The fellow who made this, Chuck Lewis, is also known as "The Poetic Prophet," and, more to the point, "The SEO Rapper." In addition to dropping science on the importance of design and coding - "please don't use tables even though they work fine/ when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time/ make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide/ remove font type, font color and font size" - he kicks serious k-nowledge on conversion, social media, and paid search. Check it out, boyeeeez! (I almost can't believe I just wrote that.)
Long story short, if your page rank is illin' and your SEM isn't "fillin'" it, go on and pick up on what the SEO Rapper is puttin' down. He'll school y'all. Peace. Out.
Special "shout out" to Shelli and Mariam in Aquent's Detroit office for turning me on to this dude.
Laurie Baldwin, who is represented by Aquent's Richmond Office, has spent the last five years running a successful search engine marketing company with clients like Wrigley's, Lumber Liquidators, and the Christian Children's Fund. A self-proclaimed Web marketing "addict" -- she named her dog "DotCom," her license plate reads, "GOOGL ME," and even tried to name her family's gecko "Google," until her children rebelled - she has been doing work in and around the Internet since 1995.
Everyone knows that SEO and SEM are important components of contemporary marketing, but there is so much advice out there about how to do it right, that it can get pretty overwhelming. In the interest of cutting through the noise, we asked Laurie to tell us the five things that people most frequently forget about SEO and SEM. Here's what she said.
1. Content Is Still King
When trying to optimize their sites, companies too often spend a lot of time focusing on technical things like metatags. They forget that if you have an authoritative site that talks about relevant stuff, you will be ranked.
The technical elements that matter to the search engines are always changing - the importance of content remains constant. Your site should talk about who you are, what you do, and who you take care of. Forget the "leading edge, highly competitive, committed to innovation"-type copy. People are looking for specific things so you should say specific things.
2. Think Like Your Customers
We had a client who sold fake eyebrows for cancer patients going through chemo. These folks weren't looking for "cancer solutions" or something like that, they were looking for FAKE EYEBROWS. You've got to show up where people are looking and that means you have to know where they are looking and what they are looking for. Ask them.
And while you're at it, ask them, if they did happen to find you, did they find what they wanted? If they didn't, make sure that the search terms you are optimizing for and the actual content of your site match.
3. Traditional Media Still Matter
Let your different marketing pieces talk to each other. Use your keywords and the key marketing ideas from your website in your radio, tv, and newspaper advertising. People will often Google the words, characters, etc. that appear in your ads. In fact, they will generally Google before they go to your site or your store, so make sure you are taking this into account when you are buying search terms.
The webcast will provide those who are new to the reputation management game with a comprehensive overview of it. For those already involved in search engine optimization and marketing, social media marketing, or the management of an organization's complex and constantly evolving web presence, Andy has a lot of practical, tactical, and technical advice that will help you make sure you're covering all the angles.
Finally, although the emphasis will fall on things that companies can do, should do, or are doing to manage and influence their online reputation, many of the insights Andy will share can be applied by individuals concerned with building and shaping their own online reputations.
In other words, there's something for everybody here so you owe to yourself to check it out. I mean, your reputation is on the line! Doesn't that matter to you? Don't you want to know that you're doing everything in your power to maintain it in the best and strongest light? Wouldn't you feel bad if your reputation was dealt a horrible blow and you could have prevented or avoided it if you had just attended this webcast?
Don't find out the hard way just how important your online reputation can be; find out the easy way how to protect and nurture it: Listen to the darn webcast.
According to Joel Cheesman, SEO pros don't share their fellow American's fear of an imminent recession. In a recent post, Mr. Cheesman says, that, on the contrary, SEO's are "drooling over [the] worsening economy."
His main point is that companies in a "down" economy look for the least expensive ways to improve performance of marketing programs. Here's how he puts it: "When businesses are confronted with a marketing expenditure in tough times, the most cost-effective options usually win, putting luxuries on the backburner. Exhibit at a tradeshow or better optimize our Web site? Drop bucks on a six-month commitment to a billboard or better optimize our Web site? Buy a display print ad or better optimize our Web site? You get the idea."
He goes on to emphasize, as Bonnie S. did in this recent talent spotlight, that "organic" optimization, as opposed to "pay-per-click," is the way to go. Since knowing how to improve rankings by focusing on site content and design is a specialized and rapidly evolving skill, them what have such skills are gonna get real paid.
Of course, if you don't have the aforementioned skills. but are curious about SEO, you might want to check out the blog maintained by Google's Matt Cutts or the resource section maintained by the folks at Apogee Search. If you are more nerdishly inclined, I invite you peruse the SEO stylings of SEO Egghead.
