Search engines like Google are like racing car mechanics, constantly under the hood tweaking their complex code engines to maintain their relevancy on a web that has moved from stiff, static and slow to dynamic, social and real time.

It is said that Google makes up to 500 changes every year to its search algorithms to ensure that it delivers fast smart search results that keep people typing “Google.com” into their web browsers and continue to pay for its paid search advertising.

Companies with websites that didn’t change in years are slowly realizing that they need to have an active presence on the web by creating and publishing content that attracts customers, begs to be shared and Google will find.  These changes to an increasingly dynamic web is leading to the rise of digital agencies that can partner and guide customers through this maze of choices, change and confusion.

In this video interview I chat to Andy Jamieson about his company “Switched On Media” which has won several awards recently including ranking 9th in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 and 3rd in Smart Company Fast 50 for 2010.

He talks about the “Three P’s” behind their company’s success that he and his partner Scott Ennis started only 5 years ago.

The 3 Pillars of Digital Marketing

We  look at how the rise of  social media over the last few years is transforming how companies should market themselves and we discuss the 3 core pillars of digital marketing.

1. Search
2. Social Media
3. Content

We investigate how that can be applied to marketing a business successfully where increasingly buying decisions start with an online search or from information that was shared by a friend or colleague .

Watch the video to find out the keys to a successful “Search  and Social Digital Agency” as well as some insights into what you should be doing to get found online on a  social web.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Key Topics

• The importance of optimizing your website and blog for search engines (SEO) so that your business can be found online. What is the percentage of “Organic” (earned) search results versus “Paid” search results (Google Adwords) with getting those important clicks to your website or blog
• The synergy between search and social and why it is important to be investing in both
• The fastest growing market segment in digital
• The importance of Google’s ‘New’ social +1 button for search results and why it is integral for Google’s future
• The value proposition of PPC (Pay per Click) for marketing campaigns on Google and Yahoo
• The importance of ROI (Return of Investment) for social and PPC campaigns
• The tension between traditional and digital marketing
• The role of the digital agency in educating their customer in the value proposition of the marketing strategy
• The emerging importance and role of “content marketing’ in the marketing mix
• Why sharing and engaging with content should be valued
• Why content is important for search and social
• What are the 3 P’s behind the “secret sauce” of Switched On Media’s success

Is your company stiff, static and slow or is it dynamic, social and real?

More reading

50 Social Media Marketing Tips and Tactics

21 Power Tips to Get Your Blog Content Shared on Facebook and Twitter

12 Principles of Social Media Marketing

What is a Facebook “Like” Worth for Your Business

Google gets more Social and Copies Facebook’s “Like” Button

Google Becomes More Social and It’s Hurting Your Business

Image by Danard Vincente

In the past marketing was easy. You advertised in the yellow pages, you sent letters and catalogs using direct mail, cold called and you placed ads in trade magazines and local newspapers.

If you were a larger company you used television, radio and national newspapers. It was known, comfortable and expensive.

The arrival of an increasingly digital economy and new media is chipping away at the familiar and known and replacing it with marketing platforms, channels and tactics that didn’t exist 5 or 10 years ago that companies and marketers are still trying to get their heads around.

The ageing “baby boomer” CEO’s and senior management are afraid to embrace it because it is new and scary.

The “Scary” New Media

We now have Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Twitter, email and search engine marketing and they all reach out to different demographics and markets. Musicians trying to get a break and get a record or DVD deal in the past had to engage an agent to help to secure a record deal with a music label. They then waited and prayed that the agent and the record company would work on their behalf. Their future was in some else’s  hands.  Today they are going direct to the market themselves without those intermediaries in between them and their audience making their own YouTube video and going to straight to the market themselves. This web trend is called “Dis-Intermediation”

A Musician’s Case Study

An example of this trend is Kate Leahy who with a budget of $20 and with some creativity and hard work made a YouTube video from her bedroom in outback Australia and marketed herself to the world (without an agent or a record label) and ended up touring Europe for 4 months and performing at shows across 4 countries only 3 months after producing her video “The Life Raft“. Kate made a stop-motion video using over 900 compiled photos that  took her an entire month to produce but it was done on time and she didn’t go over her budget but she had control and she was able to do it herself.  If you are passionate and committed you can achieve amazing things.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Insightful and Revealing Cost Saving Comment

The cost of lead acquisition is also another reason to use the new digital media for marketing as it reduces the cost of those sales leads. A recent comment on the article “The World Is Hanging Up” by the Johan the marketing manager for the telecommunications company Telefonix.co.uk in the UK revealed that after tracking and counting the cost of acquiring sales leads that Web and Organic new media marketing was the most cost effective lead generator.

• Exhibitions cost per lead  - 1,500 pounds
• Telemarketing cost per lead – 900 pounds
• Pay Per Click cost per lead – 150 pounds
• Web/Organic cost per lead – 30 pounds

The Survey Results

So where is the smart money being spent by the top companies to make the best use of their marketing budget? StrongMail have released the results of a survey of 925 marketing and business leaders showing that the top 4 investments companies are making in marketing are

1. Email marketing is the top area of investment growth (65%)
2. Social Media (57%)
3. Search (SEO & PPC) at 41%.
4. Mobile comes in at 4th at 35% and you will continue to see mobile marketing continuing to grow strongly in the future as smartphones and high speed wireless networks and apps continue to grow strongly.

So this is where the smart money is going. Where are you spending your marketing dollars?

Image by Truthout.org

A lot of companies still don’t have a website and have not realised that the cost of not having a website can be measured in reduced inquiries, leads and hence lost sales.

The other side to this is that there are companies that do have a website but don’t know how to make it generate inquiries, leads and sales.

So you want to know what the number one secret strategy for the making the company’s website rock?

It ‘s “Optimizing your website for search engines” this is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

I recently came across a company who turns over several hundred million dollars a year and they admitted that their websites are “brochure” websites, this means essentially their online presence are still at the Web 1.0  stage where nothing ever changes and there is minimal ability to interact with their customers online. They deal with major corporate clients and a new account won from an inbound lead is worth several million dollars in revenue. The also admitted that their website has also not been optimized for online search (Search Engine Optimization). They don’t rank anywhere for the important keywords and phrases in Google for their industry.

This lack of 21st century marketing basics is making it very hard for potential clients to find their brand in a world where 93% of buying decisions start with an online Google search. (tell that to your CEO)

So your company needs to make an investment in the optimization of the corporate website. This is so that when Google’s crawler, that trawls the web every day and night, checking out every website in the world to see if it is worth giving it a good ranking in its search algorithms can move the company’s website up the queue towards the top of the search engine page.

This is essential so when people type in the key words and phrases that are about your product or industry your company is found near the top of the list. If you employ the right techniques and strategies with your website or blog your company will get found.

So let’s make some realistic assumptions to see what are two scenarios that depict the real cost to a company’s business through not optimizing their website for SEO.

Scenario One: The company website is optimized and the company receives 5 more leads and wins one new client annually

This scenario is quite realistic.

Revenue: New Revenue:  One sale of $1 Million with a margin of 20%

Gross Profit  $200,000

Costs: $5,000 Initial SEO research and resulting report plus ongoing monthly optimisation consulting and SEO activities of $4,000 per month for 12 months

Total costs: $53,000

Net Profit to bottom line: $143,000

Percentage return on $53,000 investment  of  277%

Scenario Two: The company website is optimized and receives 10 more leads and wins two additional clients annually

This scenario is also quite realistic.

Revenue: New Revenue: Two sales worth a total of $2 Million with a margin of 20%

Gross Profit  $400,000

Costs: $5,000 Initial SEO research and resulting report plus ongoing monthly optimisation consulting and SEO activities of $4,000 per month for 12 months

Total costs: $53,000

Net Profit to bottom line: $347,000

Percentage return on $53,000 investment of 655%

I could keep going but I won’t because it beggars belief, but this major error of not optimizing your website for search is being repeated by corporate clients everywhere and they are losing millions of dollars in lost revenue and profits every year.

There are also many other ways to generate leads and enquiries that are synergistic with a well optimized website but that is for another day.

Is your company still living in the last century?

A Google search has become the most important way to find information whether that be for work, play and even finding shopping bargains online.

This was highlighted in a rather quirky and fun way recently when I caught up with some friends and in the course of the conversations that were happening across and around the table, I asked a question that no one was able to answer, so one of  the group said “Hang on, let me ask Lord Internet” so she subsequently pulled out her iPhone and “Googled” the answer.

I remember years ago before search engines came to light before the mid 1990′s that if you wanted to find information and do research it was off to the local or university library to find what you were looking for. Scanning the key card indexes and then walking up and down the bookshelves was integral to study and consumed so much time and energy.

Generation “I” (those that have grown up knowing nothing but the “Internet”) take the Web for granted just like eating and breathing and know nothing about how difficult and time consuming it was to track down important and relevant articles and books that you needed to write those essays.

Early search engines like Altavista in 1995 provided search results that opened up the world to finding information with speed and quantity that was frankly amazing. The issue was that the results that were served up in the early days of search were not often relevant and sorting out the information you wanted from the enormous amount of data was very time  consuming with the relevant websites and information not often at the start of the search but buried at page twenty.

So what are 5 Key factors that modern search engines use to serve up what you want and often provide it on the first page.

5 Key Ranking Factors

1.  Key Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links (Anchor Text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. In modern browsers, it is usually blue and underlined)

2. External Link Popularity (External Links are hyperlinks that point at (target) any domain other than the domain the link exists on ..eg the source).

Today, the major search engines use many metrics to determine the value of external links. Some of these metrics include:

• The trustworthiness of the linking domain.
• The popularity of the linking page.
• The relevancy of the content between the source page and the target page.
• The anchor text used in the link.
• The amount of links to the same page on the source page.
• The amount of domains that link to the target page.
• The amount of variations that are used as anchor text to links to the target page.
• The ownership relationship between the source and target domains.

Note: In addition to these metrics, external links are important for two main reasons:

• Popularity
• Relevancy

3. Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)

Explanation: Domain names are the human readable Internet addresses of websites. Root domains, which are identified by their domain names, have extensions such as .com, .org, .net, etc. (Ex. http://www.example.com) Subdomains are a lower level component a root domain and precede the domain name. (Example. http://subdomain.domain.com)

A “Root” domain is the top level hierarchy of a domain. Root domains are purchased from registrars. The following are examples of root domains:

• *.example.com
• *.seomoz.org
• *.blogspot.com

A “Subdomain” is a “third level” domain name that is part of a larger, top level domain. For example, “blog.example.com” and “english.example.com” are both subdomains of the “.example.com” root domain. Subdomains are free to create under any root domain that a webmaster controls.

The two most common subdomain choices are:

• http://www.example.com (www is the subdomain)
• http://example.com (has no subdomain)

4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag

(A title tag is the main text that describes an online document. It is the single most important on-page SEO element (behind overall content) and appears in three key places: Browser, Search Results Page and External Websites.

5. Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)

Explanation: mozTrust quantifies the trustworthiness of a web page relative to all of the other web pages on the web. It is based off of an algorithm developed by Yahoo! search engineers that is likely similar to the trust algorithms used by Google and Bing search engineers. Just as links express global link popularity, they also express information about the trustworthiness of URLs. Receiving links from sources which have inherent trust, such as the homepages of major university websites or certain governmental web pages, is a strong trust endorsement. By measuring the occurrence and frequency of these endorsements, mozTrust can quantify trust on the web.

Note: These 5 Key Ranking Factors are Courtesy of  Seomoz.org click on the hyperlinks in each of the 5 points to get a more in depth explanation

Google and other search engine’s are constantly fine tuning the importance of different key factors that make search relevant.

One of the most recent additions to these key factors has been created by the popularity of Twitter with its real time search which has brought a new factor into play called “Recency”.

I don’t know if you have ever done a search for a phrase  or a key word and an article from 2 years or even 5 years ago appears high up in the results and even on page one. This can be quite irrelevant especially in a world where information from 12 months ago be quite irrelevant.

Google has in recent months starte to integrate real time Twitter tweets  in its search engine results as an option and sometimes as a default if the term or phrase is a high traffic term such as “Tiger Woods”

Real time search engine Sency has just announced that it has launched the capability to let users find out what people are saying right now from 13 major US Cities.

In addition to letting the user search for what’s being said inside an actual city for a given keyword, Sency for Cities will also show the 10 most talked about topics right now in a given city.

The 13 cities included in this launch are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC.

There are many potential uses for Sency for Cities, here are a few of them:

• Sports fans can now see, in real time, what people in their city, and rival cities, are saying about a given team or player.
• When a new movie, commercial, or product launches; businesses can now see how the sentiment from the public differs in each of the major cities.
• When there is an important event or breaking news inside a major city – anyone can see how people inside the city, whom are directly affected, are reacting.  This can be compared with what outsiders are saying from cities not directly involved with the breaking news or event.
• The current hot topics for a given city can show what is happening and being most talked about in a city right now.  This can introduce new events to users  while highlighting the topics that a city is buzzing about right now.

More information can be found at Sency

Another factor that is starting to emerge as being important for search is location with Twitter making an important announcement about its direction regarding this at at its recent “Chirp Conference”.

According to Search Engine Land

“Twitter’s geo-location play is the Trojan Horse of local search. With Twitter’s points of interest feature, the game is finally afoot. Essentially this means that Twitter will need to create a page or profile for each local business. While it will be cool to see the Twitter stream and the accompanying links, photos, tips, reviews and other info that accompany these geo-tweets, sooner or later (methinks sooner) Twitter is going to want to add standard yellow pages listing data to these profiles to round them out and make them truly useful.

Of course these pages, like other Twitter pages, will be indexable by search engines and because of the amount of content they amass over time, they will start to command a serious presence in the SERPs (see Is Foursquare The Future of Local Search). In fact with the integration of real time results in the top search engines, Twitter pages could show up in both the real time section and the organic section for a query for a local business. Not a fun prospect for other sites that are vying for this traffic.”

So do you think that “recency” and “location” will become more important for you as a user of search engines in making search more relevant?

In over 20 years in sales and marketing I have made many cold calls. Over the last 12 months I have not made one cold phone call or bought any expensive mass media marketing,  yet sales have increased and business is much more fun. Isn’t there a better use of your time and money?  Think of how your life might change if you were calling only on prospects who actually want to buy from you. A lot of  companies still have not realized it’s a digital world and the marketing rules are changing.

So how would you optimise your company’s digital presence to ”get found online” and drive inbound enquiry for new customers and not have to cold call again or buy expensive mass media. Here are 10 key strategies to drive traffic to your ecommerce  website, enquiries to your email inbox and make your phone start ringing.

1. Be Yourself (Authentic)

We are all unique and different and your company needs to display that. Gary Vaynerchuck, 33, is proof that passion and hustle can breed success. He turned his family’s small New Jersey liquor store into a wine empire that grosses over $60 million a year; more than 100,000 viewers watch his daily video blog; he’s a sought-after speaker; and he’s signed on to write nine more business books for HarperCollins (NWS).

2. Be The Thought Leader and Teacher

• Do not sell, but engage (trying to sell just turns prospective clients away)
  
• Provide online tutorials and how to’s.
• Stop the corporate speak and gobbledygook and provide content in a variety of ways becuase everyone learns in different ways. Educational theory shows that some people are visual, others are verbal and others are kinesthetic and a mutiple variety of stimulus reinforces learning and recall, so provide the same content in a variety of ways such as
  • Text
  • Video
  • Presentations
  • Podcasts
  • Webinars
  • Slideshows

3. Plan and Write Content for the Markets You Are Targetting

Every business has different market segments within their client base and they all have their own issues and problems and pain points that you need to provide answers to. So when you are developing content for your website or blog you need to consider writing content that adresses each customer persona. I covered this in a recent article “Social Media: 9 Questions To Ask Your Customers When Creating Content “  and it includes asking them questions such as

1. Who are you selling to?
2. What are their goals and aspirations?
3. What are their problems?

Some companies even develop and maintain multiple blogs a good example of this is a online retailer who currently has 13 blogs online (see the article “Why Would Your Company Need 13 Blogs?“)  that provides content for thirteen different segments or styles.

4. Have a Great Headline For Your Content

Did you know that on average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of the headline, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece. Here are some headline types and examples

• Get What You Want (In Health, Wealth, Relationships, Time and Lifestyle) eg.. The Secret To Getting More Money For Your Property !
• Crystal Ball and History eg.. 10 Predictions on the Future of Social Media
• Problems and Fears eg … Get Rid of Your Debt Once and For All
• Fact, Fiction, Truth and Lies example.. Little Known Ways To Make Money On The Stock Exchange
• How To, Tricks Of The Trade. such as..  How To Plan The Ultimate Holiday
• Best and Worst  eg The 10 Worst Mistakes Made by Bloggers

Some more resources:

Writing Headlines That Get Results from Copyblogger

102 Proven Headline Formulas from Authority Blogger

5. Amplify Your Message through Social Media

The Top 5 Social Media channels to consider using depending on your target markets are

1. Facebook (80%),
2. Twitter (66%),
3. YouTube (55%),
4. LinkedIn (49%) and
5. Blogs (43%).

Also consider using multiple social media channels as it amplifies your  message and gives it the best chance to go viral. I covered this recently in a blog post “How Many Social Media Channels Should Your Brand Be Using?” which shows how social media can leverage your message.

6. Build Your Subscriber List RSS for Your Blog, Email and for your e-Newsletter

Offer a variety of ways for people to subscribe at different locations on your website and blog such as at the top, the bottom and on the side panel (make it as easy as possible)

• Subscribe via RSS
• Subscribe via email

7. Search Engine Optimization

It boils down to this: If people think you’re important, so will Google. This perplexes many webmasters and online marketers, since they wonder how people will consider them important when people use search engines to find things online in the first place. How are you important if you’re invisible in the search engines to start with?

And how does Google know people think you’re important any­way? For one, they know because people link to you, and Google fol­lows those links to index and rank web pages. And thanks to services such as

• Google Toolbar
• Google Analytics
• Feedburner
• Google Reader
• Gmail and other applications that keep you logged-in to your Google account

Google has an enormous amount of usage data that shows what people actually spend time doing online. So, there’s that. But how do you kick it off?

To get people to link to you and generally pay attention in the first place, you have to start thinking about authority in a different sense.

8: Have The Website and Blog developed with well written code

Use a developer that does the basics well for your Website and blog

Website:

Two aspects to consider On-site and Off-site Optimization

On-Site Optimisation.

This where they research and investigate your existing website design, build and content and recommend changes to elements such as

• Keywords and Phrases
• Meta Descriptions
• Keywords added as Metadata,
• Search Engine friendly URL’s
• Title to contain keywords
• Restructuring website content
• Make text more readable and user friendly on website
• Offer different media formats
• Clean coding structure optimised for search engine crawlers

Off-Site Optimisation

This is where we research and recommend activities to improve Google search that are not dependent on your existing website but strategies that can be undertaken to improve search engines ranking of the company’s website.

This can be achieved through

• Link Building
• Blog commenting
• Press Releases
• Forums
• Directory Submissions
• Article submissions
• Interacting with Social Media Channels such as
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Blog
• Engaging Bloggers
• Developing content for your various target market “personas” such as for example for a non profit site
  • Students and Researchers at Universities
  • NGO’s (such as World Bank and United Nations)
  • Business and Business Leaders
  • Foundations

Blog

You’ll hear time and again that WordPress is the best way to build a site  and that it’s extremely SEO friendly. The Thesis framework for Word­Press is worth considering, even Google’s own Matt Cutts, search legend Danny Sullivan, and some of the top SEOs and profession­al bloggers around use Thesis for their own sites.

9. Design Your Website To Enhance Your Brand and Authority

If you want to look professional then the website has to give your brand an image that can in a lot of cases make you look bigger than your competitors because they are sloppy with their website design. Do not overlook this.

10. Nourish Your Tribe

Once you have started providing information that solves your customers and subscribers needs, continue to develop and your grow your content so that they want to keep coming back again and again.

So could your business do with a bit of digital optimizing of your inbound marketing so you don’t have to cold call again?  Looking forward to hearing your story.

Research and surveys are continuing to show the growing importance of Social Media for marketers in 2010, with nearly six in 10 planning to include social-media spending in their next-year’s marketing budget, according to the “2010 Media Planning Intelligence Study” from the Center for Media Research.

The Top 3 were

1. Email 57%
2. Social Media  56%
3. SEO (or Keyword search) 50%

The Last 2 (interestingly) were Traditional National Mass Media 

1. National TV  18%
2. National Newspapers 15%

Note: The study was conducted conducted between July 17 and Aug. 10, 2009 and is based on a survey of 1,972 MediaPost subscribers, including 1,164 who report that they have planning, buying, approving responsibility for 2010

Another recent study by Alterian found a similar phenomenon in terms of the importance being placed on social media, with similiar results to the “2010 Media Planning Intelligence Study”. Despite the acknowledgement by marketers that email provides the most measurable ROI, social media continues to receive a large  portion of marketers’ attention because of its potential influence on consumers.

In another study that examined the complex relationship between email and social networks, The Nielsen Company found that the high Social Media consumers had high levels of email usage, likely because of the multitude of “status update” messages that flood social networkers’ inboxes.

Another study reveals that Social Email Campaigns are increasing in this current year(2009) by nearly 400% (A record number of email marketers are planning to bridge the gap between online social networks and their email marketing campaigns, and the number of social email initiatives is expected to grow 367% this year, according to new research from Ball State University, the Email Marketer’s Club and ExactTarget.(for further reading on this have a read of a white paper at Exact Target “Expanding the Reach of Email Through Social Networks Whitepaper“)

Note: The complex relationship between email and Social Media is being further investigated by The Nielsen Company and could prove to be interesting when its results are revealed.

So with the opportunities for marketers with the new medium of Social Media, there are still obstacles with the survey from Alterian revealing  ”4 Challenges” in implementing Social media Marketing.

So what are the major takeaways from these studies

1. Social Media Marketing is to be ignored at your companies marketing peril

2. Traditional “Email” is still one of the most important marketing distribution channels

3. SEO is  vital in being found online and is still a core marketing strategy

4. Investigating and capitalising on the surprising but interesting relationship between Social Media and Email

So are the first three the major part of your marketing strategy?

I have been involved in sales and marketing to create new business for clients and my own companies over the years and I have used many different methods including cold calling, database marketing, fax broadcasting, direct mail, mass media, letterboxing plus many other types of what has become known as traditional marketing. Over the last few years I have noticed that the results for many of the old types of marketing has continued to diminish as new technology has emerged and recently I wrote a post that mentioned the importance of content as an important component in this new approach titled “New Study Reveals: Content is King… Not Social Media” that highlight how important the new rules of marketing are in growing your business and attracting new clients. 

So it has come to the point where the question has to be asked “Is it worth continuing  with the old methods?”  and “Is there a better way and are there more efficient methods of marketing?”.

The evolution of the the search engine’s marketing power… (you could almost call it the “Rise Of The Machines” with the development and power of the 800lb gorilla called “Google”) is making redundant the old methods of getting your business and products and services found. This is due to the all pervasive obsession of society with”Information” and the “Information Age” and its delivery platform called the Internet. Additionally in recent years the rise of the smart phone (dare we call it the “iPhone”) has enabled us to find information and content “Anytime.. Anywhere”  as the usabilityof the devices, portability of the platforms and the speed of networks allowing us to obtain information anywhere we want it, in different mediums whether that be text, audio, video and images has evolved into a complex and powerful multi-channel and multi-media environment.

So what are the 3 New Pillars of Marketing? and why are they important for “Getting Found Online”.

1. Content
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
3. Social Media 

1. Content: Of these three content has always been around on the internet before the other two and even though it was important from day one (the internet was initially built to provide textual information and documents to be communicated between universities) the capability of the technology to enable it to be found easily was cumbersome, slow and very inefficient. In 2009 the internet can deliver information in many different mediums.

• Blogs
• Video
• Text
• Powerpoint Presentations
• Audio Podcasts
• Video Podcasts
• Microblogging
• Audio
• Wikis
• Forums
• Vlogs (Video Blogs)
• Webinar

Note: I have even heard of a blogger taking their blog content and re-purposing it in to 10 different mediums and if you take into consideration the different technology environments listed above you may start to get a bit creative with your content 

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): In essence SEO is the technology and effort required to make it easier for potential customers to find your content. It is the practice of building your site and inbound links to your site to maximize your ranking in search engines, where most of your customers begin their buying process.There are essentially 2 types of SEO practices.(For a more in depth look at SEO go to my blog post “How Social Media Can Help Organic SEO : 2 Case Studies”)

• Organic SEO: What is Organic SEO?  A  post by Scott Buresh’s Post from Marketing Profs  is the best explanation I have come across (I couldn’t put it any better)

“When people refer to “organic SEO” (search engine optimization), they almost always use it as a blanket term to describe the unpaid, algorithm-driven results of any particular engine. However, a sophisticated search engine optimization company will often take the meaning of “organic” one step further. To such companies, the “Organic SEO” is essentially 2 Things (but not only). These are

1. What shows up in the “natural” search engine results

2. Methodologies used to achieve such rankings, such as great content and utilizing social media like Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Technorati, Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon and other types of social media 

• Artificial SEO: A search engine optimization company using “artificial SEO” will ask, “How can I get links pointing to this site without adding anything of value to it?” The latter approach usually leads to reciprocal linking schemes, link farms, the purchase of text links, and more—anything except making changes to the Web site that entice others to link to the site without the link being reciprocated, without paying the Web site owner, or without asking “pretty please.” There is a stark contrast between “Organic SEO” and “Artificial SEO.” Of course, any decent search engine optimization company will make certain that a site is listed in all the popular directories, such as the Yahoo Directory, the Open Directory Project, and Business.com. A good search engine optimization company will also continually seek any industry specific directories where your site should be listed. But truly using “organic SEO” means evolving your site into something that holds actual value to your prospects. In my opinion, this is much more beneficial in the long run than the artificial methodology of trying to garner incoming links that the site does not truly deserve.”

3. Social Media: Social media amplifies the impact of your content. When your content is distributed across and discussed on networks of personal relationships, it becomes more authentic and nuanced, and is more likely to draw qualified customers to your site. The leverage it provides can be astonishing as your “interesting, unique and valuable content” gets embedded and linked in blogs and websites across the web. Your great content is praised, commented on discussed as you sleep and work and play. You will be amazed where it travels. I use a URL shortener that  tracks the time and location of the clicks on my ”Twitter” links as well as a tracking tool on my blog that shows me the time and place of links and clicks.

So what are the critical Social Media Channels you should be using?

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blog
• LinkedIn
• YouTube

Note: These are the top 5 and if you have read my article How Many Social Media Channels Should Your Brand Be Using? you will be aware of the exponential effect of using more then one Social Media Channel” Over the next few weeks we will go into more depth on the elements that you need to address within each of the three pillars of the new rules of marketing.

So what traditional marketing methods have you used in the past and what marketing mediums are you using now and finding to be effective?

I came across a video blog post by Hubspot this week and it reminded me of  how increasingly important online video is becoming to “getting found online”.

The post was a YouTube Video from 12 months ago by Hubspot that had been recorded during an internal ofline  ”Twitter Training”  class for staff  and it was quite funny but very natural. I asked myself the question why is this video up on their blog. The short answer, because it helps them “get found online”… they are using every digital asset they have offline and then re-purposing it for online so that they can constantly fine tune and improve their SEO. So I have listed below some tips for optimizing Video for SEO and then we will take a look at using your other digital assets for SEO in a “Holistic Strategy” for “Getting Found Online”  

I also wanted to look at this topic more closely because of the following observations and facts that I stumbled across in my cyberspace travels.

1. Google owns YouTube… this has to have some implication in Google’s use, ranking and priority of online video in its search logorithms

2. The younger generation watches videos almost before anything else

3. When you do Google searches you will find YouTube Videos high up in the search results

So how can you use online video to help your SEO and what are some of the best practices for doing this?

 1. Optimizing Video for “Getting Found Online”

Video SEO is the practice of optimizing video content via Video Search Engines like YouTube and  Blinkx. Video optimization as part of search engine optimization efforts is a great way to increase the search engine rankings and thereby increase the traffic to one’s website. It acquaints otherwise ignorant users to your brand, products and services.

There are 4 core  methods for video optimization.

• The video can be hosted on your own site. ( not recommended as it will cost you more with hosting costs due to you having to pay fordownload traffic from your site and it doesn’t assist your SEO as much as having it your own account on YouTube.
• Video search engines like Truveo will crawl your site to find videos.
• Another way is submitting an RSS or MRSS feed to a third party site like Yahoo Video or Blinkx.
• Social Media sharing sites like YouTube, AOL Video, and Yahoo Video that allow users to upload videos directly. They can also be used to optimize listings.

8 Tips for Effective Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO)

1. Content Should be Compelling and Meaningful: The quintessence of an effective video is the content. It should be compelling as well as meaningful. If the content isn’t catchy or interesting, viewers won’t be attracted to it. But at the same time, if it doesn’t reinforce the brand, it is not serving its purpose.
2. Headline for the Video Should Drive Viewing like a Good Headline: The title of the video is a big factor in bringing viewers. It should be catchy and also contain keywords. In fact, using keywords in the filename and URL is very advantageous. Another trick is to use the word ‘video’ in any metadata. This is because many users tend to use that word in their searches and having it in the title increases the chances of making it in the search engine results. Stop words like “the”, “and”, etc. should be avoided in the filename.
3. Users Prefer Viewing a Quick Snapshot Before Watching the Full Video. Making good use of thumbnails helps users decide which video to watch. The way you generate thumbnails differs from site to site but the results they yield are worth the effort.
4. The Length of the Video Should not exceed 5 Minutes. It shouldn’t be too long as that may bore the viewer. Ideally, it shouldn’t exceed 5 minutes.
5. Allow viewers to rate your video: Search engines pay attention to this when ranking these videos. Moreover, potential viewers also tend to take into account the ratings of previous viewers. It thus helps ‘go viral’ if the video is positively ranked.
6. Use Keywords in the Link Text. Ths enables search engines to find the video as they can’t read images or video
7. Promote The Video. This can be done through appropriate RSS or MRSS feeds, social bookmarking, and permitting embedding of the video to other sites.
8. Enable the Viewer an Option to Share or Send the Video. This will leverage your marketing .

Note: Video Search Engine Optimization is in its infancy, but it’s progressing by leaps and bounds. It is thus a wise step to invest in VSEO.

2. “Holistic Strategy” for SEO and Getting Found Online.

Another acronym floating around Cyberspace  that also encompasses Video Search Engine Optimisation is  “Digital Asset Optimisation“. I first came across this term when reading a blog post by Lee Odden from Top Rank Blog  and it is starting to gain some traction on the web but  he takes it a step further. 

So  “ What Is Digital Asset Optimisation ? It refers to the practice of taking inventory of a company’s marketable, digital assets and implementing a process for keyword optimization and promotion to relevant channels. Below is a summary of what he means by this. 

“Many companies that have applied basic SEO principles to standard web site content see substantial benefits. Adding new content and attracting links help maintain search marketing performance but is that all you can do to be competitive with SEO? No. A natural progression of SEO is a “Holistic” approach that considers all of a company’s searchable assets that can be keyword optimized and promoted online.

What are Searchable Assets? Some of these are

• Documents: (Word and PDF)
• Images: (Photos, Presentations in Powerpoint, E-Books )
• Video in all its formats
• Podcasts (Audio and Video)
• RSS Feeds

Standard optimization of content in the form of web page SEO is a starting point that can be extended to various media types that are increasingly prominent in both standard search as well as media specific search such as images, video and audio.

In the screenshot above from Google on the search query, “Social Media” are.

• Images,
• Video 
• News results

and are increasingly being incorporated into standard search results. All are opportunities for optimization.

Search Engine Optimization is challenging enough for organizations rich with digital assets. An effort to optimize and promote those assets to bots can be even more challenging – and rewarding.  Since 2007 we’ve been using Digital Asset Optimization at TopRank as a way to describe for clients what new opportunities there are to enable their customers to pull themselves via search to client content.

The repurposing of offline content and digital media for for online marketing purposes should be made a priority such as, Tradeshow or training videos used offline (such as the Hubspot YouTube Twitter training video) can be remixed & edited to provide online content in the form of video, images, text. Each media type can be optimized for standard search like Google, as well as promoted on distinct media sites such as YouTube and Flickr.

The fundamental premise for good SEO or DAO or whatever you want to call optimizing content is that “If it can be searched on, it can be optimized”.

The benefits of a more “Holistic” optimization and marketing approach can be extended beyond content used to attract leads and sales. There other types of search that can drive or benefit business including customer service related content such as

• Job listings 
• News content

Each has it’s own audience to consider and therefore, a different context for optimization.

Developing an interdepartmental process for matching up the various digital assets with corresponding channels of promotion gives companies with minimal content resources additional online marketing opportunities. It also gives companies that produce substantial content an overwhelming competitive advantage. They key to any successful SEO or DAO effort is developing the proper strategy, implementation and management to reaching business goals.

So In Summary

• Consumer search and information consumption is trending towards video, interactive and content sharing.
• Content creators and marketers are challenged to meet those demands through more robust asset optimization efforts.
• Demand for a variety of content types is on the rise
• A digital asset optimization strategy identifies content in all its forms, formats and intentions and applies filters to qualify what is most promotable. Keyword mapping to each promotable asset (both on and offsite) along with a content promotion plan helps organize and keep accountable the digital asset optimization effort.
• There’s no doubt that SEO is constantly changing. Paying attention to new search channels, consumer demand for rich media and the need for content types against which to advertise, is a real opportunity for those marketers ready to take fundamental SEO to the next level

Is your company’s SEO effort focused on web pages or do you optimize and track search performance for other digital assets as well?

I thought I knew who was in charge of Social Media in corporations until I came across this survey conducted by ipressroom.com with support by the PRSA which interviewed 278 public relations, marketing and human resources professionals to identify trends regarding their approach to social media. The breakdown of the companies surveyed by revenue was as follows

• 14% of the companies had revenue in excess of $1 Billion,  
• 5% had revenues between $500 Million and $1 Billion 
• 36% with revenues from $5 Million to $500 Million
• 45% with revenues under $5 Million

The survey asked a variety of questions including the following.

1. Which online communications channels are most important?
2. Which ones should organizations deploy first?
3. Which channels are critical for employees to learn to use to do their jobs effectively in a networked world?

So what were six insights from this survey and who really is running the “Social Media Show” ? 

Insight One: Social Media Is Prioritized and Utilized More Than  Managing the Company’s  Website Content…  despite the fact that an annual survey in 20 countries of 4,475 Opinion leaders called the “Edelman Trust Barometer,” revealed a company’s own website is seen as more credible than business blogs, personal blogs, social networking sites and advertising…… “Most organizations deem it more important to utilise social networks and micro-blogging services than devote more time to managing and updating content on their website”.

Note: Is this because “Social Media” is seen as trendy and new? 

Insight Two: Ease of Use Drives Adoption.. therefore not surprisingly, micro-blogging has grown slightly bigger than blogging, 62% versus 59%, demonstrating that lowering the barrier to entry — the “140-character news cycle” as Shel Holtz puts it — drives social media adoption by making it easier for people to participate.

 Insight Three: Small to medium-sized enterprises lead the way in Social Networking and Twitter.  Small to medium-sized enterprises are significantly ahead of larger organizations when it comes to adopting Twitter (64% versus 47%) and social networking (74% adoption versus 38%) but not in blogging which is now squarely in the large organization’s repertoire. But larger organizations are managing the content on their web sites more actively than small to medium-sized enterprises. 

Insight Four:  Public Relations is leading the social media revolution inside organizations of all types and sizes

• PR leads marketing in the management of all social media communications channels. Marketing leads PR in managing only email marketing and SEO.
• In 51% of organizations, PR lead digital communications compared to 40.5% by marketing.
• PR is responsible for blogging at 49% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for blogging at 22% of all organizations.
• PR is responsible for social networking at 48% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for social networking at 27% of all organizations.
• PR is responsible for micro-blogging at 52% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for micro-blogging at 22% of all organizations.

Note: So there you have it Public Relations Professionals, you are running the Social Media Show… in most cases. 

Insight Five:  Among those responsible for hiring PR and marketing employees which Digital Skills were seen as most important and how did they rank?

A: Companies With Turnover Under $1B

1. Social Networking
2. Blogging
3. Micro-Blogging
4. SEO
5. Email Marketing
6. Web Content Management
7. Social Bookmarking

B: Companies With Sales Over $1B

1. Blogging
2. Social Networking
3. Micro-Blogging
4. Web Content Management
5. SEO
6. Email Marketing
7. Social Bookmarking

Note: So if you want a job in PR or Marketing it seems some experience with Social Media wouldn’t go astray

Insight Six: Social Media is growing in importance as a communications approach…with the majority of organizations considering hiring a specialist. This demonstrates that social media is no longer just something to do in your spare time, but rather a core discipline to be maintained by a dedicated resource.

• 26% are definitely interested in hiring dedicated resources to maintain some degree of social media engagement, while
• 48% of all organizations are considering adding dedicated staff that specialize in this area.
• Interest in adding dedicated social media specialists to the workforce is markedly higher among organizations with $1bn+ in annual revenue (43%) that it is at small to medium-sized enterprises (23%).

So there we have it, The 2009 Digital Readiness Report, a study conducted by iPressroom and PRSA, found that public relations professionals are firmly in the lead when it comes to managing an organization’s use of social media communications channels. And you thought it was going to be the marketing department didn’t you.

So who should be in charge of Social Media? Like to hear your thoughts