Seth was going to question if our marketing is out of sync. HE wants us to make the most out of today’s new marketing technologies - without making ‘meatball sundaes’!

I must admit the title of this session was intriguing (albeit a bit disgusting - a meatball sundae - YUCK!) and I was excited to find out what Seth had to say.

Seth started out by telling us that he has discovered that there is a disconnect between the people doing the work and the people writing the checks. The people doing the work recognized that it wasn’t working. They realized that the time was being wasted in meetings etc.

On Thursday, January 10th, Chris Sherman, Executive Editor from Search Engine Land spoke at a very valuable Search Marketing Now webcast entitled ‘Paid Search For Big Sites’. This event was sponsored by iProspect and provided pertinent information regarding paid search programs for big brands and big sites.

At the onset, Chris indicated that the goal of the presentation is to help those attending to better manage their paid search efforts.

Mr. Sherman started by stating that all big brands do have big sites - but that not all big sites are big brands. The presentation was broken into two segments - what you need to do to set up your PPC program for success and the marketing end of things related to search.

The awards season has been a bust due to the writer’s strike and has left many people searching for a fun alternative. In direct response to this void in the marketplace, Matt McGee has created The SEMMYS:

The SEMMYS are an annual awards event honoring the great content produced across the search and online marketing industry. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has grown to include a variety of disciplines, including blogging, social media, reputation management, and more. The SEMMYS attempt to include all these elements into one awards event. We hope the SEMMYS serve as a complement to the excellent existing awards which honor blogs and bloggers.

I am judging two categories Google (along with Lisa Barone and Rand Fishkin) and LOL Funny! (along with Vanessa Fox). There are a ton of great nominees in both of these categories which will make it a tough job to be sure.

Last week Chris Sherman (Executive Editor from Search Engine Land) spoke at a very valuable Search Marketing Now webcast entitled ‘Leveraging All Search Marketing Channels’. This event was sponsored by 24/7 and provided pertinent information regarding various search marketing channels, both traditional and emerging.

The speaker challenged the audience to think of how many channels we are using and where we might be missing opportunities. Mr. Sherman believes the evolution of search has many parallels with television in that at the beginning there were a few big dominant players and ads were only available to big spenders. Later, as the medium developed smaller niche players and opportunities for smaller advertisers emerged.

In the world of search, at the beginning, we had three or four large search engines and now we are seeing opportunities in smaller, niche oriented markets.

Chris is at two for two: his second webcast in two weeks has been extremely valuable, as always. Thanks to Chris, SearchMarketingNow, and iProspect for the opportunity to listen in and learn.

Today, Chris talked about mixing paid and organic listings. Is it worth pursuing? What are the benefits? Keep reading!

Overview
I am going to talk about definitions and critical differences between paid and organic listings. There are two fallacies and two important concerns. How do you achieve a balance between the two? I will discuss why paid and organic listings are both important parts of a search marketing campaign, and I’ll then give tips on how to balance the two.

Definitions
Organic listings:

• Natural search results that are derived from the full text of all pages found on the web
• The position result is determined by search algorithms that consider dozens of factors: keyword density, meta tags, etc.

Today, Chris Sherman from SearchEngineLand spoke at another extremely valuable Search Marketing Now webcast entitled “Maximizing the Impact of Paid Search Listings.” The event was sponsored by iProspect and provided a myriad of wonderful tips for anyone looking to create an advertising campaign to direct searchers to their websites.

Introduction
When considering paid search, it’s really important to set some goals. As you can tell, I’m very big on goal orientation. Some of these goals can be:

• Better targeting (keywords and position)
• Better messaging (ad copy/description and landing page)
• Lower cost/reduce waste
• Increase conversions
• Improve ROI
• Measure success

I’d like to start off by dispelling some common myths.

• #1 ranking is crucial. So many people have told me this. “If we’re not on top, people won’t click us.” or “My boss says we need to be number one.” That’s not a very good reason to gain a ranking. What you want to do is get the optimal position to get the maximum number of conversions (buying a product or a service) for a click.