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Media Relations Guide to SEO

Posted by Lee Odden on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 - 1 Comment »

This post is a preview to the presentation that TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden will be giving at the upcoming Media Relations Summit, New York, NY May 17-19 on Search Engine Optimization Tips for Media Relations.

Many public relations practitioners have warmed in recent years to the power of search engine optimization for growing the impact of pull based PR efforts.

Journalists, bloggers and industry influentials use search engines to find subject matter experts, research companies, locate past media coverage and track topical trends. In fact, a recent survey on journalists’ use of search by TopRank reports that 91% of those journalists, reporters and editors surveyed use search engines to do their jobs.

Traditionally, search engine optimization efforts have been managed by corporate marketing departments

9 Steps to Leveraging SEO and Social Media for PR

PR budgets have been affected just as much as marketing and Public Relations departments in every industry are trying to figure out the  mechanics of how to improve PR effectiveness through social media. At the same time, optimizing news content for search engines is fast becoming an established part of the mix for many PR programs.

On their own, SEO and social media channels offer attractive opportunities for reaching industry influentials as well as end consumers through push and pull PR. Together, SEO and social media combine to create a competitive edge that can boost online PR results.

Why is this so? Changes in the way the media and end consumers discover, consume and share content illustrate the intersection of opportunity for search and the social web. Today’s increasingly social savvy content consumer not only expects to find what they’re looking for on search engines, but to interact with the results. Those interactions take many forms including: commenting, voting and sharing. As a result, social media can affect search engine visibility in numerous ways, creating new promotion opportunities for public and media relations efforts.

Of course, throwing keywords at social media tactics isn’t quite the same thing as developing and implementing a plan to reach specific goals. Dropping links to news being promoted on social networks can have impact but is difficult to sustain. For long term value from effort with SEO and social media, PR professionals should follow best practices as well as the fundamentals:

Implement a listening program using social media monitoring, search engine ranking and keyword research tools.Identify the specific audience to reach. What are their behaviors and preferences for content, sharing, media types, etc? What keywords are used in a social AND search context?Set specific goals and objectives that can be measured. Mentions, comments, links, rankings, traffic, media coverage or other

Measuring the ROI of Online Public Relations

Posted by Lee Odden on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 - Comments »

Measuring the return on investment from online marketing and PR efforts is essential as an indication of success as well as a feedback mechanism to guide subsequent efforts.

Determining the effectiveness of SEO for Public Relations starts with clearly identified objectives. Matching the purpose for the effort with specific metrics is essential.  For example, if improving brand visibility is a goal, then documenting brand mentions in connection with news & PR content at regular intervals can demonstrate the effect of content promotion and link building.

Online PR metrics and tools often include:

News wire service metrics (see screen capture below)Web analytics for landing pages and web siteGoogle and Yahoo alertsMonitor blog search engines (via RSS)Press release landing page conversion trackingSocial media monitoringInbound linksPickups on blogsPickups on other web sites & online publicationsNews and Standard Search Engine RankingsConversions: Less likely sales, more likely white paper downloads, webinar signups, newsletter subscriptions, demos, etc

A press release that is keyword optimized and announcing a promotional offer of some kind, should have tracking codes added to the links embedded in the release. Those links should point to landing pages designed to convert visitors from the press release to the desired outcome. Ranking is not a worthwhile metric in this case but conversions are.

Capturing various measures and key performance indicators isn’t enough to gain support for optimizing news content in many organizations.  These efforts belong within the Public Relations effort and should emphasize goals consistent with PR objectives. Sometimes it takes a little creative packaging of analytics to help other departments or upstream executives “get” the value of  optimizing PR content for search.

Here are a few tactics to use in order to sell the value of SEO within a PR effort:

Show competitor social search visibility vs client/companyShow competitor’s optimized news content ranking in various types of search engines where the company/client is not (and probably should be)Research a keyword glossary and run a ranking report on those phrases. Show the lack of search visibility for what search audiences are actually looking for, relevant to the businessRun a test of a few news items, whether they be blog posts, press releases or a digital asset like video. Take a benchmark measurement first and then show progress.Set keyword ranking goals for news content and estimate the cost to achieve the same goals with PPC advertising over time. Demonstrate the cost of organic search traffic vs PPC traffic.

If you can’t get budget approval for an overall search campaign as part of specific PR efforts, then using a competitive example or a small scale test might be enough to demonstrate the value of incorporating SEO with Public Relations.

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Tags: digital pr,Online PR,PR Measurement,ROI
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New Webinar: Optimized Public Relations

Photo Credit: Andy Beal

On Thursday, January 28th 1PM EST TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden and Bulldog Reporter will be offering a high impact webinar for Public Relations and Communications professionals on using search engine optimization to increase online visibility and placements. Details are below, but you can register here:

Optimized Public Relations: 10 Easy SEO Tactics PR Can Use to Increase Digital and Traditional Media Pickup in 2010 Bulldog Reporter’s PR University Presents a New Webcast Tutorial Thursday, January 28, 2010

PR pros looking for the latest SEO tools and know-how to build brand and buzz should attend this new webcast tutorial from Bulldog Reporter’s PR University titled: “Optimized Public Relations: 10 SEO Tactics PR Can Use to Increase Digital and Traditional Media Pickup in 2010.” :

This PR University webcast takes place on Thursday, January 28, at 1PM EST (noon CST, 11AM MST, 10AM PST).

In just 90 minutes, this PR University webcast tutorial will give PR professionals the tools and step-by-step instruction they need to positively impact their company or brand’s perception, positioning and coverage. They will learn how to find their keyword sweet spot, how to use those words and phrases to boost the number of people who visit their site and how to write optimized copy to drive greater results and return on investment.

Key takeaways from this webinar:

The opportunity Google’s Universal Search offers PR for news and other digital assetsSEO Primer: Common myths, essential concepts and key definitions PR must understand how search engines workHow to conduct keyword research-plus online tools and new techniques for finding their company or brand’s keyword sweet spotWord counts, hyperlinks, headline writing rules and other SEO guidelinesHow to use keywords to optimize your online newsroom, website, press releases — and virtually any PR communiquéSEO Distribution: Smart press releases, social media releases and other emerging distribution tools that leverage optimized PR copy for wider reach onlineActionable tips for incorporating SEO and Social Media into an optimized PR programHow to optimize press releases, websites and PR communiqués by integrating keywords and phrases

Register for the Optimized Public Relations webinar here.

Attendance at Bulldog Reporter’s PR University : audio conference costs $299 per dial-in site. Participants in the 90-minute conference will be able to pose specific questions for the presenter at several junctures during the discussion. Attendees of PR University conferences receive one credit toward PRSA accreditation maintenance.
Registration also includes an up-to-the-minute conference manual and a full transcript. For more information on taking part in the event, go here : or for personalized service and special offers please contact our client satisfaction representatives toll free at: 1-800-959-1059.

About Lee Odden:

Lee Odden is CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a Minnesota based digital marketing agency with experience providing Search Engine Optimization and Social Media PR consulting services to organizations including PRSA, PRWeb, McKesson and Marketo. Odden’s SEO advice is featured in a chapter of

OMB Search Marketing Roundup 123006

  Posted by blog - Saturday, December 30, 2006 Here is a roundup of posts from Online Marketing Blog this week:

Blogs Rock for SEO, SMO and PR

Lowdown on Spamming Social Media

Will Google Squash Digg?

Happy Birthday Online Marketing Blog!

Dan Thies Calls it Quits

ReviewMe Owner Sells Performancing Assets to PayPerPost

Top TopRank Blog Posts for 2006

SEO Strategy: Zone or Man to Man?

Playstation 3 Baby!

Next week starts a whole new year! Happy New Year!

ags: toprank, online marketing blog
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Best SEO Blog of 2006 Award

  Posted by blog - Wednesday, January 03, 2007 Search Engine Journal has announced the winner of the 2006 Best SEO Blog voting and the winner is SEOmoz. I would have to agree. I have mentioned over at Online Marketing Blog that I think SEOmoz is the best SEO blog on the planet. Apparently, quite a few people agree. :)

Congratulations Rand!!!

Tags: seo blogs, seomoz
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OMB Search Marketing Roundup 010507

  Posted by blog - Friday, January 05, 2007 This week's roundup of blog posts over at Online Marketing Blog starts a whole new year for search marketing.

2007 Happy New Year!

Video Interview on Transparency and Social Media

Favorite SEO Blogs

Will Blogsmith be the next big blogging platform?

Must Read Search Marketing Blogs

Reader Poll: Top Reasons to Let a Client Go

Elements of Successful Client Relationships

Search Marketing Blogs Update 010507

There is No

What's the Word on Page Rank?

  Posted by blog - Tuesday, January 09, 2007 A public relations associate recently shared the persistent question of a client that I thought I would provide an answer to here.

Q: XYZ person and ABC company keeps talking about Page Rank. I have told him that we do not look at Page Rank in that way. Do you have a good explanation of why Page Rank is not worth obsessing over?

A: The data that supplies Google toolbar PageRank scores (the green bar) is 3-4 months older than the actual PageRank variable used to sort search results when someone queries Google. Also, PageRank is one of 200

The Cons of Changing URLs

  Posted by blog - Monday, January 15, 2007 Here is a question about changing URLs that I recently received that I thought would be of use to others considering a similar situation:
"We are considering changing our policy regarding URLs for sites. Right now each one has its own URL, i.e., domainname.com. We are considering changing them to: www.ourbrandname.com/olddomainname/. There are strong business reasons to do so. Are there any SEO ramifications (good or bad) for our sites if we do this?"My response:

There are numerous issues with changing URLs. Here are a few considerations:

1. The old URLs have been published to the web and are part of the content and link history associated with any site they link to. The change to the new URL will not bring with it, any link equity that has been previously built up.

2. Search engines have indexed the current URLs, some sites have linked to the current URLs and some people have bookmarked the current urls. Changing to the new URL syntax brings with it the issue of redirecting all old URLs to their new counterparts. This is a coding issue that is handled at the server level so both search engines and users are re-directed to the proper content. It also means that the top referrers of traffic will need to be contacted and advised of the new url format. ie, ask them to change the URL they link to.

3. If redirection of old to new URLs is not handled properly a few issues will occur:
a) Users that find the site in search engine results will click on the link and get a "not found error" or possibly a custom not found page that suggests other places on the site to look. Neither of which is the content the user is looking for.

b) If search engines are not provided with permanent redirect instructions (301) then they will continue to maintain the old URLs in their databases, retaining any link popularity and traffic to the old URLs and not passing it on to the new site URL.4. The current URLs are short and user friendly. The new urls are not and contain additional branding elements, therefore diluting the brand.

5. There is an advantage to yourbrandname.com by having multiple, active sites producing content and attracting links under the same domain, but you will be starting from scratch.

6. There are numerous free blog services that offer sub domain URLs (name.wordpress.com, name.blogspot.com, name.vox.com, etc). A subdirectory URL (www.ourbrandname.com/olddomainname/) would be perceived as less credible than a domain name and less than a sub domain.

What other issues (pro/con) can you think of in this situation?

Tags: seo, changing urls, search engin optimization
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TopRank Weekly Roundup

  Posted by blog - Saturday, January 27, 2007 Here is a list of the week's blog posts over at Online Marketing Blog focusing on SEO, blogging and business of search marketing.

SEMPO Board of Directors Nominees - Lee

Search Marketing Blogs Update 012607 -

Friday Search News 012507 -

Content vs Links -

The Lowdown on Web Designers and SEO -

Recommendations for Collaboration Software


Blogging in Different Languages

Yahoo Adds Quality Index to Search Marketing Ads

Gain Client Support for Successful Search Marketing

SEO Secrets for Better Public Relations

Good SEO Humor

Lessons Learned About Blogging

Monday Links 012207

Reader Poll Roundup

Small Business Marketing Book

Subscribe to Online Marketing Blog here.
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Dave Pasternack SEO Predictions in 2005

  Posted by blog - Monday, January 29, 2007 Singing the "SEO is dead" song is nothing new for Dave Pasternack, despite all the recent rounds of impotent cliches. I came across the article linked above over at SEO Today from Oct 11, 2005 where he talks about Yahoo Search Subscriptions and proclaims the following pearls:
"Yahoo!’s new Search Subscriptions, now in beta, means two things for SEO. The first thing it means is that organic search is dead. Finished. It finally happened. Everyone can go home. The second thing it means is that SEO is more important than ever was before."Right. We all know how that prediction turned out.

In the end he makes the case that your SEO must be stellar otherwise, you'll completely miss out. Was that supposed to be new information? And in true Pasternack form, he closes with the pitch for SEM:
"And, by the way, if your SEO isn’t working the same way it used to be, you’ll want to bolster your chances with that other great search engine weapon - SEM." Atta boy Dave, you didn't let us down in 2005 and you're certainly singing the same tune in 2007.

Except now he's selling T-Shirts, baking cakes (no wait, his partner is asking for help with that - hmmm) and playing the cancer card. Sigh.

There's a Dave Pasternack ranking contest that is sure to fill the search engine results with references that would likely warrant some brand and reputation work for most company founders, but the reality is this is exactly what Dave wants.

Update: Here are the top ranking SEO sites for "Dave Pasternack" as of 02/19/07 that did not rank previous to the above contest:

Oilman Dave Pasternack
Threadwatch Dave Pasternack
Graywolf Dave Pasternack
Web Guerilla Dave Pasternack

I have to admit, it takes guts to make a fool of yourself saying completely inaccurate things and to lob innuendo and insults to an industry and then stick to your guns when people call you on it. If Dave really wants to get attention, why doesn't he get an ad on the Super Bowl like that super proposal guy and pronounce his undying love and commitment to PPC?


Tag: dave pasternackLabels: dave pasternack

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Online Marketing Blog Gets Hit with DOS

  Posted by blog - Monday, February 05, 2007 It has been an interesting Monday to say the least. Our main company blog, toprankblog.com has been hit with a Denial of Service attack or something similar. I guess we found out how good or not so good the tech support was at our host. I should say our "old" host.

After 5 hours offline and no action (the led to a resolution) I decided to move hosting of toprankblog.com to a new hosting company. This is the same host as several very popular and highly trafficked blogs, so hopefully they will be better prepared for such situations.

I was hoping to wait until this weekend to make the move, but the site has been down since 11am and I cannot wait for more ambiguous answers. Hopefully the DNS propagation will have gone into effect by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.
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Search Marketing Seminar Minneapolis Minnesota

  Posted by blog - Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

High Rankings Search Engine Marketing seminar is coming to Minneapolis March 15 & 16. More info here

Jill Whalen is a pioneer in the SEO world and I am very honored that she has asked me to join her and the excellent group of SEO and PPC experts she’s gathered to do this seminar.

My session is called,

Digg Un-bans Online Marketing Blog

  Posted by blog - Friday, February 23, 2007 Today I noticed on a trackback link from Pronet Advertising that Digg has decided to un-ban a number of domain names. Neil Patel's name is listed as the author of the blog post and he lists Online Marketing Blog at the top. I appreciate the heads up.

I suspect there are people wondering what the owners of the sites that are not on Digg have to say about this.

Here's my reply: Sigh.

We weren't relying on traffic before toprankblog.com was banned and certainly haven't missed it since. In fact, our visitors, RSS subscribers and page views are up by 30%.

What I do appreciate about being "unbanned" is that if someone submits a story from our site to Digg, they will no longer get the "This domain name has been banned from submissions" type of message.

More importantly than re-including sites, I hope Digg implements policies similar to search engines as far as identifying and dealing with spam along with re-inclusion. I understand as well as anyone that mistakes can be made on both sides. But without a better process, Digg will alienate itself from growing its user base.Labels: digg

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More Digg Lameness

  Posted by blog - Wednesday, February 28, 2007 So, apparently Digg unbanned certain domains from having stories submitted but feedback I've been getting and direct observations show that any stories submitted from these allegedly non-banned sites are quickly "buried".

Connected Internet shows how the "Digg mafia" buried a story within minutes from their site. Pronet Advertising found evidence of a Digg "bury brigade". It's all childish nonsense and pretty much relfects the user base of Digg.

I understand the rush from getting thousands of new visitors within a few hours but it's nothing more than Digg crack and can hardly be taken as a serious marketing channel any more than playing poker in Vegas is a viable career.Labels: digg

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Social Bookmarking Strategies at SES New York

  Posted by blog - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Last week I was a speaker at SES New York on a panel called "Bookmarking Strategies". I was tasked fairly specifically, to talk about the very basics of social bookmarking. On the panel with me were Todd Malicoat, Michael Gray and Neil Patel. Alex Bennert was moderator.

It was a particularly niche topic for an entire session, but I was glad and appreciative that Danny Sullivan asked me to do a presentation. I've been the 4th wheel at several SES Chicago shows in the past to answer questions, but no presentation.

The focus on the session was mostly del.icio.us and of course, social media optimization ala Digg, Netscape and StumbleUpon snuck in there a bit. My part introduced the major players, did a walkthrough and share some of the tools that make it easy to add bookmark links to web content including our own social bookmarking tool.

Despite such a niche topic and competition from other sessions, the room was nearly full and was covered by quite a few prominent bloggers. Here's a list of posts I've found so far:
Pandia - Bookmark Strategies for Search Engine OptimizationLisa Barone from Bruce Clay - Bookmark StrategiesBarry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable - Social Bookmark StrategiesMatt McGee from Small Business SEM - SES New York Bookmark StrategiesAllen Stern from CenterNetworks - SES 2007 Social Bookmarking StrategiesI think it's interesting how each blogger titled their post something slightly different. I am writing a longer post about the basics of social bookmarking over at Online Marketing Blog and will also embed a copy of my presentation there.Labels: ses new york, social bookmarks, social media optimization

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Web Developers: Help Me Help You

  Posted by blog - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 A client's site is being completely overhauled by a new web dev agency from scratch because the existing agency has locked down the CMS as proprietary. These are questions put to the new agency web dev team:

1. "Can we manually or dynamically populate the title tags so they're not all the same?"
No

2. "If we map the old urls to the new urls with 301 redirects can you implement on the server?"
No

3. "Can you add this snippet of code to the templates so we can capture and report web analytics data?"
No

This kind of thing leaves me scratching my head why SEO gets such a bad rap and web dev shops come across as squeaky clean.Labels: search engine optimization, seo, web development

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TopRank Featured in Star Tribune

  Posted by blog - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 While I was at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a profile of our companies, TopRank Online Marketing and Misukanis Odden Public Relations. The story, "Learning how to climb the web" was written by the very talented Jenna Ross.

Like the coverage we received in The Economist, "Dancing with Google's Spiders" treatment of TopRank was very generous. Besides giving examples of our own successful online marketing efforts and the types of clients we work with, there were very positive quotes from SEO pioneer Jill Whalen and one of our big brand clients, Michael Brito of Hewlett Packard.

Most of our previous media coverage came as a result of journalists researching stories and finding TopRank on the web. However, this story is a result of our very persistent and enterprising media relations guy, William Arnovich. Bill's going to be writing for us over at Media Relations Blog.Labels: lee odden, misukanis odden, star tribune, toprank

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Checking for Clean Links

  Posted by blog - Wednesday, May 02, 2007 What's a "clean crawlable link"? It's one that is not blocked with Robots NoIndex meta tag, JavaScript redirect, blocked with robots.txt or a NoFollow tag.

If you in the business of SEO and still involved with begging for links, article submissions or other high labor, low impact tactics, then you'll want to make sure the links you actually do get are good.

Here are a few things to check for:

1. To check the robots meta tag, look at the page source code. If there is no robots tag, that's good.

If it looks like this,
meta name

Link Building Tips - Blast From the Past

  Posted by blog - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 Here's an article on link building that originally ran over 3 years ago. It's amazing how much has changed since then. Enjoy:

Link Building
Here are tips for effective link building:

Reasons to link:
a) To drive traffic directly to your site
b) For search engine rankings

A) Linking to drive traffic to your site

Location Location Location
Identify high traffic sites that would be visited by your target audience. These include: publications, buyer's guides, product review sites, shopping sites and guides

Low Hanging Fruit
Look for a links like: "submit site" "add url" "submit product" or "contact us" to contact the site editor to see if they will list your web site or product. Some of the sites will have a form for you to fill out. When it asks for the site name, use a name that includes your keywords.

Keep your message short, simple, keyword rich and accurate. If the site does not have a form for you to fill out but provides a contact email address, be sure to include how you want the site to link to your site. Point out the benefit to the site editor of why they should add a link to your site. Typically this format works best:

Link Title: Site Name (add keyword here)
Link URL: http://www.domainname.com
Link Description: Site name keyword keyword offers: keyword, keyword, keyword and keyword.

You could also provide this as HTML code to make it even easier for the webmaster to just copy and paste your link onto their web site. An example:

DomainName.com - Keyword - Site name keyword keyword offers: keyword, keyword, keyword and keyword.

You might also consider paid listings on high traffic web sites. Some sites charge a one-time fee and some charge by the month. Ads that appear near the top of the page are best.


B) Linking for search engine rankings

Search engines rank pages of web sites based on many different factors and each major search engine uses unique algorithms for determining relevancy and ranking of web sites. One factor that all major search engines use to some degree is link popularity. If two sites are have equally relevant content, but one has more high quality links to it than another, the site with more links will rank higher.

Your task is to find "quality" sites and get them to link to you using text links that include your keywords. Try to avoid reciprocal linking or link exchanges. Many, many sites are abusing this method of linking and search engines will soon discount the value of any links shared directly between two sites that do not match certain criteria.

Quality is better than quantity.
By "quality" I mean sites that you need links from need to be considered authority sites on topics related to your own site. These include subject matter resource sites, publications, etc. Sites with .org, .edu are great. Chances are, there are many, many web sites out there with a theme similar to your site. Most that explicitly offer links require you to link back. When this happens, ask yourself if you would like to this type of site anyway - even without a link back.

Also, is the page where your site will be listed related directly to your site? The page that is linking to your site should have less than 40 links on it to other sites. 40 is not a hard number, but the lower the number of outgoing links the better.

The links to other sites should be to sites related to yours. If the links go to all different types of sites, that is of little value for you. If the links page has many, many links it may be of any value. The smaller the number of links to other web sites, the better for you if that page links to you. But the topic of the site should be related to your site.

How to find links.
Go to google.com and do a search for one of your keywords. Check each of the top 20 sites to see if there are opportunities for you to get a link back to your site.

You could also search Google and Yahoo using your keywords plus phrases like, "add site". Example: keyword phrase" add site" or keyword "submit site". This might result in sites that are open to accepting links.

There are many other ways to find links and will be included in a future, more in-depth article.

Remember, when you get links from other sites to yours, it is important that they are text links and that the text includes your keywords. Also, you don't always need to use the same keywords and you don't have to always link to your home page. You can get links from other sites to your specific product or services pages as well as your home page. Example:

Link Title: Product Keyword
Link URL: http://www.domainname.com/product-keyword.htm
Link Description: Order your product keyword online from domainname.com

By doing this you can build the link popularity to specific web pages of your site as well as your home page.

To Reciprocal Link or Not?
Avoid reciprocal links. Focus on one-way inbound links. It's good to have a resources page pre-populated with links to authority sites in your industry. These would be one-way links out to other industry, association or resources web sites. Try to keep the number of links you have going out to other sites to a minimum compared to the number of links coming in. If it really makes sense to trade links with another site, you can use your resources page to link to them.

Building links to drive traffic directly to your site can also help build your link popularity. Just keep in mind that text links are ideal and they should include keywords relevant to the page you're linking to. Set aside a few hours per week to research new links for your web site and mix up the links between your home page and the major category pages of your web site. Over time you'll build link popularity across your entire site and rankings will follow.

More resources on link building are available at:

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2160301

http://www.ericward.com/press/wilson/

http://www.linking101.com/articles.htm

http://www.linkbuilding.info/Labels: link building, linking, seo

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SEO Minneapolis

  Posted by blog - Saturday, March 15, 2008 When you search on Google for phrases like "" there are approximately 373,000 search results. That's pretty amazing considering there are so few search engine optimization blogs being published in the Twin Cities.

A search for "" on Google Blog search returns over 4,000 results but most of them are scraped content from a much smaller number of actual blogs about SEO.

Undoubtedly, there are many search engine optimization practitioners in Minnesota. I would speculate that most are individuals working as independent consultants or promoting their own networks of content sites, on staff SEOs at web dev shops, interactive firms, ad agencies or PR firms where search engine optimization is a complimentary service but not a specialty.

What's interesting is that many web sites that rank for "" (like ours) are not companies with offices in Minneapolis but rather a company with offices in the suburbs. For the most part, clients don't really care about that since they're just trying to find a local company they can trust.

Whether the SEO consultant or one of the few pure SEO agencies is in Eden Prairie, Wayzata or White Bear Lake - doesn't matter. Besides, the queries for SEO plus a suburb name are so low, it hardly makes sense to optimize for them.

Using KeywordDiscovery.com, reinforces there's not much demand for specific geo-targeted queries for SEO companies in Minnesota or Minneapolis. Below is a list of phrases with the number of times each phrase appeared in the Keyword Discovery Global Premium database in the past 12 months. Not very exciting.

minneapolis seo - 3
- n/a
seo minnesota - n/a
minnesota seo - n/a
search engine optimization minneapolis - n/a
minneapolis search engine optimization - n/a
search engine optimization minnesota - n/a
minnesota search engine optimization - n/a
internet marketing minneapolis - n/a
internet marketing minnesota - n/a
minnesota internet marketing - n/a
minneapolis internet marketing - n/a

Sometimes I get asked why we don't focus on more local and geographically targeted content optimization and you can see why above. Besides, ranking well for both general terms like "search engine optimization firms", "search engine optimization consultants" or "search engine optimization services" and local versions creates the kind of credibility that inspires companies to pick up the phone and call about your services. Much more than relying purely on geo-targeted phrases like "".Labels: minneapolis seo, search engine optimization minneapolis, , toprank

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2009 Search Marketing Guide from Marketing Sherpa

For BtoB or BtoC companies that want to make smart decisions about their search marketing strategy based on research and case studies, then buy Marketing Sherpa's 2009 Search Marketing Guide.

I downloaded the Executive Summary and it's pretty good. I'd say if you're a client side web marketer or working for an agency and you're asking yourself any of the following questions, this year's SEM Guide would be a good investment ($397).

1. Am I budgeting enough or too much for SEM in relation to the rest of my marketing budget?
2. What is the real impact of landing pages on conversions?
3. What's the first thing consumers do when they land on a retail site?
4. How can a change in my internal search engine improve my site's conversion rate?
5. How are merchants policing affiliates and search?
6. Why would I want to bring SEM in-house and why would I want to continue to outsource it?
7. If I want to do business in China or India, is click fraud something I should worry about? Also, is it important to translate my site?
8. What should my conversion rate be for PPC vs. SEO listings?
9. What do mobile internet users search for? What response should I expect from a mobile ad?
10. Is the search marketing salary boom slowing?

MarketingSherpa ran their regular survey plus they included reports from 50 other online research sources. Tables, charts, graphs and eyetracking heatmaps plus 2 new special reports: "The Branding Effect of Search Advertising" and "Heatmapping Baidu to Understand Chinese SERP Viewing".

Here's a mini review of the 2009 Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Guide for more info.Labels: 2009 search marketing guide, marketing sherpa, search marketing guide

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Digital Asset Optimization Campaign Management Tips

Optimizing web pages alone, is simply not enough in competitive categories. Increasing numbers of companies and SEO consulting companies have realized this and are adopting more formal holistic content optimization strategies. Digital Asset Optimization is a SEO Point of View that TopRank started developing in early 2007.

Managing a textbook search engine optimization program for a complex website and/or a big corporation can be challenging on its own. Managing a digital asset optimization program which involves a matrix of media types and formats with promotion channels in a big company carries even more of a challenge.

However, with that challenge comes opportunity for a competitive advantage, especially when it comes to managing DAO as an outside consultant.

The first step to managing a digital asset optimization program is to take inventory of the media assets and content types that are currently being created. It is important not to discount content because it is not published online. Many types of interactive, video and image assets that are used with CD, DVD, kiosks and various electronic advertising platforms can be repurposed for online optimization and promotion.

The second step for a successful DAO program is to create a matrix of inventoried digital assets and the corresponding promotional channels. This is helpful when a strategic promotion plan is put in place because it's easier to see what parts of a program can be promoted individually.

The next step is to keyword optimize the media and content types being promoted. Ideally, a process and training is put in place with the various content creation sources to enable new content to be optimized and promoted on an ongoing basis.

Another step in the digital asset optimization campaign management process is to create a content promotion plan. It's important to consider both the strategic DAO promotion opportunities as well as the promotion of individual media types.

For example, an entire viral campaign can be deployed leveraging not only the buzz building and word of mouth benefits, but also the ability for individual components of the program to drive traffic and attract links on their own.

Like all marketing efforts, campaign activity and conversion tracking and content interactions should be analyzed with analytics software. Monitor what's working and what's not ensuring to continuously test and refine.

Other Resources on DAO:
DMNews - "SEO Evolved: Digital Asset Optimization"
AllBusiness.com Search Engine Smarts: "Diversify SEO with Digital Asset Optimization"Labels: dao, digital asset optimization, toprank

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Minnesota SEO Firm TopRank to Write for Microsoft

Minnesota based Search Engine Optimization agency TopRank Online Marketing has been asked by Microsoft Advertising Community to write a monthly column on Search, Social and PR topics.

Posts will begin in November and continue about once per month. Microsoft is keen on being a great resource for online marketers and is walking the talk by providing the Advertising Community site.

"The point of our site is to support and educate advertisers of all disciplines and experience from search beginners to CMOs of big agencies. It provides a hub for people to get involved, helping each other and helping themselves to the latest research, tips, tricks and best practices to help them become better digital marketers."

I don't know who yet, but other internet marketing veterans will be contributing as well on a range of search and internet marketing related topics.

In addition to Microsoft Advertising, TopRank will be contributing to Technorati, where Online Marketing Blog is ranked in the top 100 Business Blogs, in the categories of marketing and blogging.

TopRank already contributes SEO and Social Media related articles to Mashable, PRSA ComPRehension, Business Blog Consulting, AllBusiness.com and of course, publishes one of the most popular marketing blogs on the internet at Online Marketing Blog.

While there are more than a handful of Minnesota SEO agencies that blog, few have undertaken the efforts of TopRank to provide useful information to marketers on emergening internet marketing strategies and tactics.

Whether you're a company in Minneapolis, Minnesota looking for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) information, or in another part of the world, be sure to subscribe to the sites mentioned above for up to date insights, tips and opinion on all aspects of internet marketing.Labels: microsoft advertising community, minneapolis seo, minnesota seo

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5 Tips for Better B2B Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is a top priority for companies of all types in today's digital age whether those efforts are part of a B2B marketing program or B2C. Business to Business search marketing however, takes a slightly different form than B2C. Typically, B2B markets are smaller, products and services are more complex, and sales cycles are longer.
B2B marketing must carefully consider target keywords, online content and link building a bit differently. Here are 5 B2B search marketing tips that can help companies maximize their results:
Getting found is just the beginning
1. While B2C companies can reasonably expect to generate a purchase from a single site visit, the sales cycle for B2B companies is much longer. Once a prospect finds the B2B website via search, the real work begins to convert the prospect to a sale. Understanding the B2B searcher and their position within the sales cycle (Evaluation, Consideration, Purchase) is essential for creating appropriate optimized content to meet their needs.

Content is key for B2B websites
2. For B2C websites, the majority of content focuses purely on product information. Because sales conversions for B2B organizations are based more on building relationships, content must position that organization as an industry thought leader and a trusted resource. Including video demos, case studies and newsletters on a site can help B2B organizations build relationships with their audience.

More robust B2B keyword glossaries
3. Clearly, targeting the proper keywords is essential to any search marketing campaign. But for B2B organizations, keywords need to cover a longer buying cycle, and therefore must often be more diverse than B2C target keywords. Prospects at the beginning of a sales cycle might use certain terms to search for information that differs from terms used by those ready to purchase. That variety of keywords must be supported by relevant content and link building as well.


Link building outside the box
4. Because B2B markets are typically smaller than B2C markets, there may be fewer websites capable of linking to B2B sites. Consider the amount of fashion-related blogs compared to food processing technology blogs. To increase the number of inbound links to their sites, B2B organizations must get a little creative:

B2B organizations can approach their supplier networks for inbound links to their site
B2B organizations with a small target audience can create link bait focused on a different, but related, market. For very specific niches, a B2B blog audience can be widened by blogging about more general company-related issues.
Speak to multiple entities within a business
5. Unlike B2C purchases, B2B purchases involve different stakeholders within a company. Each stakeholder comes to the site with a different set of expectations.

For example, a B2B site that sells recruitment software might be visited by a company’s HR manager to gauge the effectiveness of the software. A member of the company’s finance department might visit the site to assess the value of the product. In still another scenario, a member of the company’s IT department might visit the site to learn how the software can be integrated into the overall system.

There are many different considerations for B2B search marketing vs B2C. As with any marketing strategy, it's important to understand the unique needs of the target audience, how they search, evaluate solutions, consume information and ultimately, how search affects their decision making, both directly and indirectly. Labels: b2b marketing, b2b search marketing, b2b seo

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Content Marketing Curation Tips

Blog search engine Technorati tracks over 100 million blogs on the web. New business blogs are started every day, on top of micromedia like Twitter, pseudo micro/blogging services like Amplify and actual long form articles from companies that realize consumers are no longer satisfied with basic products and services information. They want more. Creating new content on a daily basis is a challenge for most companies because they're not staffed to be a publisher. Even with copywriters, topics can get stale after a while. In other words, content creation over the long term can be a real challenge.

Enter the world of content curation marketing where you'll get a mix of definitions from industry thought leaders on what content curation is and what it can do as part of an online marketing program.

Even if you buy into the idea that curating content authored by others makes sense and that you can avoid any appearance of appropriating content in a way the author didn't intend, there's the issue of implementation. You can assign a person or people in your company to do it manually. This takes some coordination and cooperation between the people responsible for reading industry newsletter, blogs and feeds to identify content worth extracting and including in your curated publishing platform. Many popular marketing newsletters do this such as SmartBrief or sites like Social Media Today. The challenge is that it takes time and the sites you follow may not post something useful every day. Manual input takes time too.

On the other end of the spectrum is fully automated aggregation using third party tools that convert RSS to HTML. The pro of this method is that it takes no time at all after setup. It's all automatic. The down side, and believe me, there is some serious down side to this, is that it's not curation. Sure, you might make some editorial decisions when selecting the initial feed sources, but after that it's all splog. ie spam blog. Curation is about editorial discretion at the article level. But wait, I said above that manually culling great content out of multiple streams is too time consuming.

How can you get editorial discretion efficiently? One way is to use a service like the one our client Curata offers. Curata pulls in feeds based on keyword topics you identify and algorithmically filters content streams accordingly. At the same time, the publisher of the Curata blog can add comments to the excerpt as well as add their own blog posts. The mix of efficiently and intelligently curated content along with original content results in a productive source of information that is useful to readers, beneficial for publishers and a great complement to a content marketing program.

As will all software that manages content, it's a tool and customization as well as expertise in use translate into greater effectiveness in implementation.Labels: content curation

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