Bruce Clay's Blog, page 46

SMX Advanced 2014 Series: ‘Mad Scientist’ Seth Meisel Reveals Secrets to Paid Search Wizardry

SMX Advanced 2014 Series: ‘Mad Scientist’ Seth Meisel Reveals Secrets to Paid Search Wizardry was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

The countdown to SMX Advanced 2014 is almost over — two weeks to go until Internet marketers gather in Seattle to learn from the brightest minds in SEO, SMM and SEM. I’ve been interviewing select SMX Advanced speakers this month, giving readers a sneak preview of what they can learn if they attend their sessions June 11-12. Lisa Williams (director of digital marketing strategy at Search Discovery) let us in on her search + social secrets and David Roth (VP of marketing at Move, Inc.) revealed his top content marketing tips. Today, Seth Meisel divulges his proven strategies for harnessing the powering of remarketing and paid ads.

SEM Manager Meisel runs remarketing campaigns for national drugstore chain Walgreens. He’ll be taking the SMX Advanced stage on June 11 at 9 a.m. to speak in “The Mad Scientists of Paid Search” and again at 1:45 p.m. in “Maximizing The Synergy Of Paid Search & Social.” Here, Meisel gives us an inside look at some of his powerful paid search strategies — the very same strategies that landed his previous company a spot as a top ten PLA advertiser last year.

Connect with SMX Advanced 2014 speaker Seth Meisel on Twitter @SethMeisel!

Can you share a must-do and a must-don’t when it comes to remarketing?

Do: Look into Similar Audience targeting options for retargeting. I like what some of the search engines are doing with the ability to target based on domain, interest, keyword, etc.

Don’t: Rely on static image retargeting ads because it decrease relevancy. It may be difficult initially to set up site pixeling with your IT group, but it’s ultimately more relevant because that’s what a customer was looking at previously on your site.

There are a few paid search + social rumors floating around that sometimes stop brands from participating — what rumor can you dispel?

The rumor that no one is on Google+. Regardless of Google+ user count vs. Facebook user count, there is still value in having the option to test into AdWords Social Annotations, which requires at least 100 Google+ users to have circled you. Maintain a Google+ posting schedule and build your following. Your company’s SEO team may be able to support your Google+ page solely out of the SEO benefit provided.

‘Pay to play’ is the new game in the social world and many companies are upset that they have to pay to increase their reach. What advice can you give companies on this matter?

My advice would be to pay up in order to increase their reach it makes sense from a top-line goal perspective. For example, Facebook is introducing larger format Right Hand Side ads that will show less ads per page which will inevitably raise CPCs in that auction. I see Pinterest and Twitter transitioning to paid models, as well. Paid social sometimes comes with increased relevancy, especially when it comes to dynamic retargeting. There are still some free tricks like utilizing the Google+ ‘Recent Posts’ feature in the Knowledge Graph to get Google+ posts onto the first page for a limited amount of branded queries.

You have a lot of experience in search marketing, what advice would you give to people trying to enter the industry?

Find a company that will give you a chance to have a ‘journeyman’ year, where you learn account management end-to-end and gain experience. My first job in paid search was at Marchex, which was an opportunity I am very grateful for. After that, I was on the paid search team at Drugstore.com.

During your tenure there, Drugstore.com was rated the No. 10 PLA advertiser between March and May 2013 by AdGooRoo. That’s awesome! Is there any one campaign that stood out to you that you’d like to share with readers?

I’d say any campaign that utilized Merchant Promotions. We had only been testing the feature for three months at that time in March 2013. We had a lot of weekly promotion, so we tried to tag certain parts of our PLA feed with ‘special offers’ messaging as a value differentiator on Google.com and the Google Shopping domain. We also tested some Merchant Promotions that pertained to everything in our PLAs feed so every PLA ad featured this differentiator. Another factor was opting more of our product catalog as distinct product targets (rather than All-Products target) also contributed to us being a top PLA advertiser.

What are three of the most important tips you have for fellow search and social marketers?

Test into Alphas and Betas early so that you can be one of the first advertisers with that differentiator for a period of time. For example, testing into Google PLA Merchant Promotions early enabled us to be one of the only advertisers with that differentiator for a little while and enabled some time to establish a scalable process for using it throughout your account. Alphas are often a manual process until the search engines roll out the feature on a more widespread basis (AdWords Editor support, etc.)
Don’t operate as a competitive marketing channel ‘silo’ within your company. In the past few years, the search engines have introduced changes have required more inter-group communication than was necessary in the past. Ask for login information you don’t have access to and start a dialogue about developing better synergy between channels.
Learn quickly to decide what is not worth your time! For example, Google tested a PPC ad format called Image Extensions. To test into it, it involved selecting products with multiple perspectives, resizing products ads, moving keywords into test ad groups and a very tough approval process. This ad format was very similar to PLA ads — with far more effort involved. In the end, some tests are not worth the time involved.

What worked last year that does not work today in paid search and social?

Having accounts split out more granularly by device (desktop, tablet, mobile).

What are you three favorite industry blogs (other than this one, of course)?

Search Engine Land
Marketing Land
Wordstream

If you could only follow three industry VIPs on Twitter, who would they be?

@LarryKim
@GinnyMarvin
@DannySullivan

Thanks Seth! We can’t wait for your sessions at SMX Advanced 2014 — see you in Seattle!

An Inside Look at the New ‘Fetch as Google’ Feature [VIDEO]

An Inside Look at the New ‘Fetch as Google’ Feature [VIDEO] was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

On Tuesday, Google released an update to its Fetch as Google feature within Webmaster Tools. This valuable tool, which has been around for years, allows webmasters to view the source code and headers of their site the way Googlebot sees them. Tuesday’s update enhanced the tool’s capability, enabling webmasters to see what Googlebot sees in a browser window, as well.

Since Tuesday’s update, we’ve fielded questions from clients such as:

Will Google render all the JavaScript on my site?
Does this negate the need for Ajax-enabled crawling?
Google stated on Friday that “Sometimes the JavaScript may be too complex or arcane for us to execute, in which case we can’t render the page fully and accurately.” What exactly does that mean?

Knowing that the SEO industry at large has vested interest in these answers, I interviewed Bruce Clay, Inc.’s Director of Software Development Aaron Landerkin. In the video below, Landerkin answers these questions and more.

It’s only been two days since the tool’s update and Google’s Head of Webspam Matt Cutts has already touted the tool several times on Twitter:

Our “Fetch as Google” feature is getting *much* better: http://t.co/RQlNhRb3hn Now renders page–useful for debugging!

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 27, 2014

Tweeting the new Fetch as Google feature again because I love it that much: http://t.co/XPvmLkCTks Have you tried it yet?

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 27, 2014

Have more questions about Fetch as Google? Ask us in the comments.

8 Actionable AdWords Tips for PPC Managers

8 Actionable AdWords Tips for PPC Managers was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Any successful PPC manager will tell you the same thing: a solid account structure — built on a firm understanding of your website’s navigation and existing performance data — is the basis for improved reporting, budget management and, most importantly, performance.

Attention PPC Managers: these AdWords Tips will help your campaign take off!

But successful PPC managers will also tell you that this is only the beginning — in addition to a solid account structure, there are many ways to improve your results and create a highly successful campaign. In the years I’ve spent managing SEM campaigns for both national and international companies, including Inc. 500 companies, I’ve come up with 8 actionable AdWords tips that will help PPC managers skyrocket their campaign’s success.

Read on to learn how to:

1. Leverage the Search Query Report

2. Implement Ad Extensions

3. Test, Test, Test … and Test Some More

4. Track

5. Use the Dimensions Report

6. Analyze Impression Shares

7. Account for Negative Keywords

8. Master Match Types

1. Leverage the Search Query Report

Keywords are the foundation of our PPC accounts. This is probably the report that we use the most. It is vital when it comes to keyword discovery and optimization. This report, which can be found in the AdWords and Bing Ads interfaces, shows you which search queries triggered your keywords and ads. This allows you to discover new positive and/or negative keywords that you might want to add into your campaigns.

2. Implement Ad Extensions

We like to think of Ad Extensions as the “icing on the cake.” They are great ways to supplement your search ads. We recommend using all extensions that are applicable to your business. This enhances your searchers’ experience and can potentially take up more real estate in the SERPs (pushing your competitors further down on the page). Plus, as of October 2013, Google now takes ad extension usage and impact into consideration when scoring Ad Rank.

3. Test, Test, Test … and Test Some More

Always be testing ad copy, keywords, landing pages, etc. Testing is one of the cornerstones of optimization. Testing allows you to improve what’s not working, and better yet, improve on what’s already working! It’s usually a good idea to set up some type of testing calendar so you can keep track of what you’re testing. Depending on the size of the account or test, it can take weeks to get the proper amount of data to make confident decisions off of.

4. Track

Not tracking campaign performance is like trying to drive a car blindfolded – you don’t know where you’re going! Oftentimes we come across clients who are not properly tracking their campaigns, or worse, not tracking them at all. This is one of the first things we audit/setup when we work with a new client. The most common campaign tracking solutions we use are Adwords and Bing Ads conversion codes in addition to Google Analytics goal tracking. If you’re working on an e-commerce account, it is also a great idea to track revenue by setting up Google Analytics ecommerce tracking (for Universal Analytics). You can even track revenue through the AdWords and Bing Ads conversion codes.

Lead generation accounts are a bit trickier when it comes to tracking revenue. Many times you are selling a service versus a product and the sales cycles are sometimes much longer than ecommerce sites. Many times, client will track revenue through a CRM like Salesforce.

5. Use the Dimensions Report

Want to take a closer look into performance? Then stop neglecting the “Dimensions” tab in AdWords. More data is always better, especially when it comes to understanding your performance at a deeper level. This tab does the work for you, providing account managers with all the segmented data they need and want. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well it’s not! Some reporting favorites include:

Search Terms: Discover the keywords that need to be placed as negatives or even better, identify the keywords that can lead to your converting success!
Paid and Organic: This report displays changes in paid and organic metrics for over time. Important? Yes! This key reporting allows you to understand how paid and organic keywords work hand-in-hand to achieve your goals. The caveat is you have to link your Google Merchant Center account with your AdWords account – but it’s worth it! Here’s some more info on the Paid vs. Organic report.
Call Details: Are you utilizing Call Extensions? Well, here’s where you can understand how they’re performing!
Time (Day/Week/Month/Hour/etc.): Want to know how your campaigns are performing during certain times? Want to know when your user is converting? Well this report is for you. Break down your awesome data by the time range of your choice. Give “day of the week” and “hour” a try!

6. Analyze Impression Shares

“Oh no, impressions are down – what do I do?” Don’t freak out! The AdWords interface provides account managers with columns of data that captures the sense of where your account might be hurting. Columns to look for and add to your reporting view, include:

Search Impressions Share
Search Lost IS (rank)
Search Lost IS (budget)

Eureka! You are able to analyze your impression share at the campaign and/or ad group level. You can now identify areas in your account where you are being limited by lost impression share.

7. Account for Negative Keywords

Do you have negatives in place? If you don’t there is a high chance that your account might be suffering from keyword overlap or even worse, paying for clicks that are not relevant to your (or your client’s) product or service. Take a moment and review your Search Query Report – all the data you need is there. Make it a routine to review the report during a good set period of time – every two weeks to once every month.

8. Master Match Types

Exact, phrase, broad, modified broad – you probably use all the match types, but are you using them correctly? Is there a “right” amount of each match type to use in your accounts? The answer is: It depends! The first step in determining which match types (and how many) to use, you must first understand the different match types. Here’s a quick guide.

Exact Match: Generally, we find that exact match keywords perform best. It makes sense considering in order for a search query to trigger an ad, it must first match exactly to a keyword existing in your account. Well, we should use the term “exactly” loosely. There is an AdWords campaign setting that, if selected, allows exact match keyword to be triggered by plurals, misspellings, and other close variants.
Phrase Match: This match type is a bit more controlled than broad match, but not as precise as exact match. In fact, phrase match keywords are great for capturing long-tail queries think three to four words per query.
Broad Match: This match type should come with a big warning sign that reads “USE WITH CAUTION.” Broad match keywords are great for capturing traffic, all traffic…that is, if you don’t control them properly with negative keywords. Many times we’ll come across an account where broad match keywords make up the majority of traffic and spend, but only a fraction of conversions.
Modified Broad Match: Modified broad match type keywords are has become a favorite of ours. It is the perfect combination of reach and control. It’s basically like phrase match, but with a bit more flexibility. For example, there is less risk of keywords matching to synonyms (like broad match), and the “word order” matching rule of phrase match is thrown out the window! Remember, you should still use negative keywords with these bad boys, as they are still considered broad match keywords and can get out of control if abused.

Thanks for checking out my AdWords tips for PPC managers — I hope they can help you skyrocket the growth of your PPC campaigns. If you have any questions on these AdWords tips — or anything related to PPC in general — ask me in the comments!

SMX Advanced 2014 Series: David Roth on Content that Ignites Passion

SMX Advanced 2014 Series: David Roth on Content that Ignites Passion was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

SMX Advanced 2014 is drawing closer — three weeks to go and we’re psyched for Bruce Clay’s SEO training workshop and, of course, the tactic-packed SEO, SMM, PPC and content marketing sessions. Today, we continue to the SMX Advanced 2014 Interview Series with David Roth. As the vice president of marketing at Move, Inc., the parent company of Realtor.com and other real estate-related web properties, Roth knows the value of high quality, compelling content — and the strategic content marketing that accompanies it.

Roth is a featured speaker in the SMX Advanced panel “Executing a Flawless Content Marketing Strategy” (June 12 at 1:30 p.m.). Alongside fellow panelists Chris Bennett (CEO of 97th Floor) and Purna Virji (Director of Communications at Petplan Pet Insurance), Roth will share his top insights on leveraging content to get the most out your content marketing strategy. The panel, moderated by Chris Sherman of Third Door Media and coordinated by Mark Traphagen of Stone Temple Consulting, will explore advanced social tactics, building authority and trust, and creating conversion funnels that transform readers into customers and fans.

Roth, who has worked with companies such as Tivo, Kodak, AOL and Hyundai, shared some of his top content marketing strategies in this exclusive interview. Discover examples of content marketing and brand stories done right, plus advice on how to take your own brand’s content strategy to the next level.

When it comes to content, the ‘if you build it, they will come’ mentality just isn’t cutting it — what is the content marketer’s biggest misconception?

It feels like people think content is the be-all and end-all — that content is the goal in an of itself. I tend to think that content is merely the currency with which we credibly tell our story. I had the pleasure of spending an hour with Gary Goldhammer last month. He’s with Hill + Knowlton and he’s a brilliant digital strategist. He reminded me that good content marketing is really about effective storytelling. That helped me understand that content for the sake of content is inherently worthless. It’s only through a carefully layered narrative that content can effectively support your story and drive your overall integrated marketing strategy.

Can you share some examples of brands doing it right when it comes to content?

At the risk of blowing our own horn, I think we’ve done a really nice job with our celebrity real estate content marketing practice at Move, Inc. It helps us tell relevant stories that really hit our audience’s passion points while illustrating our brand’s proof points of accuracy and timeliness. I’m going to be highlighting this practice at SMX Advanced with the goal of illuminating how marketers can craft relevant stories that resonate with their own audiences.

As far as other brands go, I love what Chipotle is doing by creating video content that helps them tell the story of responsible farming and how important it is, not only for the planet but also to their brand and business. I also like how American Express is heavily investing in original content to tell their story to consumers and small businesses. They are definitely ‘all in’ when it comes to content.

What are your thoughts on repurposing older content?

We’ve had limited success in repurposing old content. In most cases, ‘old’ equals ‘stale’. But occasionally you come upon something that ages more like a fine wine than a craft beer. And sometimes it resonates so strongly the first time around that it pays to trot it out there again and again. An example comes to mind where we ran a story Gilbert Arenas — the NBA player  was selling his house, and that house has a real shark tank in it. We were able to parlay that into multiple articles about the mansion and Arenas’ other houses. We even did a ‘listicle’ on other homes with shark tanks. For some reason, our readers never seem to get tired of Agent Zero and his pet sharks. Go figure!

What advice do you give to brands looking to improve when it comes to content?

First, it’s important to have an open mind and be willing to accept failure as a necessary step in the process. You need to test different approaches, and you’ll never know what’s going to work until you try a few things. We came upon celebrity real estate through a combination of equal parts rigorous methodology and dumb luck. We tried a number of different combinations before we found the recipe that works best for us, and we’re constantly tweaking it to evolve the model.

Second, producing content is a real investment and there are few shortcuts, so it takes steadfast commitment from executive management to make it work. Finally, given the high cost of developing quality content, I think it’s important to develop effective strategies around how to leverage and integrate content for maximum effect. Take what you’ve developed and adapt it to every channel you can use to effectively tell your story and amplify your voice, using personal relationships with influencers, the multitude of available social networks, and other marketing channels like email, syndication, infographics, etc.

Content conversion? What tactics can you share with brands to measure content conversion?

It’s important to remember that like any channel, content marketing has its own set of metrics and KPIs. For example, our content traffic has an effectively low CPC but doesn’t convert to leads as well as mobile ads or SEM traffic. In fact, our bounce rate on content is fairly high. But we’re OK with that because, in the end, not only have we connected another consumer with our brand, but we’ve done so at a very efficient incremental cost. When you figure out how to make content marketing scale for you, it becomes an incredibly powerful engagement tool for marketers.

Thanks David! We can’t wait to see you at SMX Advanced 2014!

SEO Newsletter: The Survival Guide to SEO Edition

SEO Newsletter: The Survival Guide to SEO Edition was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Coming to you straight from the trenches of Bruce Clay, Inc., it’s the survival guide edition of the SEO Newsletter. Our feature article exposes which ranking factors change most frequently so you can stay alert. Then get expert survival tips from our SEO manager on how to stay ahead of the game no matter what SEO bombs Google may throw your way.

SEO Checklist: 5 Factors You Can Expect to Change

With Google’s search algorithms changing on a daily basis, content strategist Kristi Kellogg advises Internet marketers to adopt a proactive rather than reactive approach to SEO by anticipating changes and being prepared for any potential threats to your website optimization. Kellogg addresses five fast-moving battlefronts that are worth reviewing on a quarterly basis:

Survival tips for the SEO battlefield

Local optimization: Local results are a hotbed of activity, especially with search shifting from desktop to mobile. As an example, Kellogg discusses the recent change in the way reviews appear in search results.
Search platforms: As new devices become available, count on search patterns to evolve as people explore new ways of embracing mobile technology.
Keyword targets: As search patterns evolve, so too will the words people use to find your website.
Schema markup: Confirmed as a ranking factor by at least one major search engine, schema is an area of fast development that offers websites a chance to stand out in the search results pages.
Link building: Backlinks may not be as important to ranking as they once were, and the question of building links needs to continue.

Survival SEO: How to Do the Search Marketing of Tomorrow, Today

To prepare your website for Google’s next big algorithmic change, Bruce Clay, Inc.’s SEO Manager Mindy Weinstein shares three key search marketing survival tips. Those tips include:

Understanding how user intent affects the SERP
Recognizing the impact of social signals on ranking
Creating content that truly speaks to your audience’s needs and desires

SEO News and Upcoming Training Events

The Hot Topic this month covers highlights from Facebook’s first f8 developer conference in three years, including anonymous logins, extended ad networks beyond Facebook, and more. In Education Matters, learn how to create an SEO culture throughout your organization. Whether you prefer on-site or off-site training for your organization, Bruce Clay, Inc. offers SEO training in the U.S. and even Europe. Coming up: European marketers can join Bruce Clay on July 2–3 for the next SEO Training event happening in Milan, Italy!

With a commitment to excellence, Bruce Clay, Inc. aims to serve its readers with meaningful, educational and informative content that propels businesses forward in a digital age. For monthly Internet marketing news and upcoming SEO training information that will put you ahead of the competition, sign up for the SEO Newsletter here.

Bruce Clay to Speak in 5 Cities in Inc. Magazine’s Business Conference Series

Bruce Clay to Speak in 5 Cities in Inc. Magazine’s Business Conference Series was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

What do billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban and SEO expert Bruce Clay have in common? You can find them both speaking at GROWCO, the Inc. Magazine Grow Your Company Conference (GROWCO) May 20-22 in Nashville. While Cuban is one of the keynote speakers sharing insights on how to win at the sport of business, Clay will zero in on SEO inspiration, insights and proven strategies to help entrepreneurs increase web traffic and brand visibility in his panel “Search + Social: The Future of Your Business Online” with Bing’s Duane Forrester, aimClear’s Manny Rivas and Message Medium’s Maisha Walker.

Entrepreneurs: Swim with the SEO Sharks

“Experts predict marketers will spend 52 percent more on SEO — but spending more does not necessarily equate to better results; it’s important that business owners and decision makers understand the constantly changing algorithms and their impact on traffic. I’m looking forward to guiding the SEO growth action plan for attendees,” said Clay, founder and president of global Internet marketing firm Bruce Clay, Inc. and author of several books, including “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies.”

Bruce Clay Coming to a City near You via Inc. #GROWCO14

The Search + Social series will travel to:

Nashville on May 20
Chicago on June 19
Atlanta on July 10
Boston on July 31
Houston on August 14

Learn from Bold Founders and Thinkers

Clay is a featured speaker at all five conferences in the Search + Social series. In addition to Internet marketing experts, conference attendees will also hear from more than 40 esteemed business experts, best-selling authors and CEOs, with all sessions throughout the three-day conference centering around these four themes: launching, leading, building or innovating.

Originally published on PR Newswire.

SMX Advanced 2014 Series: Search and Social Strategy with Lisa Williams

SMX Advanced 2014 Series: Search and Social Strategy with Lisa Williams was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

SMX Advanced is fast approaching — come June 11, SEOs and Internet marketers will flock to Seattle for the much-anticipated conference. Bruce Clay, an official SMX training partner, is gearing up for his SEO Training workshop and Jayme Westervelt is working out her fingers in preparation for some serious liveblogging action (check out our liveblog schedule). With more than 30 sessions focusing on organic, paid, local and mobile optimization, Internet marketers can’t wait for SMX Advanced — we can’t wait either … which is why we bring to you the SMX Advanced 2014 Series.

This series will highlight select SMX Advanced speakers. They’ll give us a sneak peak at their top Internet marketing insights they’ll be sharing at this year’s conference. Today, we’re putting Lisa Williams, director of digital marketing strategy at Search Discovery, in the hot seat. Williams, an Internet marketing veteran with more than 17 years of experience, has been featured in publications such as Glamour, The Boston Globe, Kiplinger, and the Oregonian, and shared her expertise at conferences across the world.

Williams is a featured presenter in 25 Social Media Ideas For The Advanced Search Marketer (June 11 at 9 a.m.). This session will feature actionable ideas and techniques that will help you implement and optimize that sweet spot where search and social intersect. Read on for our exclusive interview with Williams!

We love your Twitter handle @SEOPollyanna!

Thank you! I love it, too. It came from a client telling me that my sometimes-irritating “Pollyanna” approach to SEO kept us from getting removed from the index at a time when we faced a lot of competition … We kept doing the right things and it ultimately paid off.

Tell us about the “good” in social media for search.

Search engine focus on context makes social channels the perfect complement for search marketers who are truly embracing semantic search … own the brand story and share it consistently in relevant social channels.

What do you think is the search marketer’s biggest misconception when it comes to social media, and what advice would you give?

Some SEOs see social as one more place to enforce keywords or just one more place to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on optimizing content. When we look it at that way we really limit the value of social on search.

What are some examples of brands doing it right when it comes to mixing search and social?

Good collaboration for search and social begins with investment in the overarching communications/content strategy. I love Ric Dragon’s (author of “Social Marketology”) call to “know and own your story.” Once you do that well, the rest becomes a lot easier. REI does this beautifully. They are a member-owned co-op, which drives customers to be vested in the brand. They share their love of outdoor adventure and stewardship. There’s no question about who they are and what they care about. Then they invest in the more technical side of where search and social collide. They’ve leveraged rich pins on Pinterest to make sure pinners have up-to-date product information at the social source. Super smart.

When we talk about brands, we often think of big brands, but brands large and small can do this well. Nightmares Fear Factory invests in social to grow their brand by knowing which channels and assets they want to invest in and using their skill of scaring the bejesus out of people to drive their storytelling. Their titles and descriptions are great marketing collateral. They leverage search keywords second to, but supportive of, their SEO goals. They’re not doing it perfectly, but they know what they’re trying to accomplish and stay committed to that goal.

We hear you are getting close to publishing a book … tell us more!

Yes! It’s called “Sustainable Online Marketing” and I’m launching it at Content Marketing World in September! I started interviewing people four years ago to get a better understanding of what makes good client/vendor relationships sustainable. It evolved into something way bigger and frankly, more relevant, to the issues facing brands and digital marketing today. This space is full of really interesting, bright marketers. I learned so much from the 52 people I interviewed. I’m so grateful for the inspiration provided from every person who took the time to talk to me.

We hear you like the concept of checklists … tell us how search marketers apply this to social media.

Yes! I read “The Checklist Manifesto” a few months ago, and it inspired me to embrace checklists as a way to track the things we do often. There’s something powerfully freeing about committing to paper a checklist of goals, strategies and tactics for things (work, family, travel, philanthropy) that you really care about. It’s like a part of your brain can quit worrying about the “what” and “why” and focus on the “how.”

Do you have any favorite tools or platforms that make the search marketer’s life easier when mixing in social media?

Prior to my life as a marketer, I was a reporter and was always fascinated with how data drives storytelling and vice versa. Any tooling that helps us take storytelling/content and facilitate extraction of data that shows the value, engagement, trending around content is helpful. I love the influencer identification and outreach tooling in Linkdex for helping quantify something as qualitative as influence and authority. I love Kapost as tooling for ideation, creation, publication, promotion and measurement of content. Search and social will work better together as they are both incentivized to see how content impacts social reach and SEO influence. It would be awesome if there were one super platform to tie it all together, but those are great tools that are part of a great “Swiss army knife” for measuring value of content, search and social.

What are three actionable tips to help brands manage their search and social in 2014 and 2015?

1. Invest in your story. Ask the question, “Does every content stakeholder know our content goals and priorities?” It amazes me that so many companies say, “We don’t need a content strategy,” then wonder why no one is interested in the unplanned, undocumented, uninspired content they are pushing out.

2. Invest in storytelling. Leveraging storytelling to dominate context through authorship around a specific topic/category is going to become more and more powerful for search. Don’t let just SEOs drive keyword seed lists; make sure there’s collaboration with brand, content, PR and social. Invest in the great authors who tell the great stories and give them a place at the marketing table.

3. Break down silos. Our customers see us as one entity, as a brand. Having lots of different teams with different goals, different channels and different messaging is bad for searchers. The better your team is at collaboration, the better the customer journey will become, regardless of channel or device.

*Bonus Tip: Learn the difference between content strategy (the how and governance) and content marketing (the to whom and why).

Finish this sentence for search marketers: “Social Media is NOT …”

One more place for SEOs to keyword stuff

What worked last year that does not work today in search and social?

Not sure this is “over,” but reporting search and social success as pageviews, visits or shares should be well on its way out. What matters is real engagement and brand affinity. There was coverage a couple months ago about the low level of social media interaction with Coca Cola’s Journey content. The Coca Cola Journey team responded with statistics around time on site consuming content. They noted that the consumption metric coupled with a very low bounce rate (just over 10%) were the more important KPIs (specific to their “Unbottled” blog). They’ve even created their own aggregate measurement called Expressions of Interest (EOI) scoring that assigns a quantitative value based on referrals from SEO, shares, traffic, social, etc. That’s a brand that knows what they want to measure and how that enforces brand goals.

What are your top three favorite books re: Internet marketing?

“Content Strategy for the Web” by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach
“From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: Disruptive Innovation in the Age of the Internet” by John Naughton
“Epic Content Marketing” by Joe Pulizzi (or really anything Joe writes)

Who, besides you, are the top three Twitter users to follow for search and social insights?

@jonathancolman: Jonathan straddles both universes of search and social with so much skill and insight. I don’t know a better technical SEO with such love and understanding of content.
@heidicohen: Heidi’s advice is so approachable. Her directives make you feel like you could execute against a recommendation rather than walking away thinking “that’s aspirational”.
@popforms: This feed isn’t about search and social insight, but leadership insight. At SMX West, Brian Clark (@copyblogger) spoke about SEO growing up as an industry. Part of that growing up has to include learning how to lead. There are a lot of smart people in our space; now it’s time to make a commitment and focus on great leadership that nurtures the smart young people joining the industry.

Lisa Williams of Search Discovery

What social network is the best for our readers to connect and follow you?

Twitter. It’s my go-to because it’s manageable and easy to make relevant to my interests. If you organize it the right way, it’s like a good party.

Thanks Lisa — see you at SMX Advanced! 

How to Make the SEO Services Agency–Client Relationship a Success

How to Make the SEO Services Agency–Client Relationship a Success was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

What makes the relationship between an SEO services company and a business client successful?

From early courtship to an ongoing relationship built on trust and mutual success, that was the question discussed in last week’s ISOOSI Tuesday Chat. The panelists, Tony Dimmock, Barrie Moran, Bill Slawski, Ammon Johns and Carlos Fernandes, covered:

What businesses should look for when choosing an SEO services company (agency or consultant)
What an SEO services agency/consultant should keep in mind when evaluating a prospective client
How both sides can make the relationship a success that pays off for everyone

Read on for the distilled wisdom shared by these experienced online marketers. (Or watch the full Hangout On Air: “Is your online agency/client relationship successful?“)

The Courtship Phase

The start of a client-consultant relationship is a bit like courtship. Both parties are rightly sizing each other up, trying to determine whether they’re a good match. Trust-building starts right from the first contact (or doesn’t). Questions have to be asked on both sides, such as: Do they listen? Do they understand me? Can we communicate well? Can they meet my needs?

The more both parties express their needs, listen to each other, and share honestly about their strengths and weaknesses, the better chance they have for starting their relationship off right.

For Businesses: 7 Tips for Choosing the Right SEO Services Company

Prioritize the relationship aspect: Finding a consultant who will connect with you and become part of your team should be the most important thing. Consider how loyal the agency will be, how comfortable you’ll be working with them, and how well they’ll keep your best interests in mind.
Don’t be too impressed by statistics: Don’t just look at how well-endowed the agency is with top rankings for their keywords, high-profile clients, etc. Rankings are not nearly as important as the relationship potential.

Make sure your business is viable: Don’t think SEO will be your magic bullet. You must have a viable business that could succeed with traditional forms of advertising even without search engines; then SEO can help make you more successful.
“SEO isn’t able to do the tricks it was once able to do.” – Ammon Johns

Be open: Express what your goals and needs are honestly, as well as your strengths and weaknesses, when seeking a consultant. Just as with personal relationships, you have to “be real” to know who’s a good match for you.
Have goals in mind: Know what you hope to achieve, even if you don’t know how to get there. It’s actually better to let the experts plan how to reach your objectives.
Find out how well they listen: You want an SEO consultant who’s willing to listen to you and understand your needs, not just “talk tech.”
Find out if you can learn from them: Consider whether the consultant takes time to explain things and wants to help you grow as a marketer.

“A company that feeds back and challenges some of the things you’ve been thinking, and causes that kind of adaptation in yourself — that’s exactly what you’re looking for.” – Ammon Johns

For the SEO Services Company: 7 Tips for Choosing the Right Clients

Keep your ideal target customer in mind. Consultants need to qualify a prospective new client, too. Not all clients are right for your business. If you specialize in service sites, should you try to take on an ecommerce client? If you’re all about local, do you really want that national brand? Be willing to pass on leads rather than veer from your specialties (and build a network of specialists you know and trust). Choose clients you can really make succeed, and you’ll have happy customers who grow your business with their referrals.
Find out the client’s requirements: From that initial phone call, ask lots of questions. What’s their website(s)? What kind of business are they in? What are their objectives? Why did they feel the need to call you? What are they looking for in an SEO services company? Asking for the client’s objectives and perspective demonstrates that you want to be part of their team. It also helps you weed out clients who don’t have a clue and aren’t serious about their business.
Talk the client’s language: If a client doesn’t know what a 404 is, don’t talk technical to them. Be flexible and speak to communicate, not to impress.
Differentiate yourself: Every prospect probably interviews several consultants, so how can you stand out? It’s not by out-talking them or impressing them with your technical knowledge. How respectful you are, how well you listen to their needs, and to some degree how much respect you demand — these are what set a consultant apart (credit: Tony Dimmock). If you connect with a prospect on a business level and show you understand them, your relationship foundation will be starting strong.
Talk budget: Don’t be afraid of the word money. Ask the prospect how much they are budgeting for SEO. If they turn the question around, Ammon Johns suggests this guideline: for companies running PPC (paid) campaigns, one month’s worth of ad spend would be an appropriate budget for a year’s worth of SEO.
Do a health check: Following (or during) the first phone call, take a close look at the prospect’s online business. Check Webmaster Tools, webspam actions, penalties, online profile, social media profile, authority on the web, sentiment associated with the brand, any obvious problems with the site (e.g., improper redirects), etc. You might also look at their financial status, making sure they don’t have judgments against them and are in a position to pay their bills.
Follow your gut: If something seems fishy about a prospect, consider passing. You might save yourself from future reputation hassles or bad debt from a client who can’t be satisfied or can’t pay their bills.

“Don’t be afraid of saying no.” – Tony Dimmock

The Relationship Phase

After an SEO services contract is signed, the client’s success becomes everyone’s business. Trust needs to continue to develop on both sides for that relationship to stay healthy and for the project to succeed.

For Clients: How to Make the Consulting Relationship Pay Off

Share past successes and failures: Tell your consultant what marketing efforts have worked or not worked for you in the past. This will not only improve communication, it may also enable your business to build on previous successes.
Reveal past experience with SEOs: Have you hired search engine optimization services before? You might want to explain your past experiences (good and bad) to your current provider, since these may be unconsciously coloring your expectations.
Treat the consultant as a team member: Give your SEO access to analytics, your Google Webmaster Tools account, and other resources as needed. Also let your consultant know what’s going on with the bigger project, such as deadlines, upcoming changes, key stakeholders, etc. The more you’re transparent with the expectations and pressures you face, the better the team member you’ve hired can help you deal with them.
Manage expectations: Communicate expectations and needs openly, especially since your business goals may change over time. Also realize that SEO is a long-term affair and really integrates all aspects of your online presence. Your help fulfilling to-do items and getting various stakeholders within your organization to all work cooperatively toward SEO goals will go a long way.
Let the consultant design KPIs: KPIs (key performance indicators) have to be chosen with care. Basic KPIs can show what’s working generally; but KPIs are easily misleading when the wrong factors are measured or correlated. Also, it’s not possible to attribute conversions to all marketing efforts. For example, you can’t track the ROI of billboards back to actual sales, yet they still may be a valuable branding investment. Every project is different, and your SEO consultant will be best able to design useful KPIs for your specific conversion objectives.

For SEOs: How to Make Your Client Relationships Successful

Balance being a business consultant and an SEO: Providing SEO services takes more than just technical know-how. Consultants have to make their work relatable to the client and sometimes help them become better marketers, as well.
Educate your clients: Invest in your client relationships by continuing to educate them. For example, clients of Bruce Clay, Inc. attend the SEOToolSet® Training course, so everyone’s on the same page with SEO objectives and methods. But even without that kind of formal training program, you can keep your clients informed. They don’t have time to stay abreast of industry news, so they rely on their expert SEO consultant to summarize the changes that affect them. Educating clients is a good way to become an indispensable, trustworthy resource.
Know the stakeholders: Your liaison at a client company may have to report to multiple stakeholders, like the CMO, the owner, or other. Find out who those people are and help your contact look good to them. Don’t aim to get the credit; make the person who hired you a hero instead.
Be open, honest and willing to listen: If the courtship phase requires listening and openness, how much more the marriage! Don’t stop communicating with your business clients after a contract is signed. The consultant who stays open to constructive feedback, keeps asking questions, and continues being open and honest, can maintain a healthy client-agency relationship long-term.
Revisit your relationships regularly: In addition to providing regular feedback in understandable reports, etc., occasionally re-evaluate whether your SEO services are still a good fit. Businesses change, and some may outgrow or no longer match your services well. It seems strange to think of saying goodbye to some clients by choice, but to manage your own workload and business, you might need to.

The successful client–SEO service provider relationship pays off for all concerned. The client gets an expert partner to call on and a website humming with traffic and conversions. The SEO company gets the bills paid and the opportunity to keep growing. Usually that’s the best case scenario. But occasionally, a client goes the extra mile — referring you to another prospective client, or even writing a positive review for the world to see — and all of that relationship building seems worthwhile.

SMX Advanced 2014: The Liveblog Schedule and Where to Find Bruce

SMX Advanced 2014: The Liveblog Schedule and Where to Find Bruce was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

SEOs and Internet marketers the world over will flock to Seattle, WA, next month for SMX Advanced 2014. Attendees can choose from more than 30 “tactic-packed” sessions on SEO, SEM, SMM and content marketing on June 10-11 — all led by leaders in Internet marketing, including:

Danny Sullivan
Chris Sherman
Greg Boser
Christine Churchill
David Roth
Brent Csutoras
Rae Hoffman
Larry Kim
Seth Meisel
and many more

And of course let’s not forget Matt Cutts’ “You & A Keynote” where Cutts (Google’s head of web spam) addresses questions from the audience. In short, SMX Advanced is a conference with major names lined up on the marquee — it’s the Coachella of SEO.

Want to save 10% on SMX Advanced registration? Of course you do. Use the Bruce Clay discount code: SMXA14BRUCECLAY when registering.

Bruce Clay SEO Training

Bruce Clay is an official SMX training partner and his SEO Training workshop always sells out at SMX Advanced. This all-day workshop dives into SEO methodology — all based on years of Bruce’s hands-on experience optimizing the sites of businesses in virtually every industry around the world. Bruce is one of the industry’s most sought-after educators – he’s even among those credited with coining the term “SEO.”

The SEO Training workshop will cover:

Why SEO matters
Technical SEO
The role of search engines
Website structure
SEO concepts and strategies
How to leverage the SEOToolSet

As one satisfied attendee said, “Bruce’s SEO Workshop was simply amazing. I didn’t think it was possible to captivate my attention for 8+ hours over the course of a long day, but Bruce made it happen. Totally worth the 90 minutes sleep I got on the red eye later that night! Bruce is also an incredibly humble and gracious guy, posing for pictures with attendees and signing copies of his book. He stuck around for a good hour after his talk to answer follow-up questions and give helpful advice. Looking forward to digging into the SEOToolSet and coming up with a list of ‘to do’ items for my team.”

Get more information on the SEO Training Workshop at SMX Advanced here.

SMX Advanced 2014 Liveblog Schedule and Where to Find Bruce

We want to meet you! Stop by booth No. 29 to meet Bruce and the gang. You can also have drinks on us at the Meet & Greet reception from 6-7:30 p.m. on June 10. Bruce Clay, Inc. will also be providing its in-demand liveblog coverage of key SMX Advanced sessions.

Jayme Westervelt

SMX Advanced Liveblogging

We’re entrusting our liveblogging to Jayme Westervelt — a talented Internet marketer, former Bruce Clay, Inc. SEO manager and longtime Bruce Clay, Inc. friend. She’ll be covering the following sessions:

Day 1: Wednesday, June 11

Time
SMX Advanced 2014 Session


9 a.m.
The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors


11a.m.
25 Social Media Ideas for the Advanced Search Marketer


1:45 p.m.
Enhancing Search Results w/ Structured Data & Markup


3:30 p.m.
What Advanced SEOs Should Be Doing about Mobile


5 p.m.
You & A with Matt Cutts

 

Day 1: Thursday, June 12

Time
SMX Advanced 2014 Session


9:00 a.m.
Keynote Address: Cortana & The Predictive Search Future


10:45 a.m.
Technically Speaking: Advanced Technical SEO Issues


1:30 p.m.
Executing A Flawless Content Marketing Strategy


3:30 p.m.
Ask the SEOs

 

What are you most looking forward to at SMX Advanced 2014? Tell us in the comments!

9 Tips for Getting Your Manual Link Penalty Overturned

9 Tips for Getting Your Manual Link Penalty Overturned was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

The effect that an unnatural link penalty can have on a website can be crippling. Make no mistake, there is a punitive aspect to these actions. Google is looking to teach webmasters a lesson, one that insures that they will not think about violating the search giant’s quality guidelines in the future. To drive their point home, Google makes the process of recovering from these penalties very difficult.

Link penalty recovery takes time, effort, and a substantial commitment of resources. Depending on your specific situation, you could end up reviewing and/or removing hundreds of thousands (millions?) of links. And generally speaking, there is no shortcut to forgiveness.

A good number of clients that approached our firm for SEO services over the past year came to us suffering from some form of manual or algorithmic penalty. The good news is that we have seen a high degree of success in getting penalties overturned. What follows is a list of tips for getting a specific type of penalty removed: a manual link penalty.

These tips are my own and as such are one analyst’s experiences dealing with these types of specific penalties; every situation is unique, but generally speaking, if you follow these tips, you’ll increase your chances of recovering from the penalty substantially.

1. Removing Links Is Job #1

There’s a reason that this is the first item on the list. If you are suffering from a manual link penalty (or any link penalty, for that matter) your best chance of having it overturned is the removal (or nofollowing) of inorganic links from the Internet. Do not rely on the disavow tool; it’s considered a last resort tool by Google and should only be used when every effort has been made to remove poor backlinks manually.

While Google has never confirmed their exact method of processing reconsideration requests, my experience tells me that one of the main metrics they consider is the amount of live inorganic links that are removed over time.

2. Be Thorough in Your Pruning Effort

The more backlinks you can gather for auditing, the better chance you have of offering Google a complete pruning effort. You should never rely solely on reported backlinks in Google Webmaster Tools. In fact, consider adding a second or third source of links. Bing Webmaster Tools, MajesticSEO, Ahrefs, and Moz’s Open Site Explorer are all excellent sources of backlink data.

 

There are plenty of stories out there that describe how Google has reported inorganic backlinks in denied reconsideration requests that are not listed in Google Webmaster Tools’ backlink report. It behooves webmasters to make an effort to create a more complete list of their backlinks if they hope to recover from a link penalty. If you paid someone to build links in the past, contacting them to try and obtain the original work log that listed the links built can be exceedingly valuable.

You can take this a step further and use Google itself to search for boilerplate language that link builders used to create backlinks to your site. Snippets from articles or searches for forum profile names and descriptions can uncover links that even the backlink reporting services may have missed.

3. Don’t Prune Nofollowed Links

Part of being thorough is making sure that you have gathered all of the pertinent data to assess your link profile. Nofollowed links do not pass PageRank and as such, they do not require removal or disavowing. You’d be shocked by how many clients I have worked with (many of whom run large online listing directories) who have nofollowed all external links on their site, but still receive removal requests.

It is important to note that Google Webmaster Tools does not offer data related to nofollowed or previously disavowed links (Matt Cutts, are you listening?), so you’ll need to crawl the links provided on those pages to gather details about them (Screaming Frog does a great job of this). Most link reporting tools like MajesticSEO, Ahrefs, etc., have a column that indicates if a link is nofollowed or not, but depending on the freshness of that data, the links themselves may not be live, which leads us to #4. . .

4. Make Sure the Links on Your Sheet Are LIVE

Just because a link is being reported by Google Webmaster Tools or another backlink data provider, it doesn’t mean that the link is active and live on the Internet. Depending on when your link report was run, the links in question could be long gone (and so could the site they appeared on). You can automate the process of crawling a list of links to ensure they are live fairly easily using tools like Screaming Frog or SEOTools For Excel.

5. Want Your Link Nofollowed or Removed? Ask Nicely

Some webmasters get inundated with link pruning requests and it’s not because they run a spammy site. Oftentimes their only sin was allowing followed comment links or trackbacks to be published on their site. Put yourself in the shoes of those webmasters when you craft your removal/nofollow request letter. How does the old saying go? “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar”? This certainly applies to removal requests, so when crafting yours, be considerate and professional.

I do want to mention that there are some webmasters out there that will be less than amiable when they respond to your requests. Some will ask for money to remove your links while others will virtually scream, curse, spit and complain about your request. We advise our clients to ignore these responses, preserve their professionalism, and put the offending domains directly into the disavow list.

6. Disavow on the Domain Level

If you do have to resort to disavowing a link or set of links, it is probably better to disavow the entire domain as opposed to the individual URLs. Links that appear on blogs can often be republished on tag or archive pages and those pages aren’t always listed in the backlink report you might be working from. If you’ve decided the links in question have no value and can make the same claim for the entire domain, a domain level disavow is advised.

7. Track and Share Your Work

A proper link pruning spreadsheet details:

All of the data that you’ve gathered about a link
Your assessment of the value of that link (and reasoning behind it)
Your history in trying to get it removed or nofollowed
And finally the result of those efforts

Keeping vigilant track of this information in one location and then uploading that file to Google Drive to share with the Google engineer who will be reviewing your reconsideration request is vital to getting your penalty removed.

Don’t forget to make sure that anybody with the link to your link pruning spreadsheet can view the entire document. List links to your link pruning spreadsheet in your disavow file and in the text of your reconsideration request as well.

8. Admit Your Sin, Detail Your Penance, Promise to Never Do It Again

The Google webspam team published a set of videos discussing manual action penalties. In them, Matt Cutts repeatedly indicates that there are 3 aspects to getting your manual penalty overturned.

Give background on how and why you got the penalty
Detail how you fixed the issue
Assure the search giant that you will NOT violate their quality guidelines again

The body of your reconsideration request should discuss these 3 points in detail.

Make letters thorough, but also consider hitting these 3 points in the first few paragraphs of the letter. While we would like to think that the Google engineers who review reconsideration requests read every word we write, it makes sense to give them a summary of the work performed early on in the letter.

When crafting reconsideration requests I ask myself this question: If the Google engineer only has time to read the first few paragraphs of this reconsideration request, would they have all of the information they need to overturn the penalty? If they don’t, redraft your letter so they do.

9. Be Patient; Auditing Links Takes Time

If there’s a common theme among failed link pruning campaigns, it’s the reluctance to roll up your sleeves and do the work necessary to fix the problem. Auditing links takes time and there’s no way to fake it. While it is true that you can exclude certain links from review (either because they are clearly valuable or harmful) the vast majority of links will require a website visit and a manual audit.

Unless you are Interflora, Rap Genius, or JCPenney, the process for recovering from a penalty is made intentionally difficult by Google. As I alluded to earlier, there is definitely a punitive aspect to the manual actions – they are intended to make a large enough impact into the health and profitability of a website that the “offending” webmasters think twice before breaking Google’s Quality Guidelines again.

Google has even tweaked their reconsideration request denial letters to indicate that they expect you to spend time pruning links before you submit additional requests. They want to see webmasters put in substantial work in order to recover from these penalties.

Some believe that the first rounds of reconsideration requests are automatically denied. While we have not seen that to necessarily be the case, we do see that denied reconsideration requests all share some common characteristics – most notably quick, sloppy, artificial link pruning efforts that rely heavily on disavowing instead of the very difficult work involved in manually removing the offending links.

Tough Choices and a Word of Warning

The process of link pruning will take time and be an iterative process. Depending on the overall disposition of your link profile, you may have to make some hard decisions about links that may have some value. We see this quite often as clients who engaged in link building campaigns are forced to prune or nofollow links that would ordinarily be considered organic. The decision to do this is not easily made and should probably only be done after initial pruning efforts have failed to remove the penalty in question.

There is no way around the fact that link pruning weakens websites. While the worst of the links that get pruned were probably not helping the website to begin with, there may be niche appropriate links that appear on less than stellar websites that do offer some value, but may have to be removed because a business engaged in inorganic link building and as a result, have cast doubt on their entire link profile. Often, the decision to remove those links is one that can only be made after initial reconsideration requests have failed.

If you’re facing a manual link penalty or suspect a penalty of some kind is hindering your rankings in Google and would like to speak with an experienced professional, don’t hesitate to learn more about our SEO penalty assessment and removal services.