Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Online Marketing Consultant

Last week, I was priveleged enough to be able to attend Google’s Reaction B2B Summit. Overall, it was an amazing experience. Google’s campus is something to behold, if you’ve never been. A full service dining hall, cafe’s in each building, outdoor work areas, lecture halls, exercise equipment, a volleyball court, bike’s you can ride wherever you’d like, haircuts on site, dry cleaning on site, wireless everywhere - pretty much everything a geek could desire and that’s only the handful of buildings I was able to see.

Unfortunately, upon arriving, we were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which is completely understandable. I’ll just say that the speakers were fantastic, I was able to meet several really smart, interesting people who I’d to meet up with again very soon if they are in Chicago (@socialjulio and @ryandeshazer, amongst others) and that I’ll definitely be going back next year, if my gracious hosts once again extend the invitation. I’m definitely disappointed that I missed day two, but I had my own fun with rescheduling flights and hanging out in airports all day.

Check out some of the pics I was able to snap during my visit below.
Did you attend? How did you think it went?

Created with flickrSLiDR.

In case you are looking for me over the next couple of days, I’ll be attending the Google Reaction B2B Executive Summit with our CEO, the director of our department, and our VP of west coast operations. If you’d like to digitally stalk me over that period, I’ll be making regular updates to multiple platforms as often as possible, without upsetting my gracious hosts of course. Just because you aren’t attending, doesn’t mean you can’t participate. Feel free to shoot me a message at any of these sites below and I’ll try and slip them in if possible:

• Twitter
• Brightkite
• Friendfeed

You can also see feedback/reactions after the event here and here.

I’ve read a few articles recently about “optimizing your website for mobile SEO”. I know it’s the big focus of many conferences in 2008, but frankly, I think this is kind of a waste of time. Mobile SEO - SEO - it will all be the same very soon. As more and more mobile devices become more of an internet gateway than just a mobile device, search engines are going to have to catch up. People will no longer think “I’m on a mobile device, I want mobile results”. They will move to think more along the lines of, I know I get these results on my laptop, so I would expect a similar result set on my mobile device. Just because I’m on a mobile device should not change the results.

PPC/SEM
I think for the short term, at least until search engines combine results, running mobile search campaigns is still worthwhile. However, for the longer term, PPC/SEM will follow suit soon after people begin to expect more from their mobile results.

Design
I do however think designing and thinking about mobile is still a key issue when designing for mobile devices and something that should be kept in mind. Just because you are designing for the web, doesn’t mean that users will not access the site using a mobile device. There are a number of websites which can address the minor technical issues associated with developing a mobile stylesheet. Here are just a few:

• Mobile CSS First Steps
• Mobile CSS is a reality
• Make your site mobile friendly

Now as for local search optimization, I think this is one of the key segments where search optimization can make a big difference, but that’s for a later post. What do you think? Is mobile seo worth your time, or just another piece of hype to keep many SEO’ers busy for 2008/09?

I find it fascinating that Google has someone who speaks out as much as Matt does about SEO and search marketing in general. I don’t think there are many other industries where there is such a reciprocal back and forth between company and customers. Thanks for the insights (and great one-liners) Matt!

My mom sent me another article today about the Detroit auto industry and yet another round of layoffs which continue to decimate the Michigan economy. On a side note, if you didn’t know, Michigan has one of our hardest hit economies right now as a result of the entire state leaning on one industry for over a century, but that’s for another time.

The article got me thinking though about risk. Risk is inherent in any online campaign - be it SEO, SEM, a website launch, an ad campaign, anything. Here’s some questions you should ask yourself before, during, and after any SEO campaign.

What happens if you’re successful?

• Does your client have enough inventory to support a surge in website traffic?
• Can they handle a large volume of sales leads?
• Are their pages optimized for conversions?
• Can you report the metrics they want for success?
• Is there website setup to handle large volumes of traffic?
• If it crashes, do they have a contingency plan?
• What’s your next move if you’re a marketing/search agency and you get to be #1 in Google?
• Is there information on the website you don’t want to get out?
• Any case study or success stories you can harness to use for future sales opportunities?

What happens if you’re not successful?

• Have you defined success? Perhaps #1 in Google was too high to shoot for. See what the sites ahead of you have going for them and set client expectations accordingly.
• Can you at least demonstrate the efforts you made or results you were able to secure?
• Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve you can try?
• Was it your fault? Did the client hamstring you into solutions you knew would never work in the first place? Did you voice your opinions?
• Any learnings that can come out of this?

Is there anyway you can mitigate against those risks? Not everything is within your control, especially when working with third parties, but always good to hedge your bets if you can. Just food for thought.

So I saw this video this morning from TechCrunch and it shows a new search interface that Google is testing out more widely. I remember hearing about this last year and thought, I’d rather not. Seeing it again still kind of leaves me with that opinion. Here are my hesitations:

1. User Interface - Please don’t do this to the current interface. It’s kind of ugly. The reason I go to Digg is because I expect this kind of nuttiness. I go to Google because I want information, not a bunch of buttons to push.
2. Politics - There is a lot of competition out there for top search results. I’m assuming that if this is fully rolled out that voting up and down will only be a marginal part of the search ranking, or if you vote up or down or add/remove results, that it will only effect your ranking views when you are logged into Google.

My gut tells me that this is just another product team project that won’t make it all the way to the homepage. Only time will tell though.

Update: I received an email from Dan Lewis, an employee of Wikia Search, and he said that Wikia Search has been doing a lot of this stuff for a while now. Check them out when you have a second.

I’ve signed up for a number of beta invitations lately for reputation monitoring websites. These are web utilities which aggregate mentions of your favorite keywords: “chicago marketing”, “chicago seo”, “lindsey lohan”, whatever. The one feature that some of the newer sites have over previous iterations are historic records. Let’s review some of the oldies, but goodies first:

Google Alerts

Any savvy marketer should already have Google alerts set up and running on a daily basis. Google alerts is nice in that it’s first and foremost, free. It’s also reliable and very easy to set up and turn off. In case you’re not already familiar, Google alerts allows you to enter a key phrase or set of keywords and create daily, “as it happens”, and weekly alerts. The as-it-happens alerts can be both very useful, but also very overwhelming if you are in a volatile field. It’s good for product launches or PR campaigns, where instant feedback from customers/users is vital for the success of the launch For example, Company A launches a website. 100,000 people sign up instantly. The website crashes. The blogosphere goes crazy. Google alerts in a great way to head off these issues. The only issue with Google alerts is that if you have a broad keyword or huge brand (i.e. Honda), you’re going to get everything under the sun in terms of references, so make sure to be super specific when creating these alerts.

Google Trends

Similar to the volume of email you receive from Google alerts, Google trends allows you to see patterns of mentions over time. In this example of Honda versus Toyota, you can see the mentions associated with each brand over time. This is a good utility to use to see if your PR efforts have paid off over time. Google trends will even show major spikes in traffic and pull in related news materials for the time scale you select (i.e last 30 days, last 12 months, etc.). This is an excellent tool to use in conjunction with Google alerts.

Ok now to the new fun stuff…

Trackur

Trackur bills themselves as “Google alerts on steroids”, which is a pretty bold claim, as Google alerts already does a pretty good job. So what does Trackur do that alerts doesn’t? Well, first off I have to say, I’ve never actually used Trackur, so I’m only relating what their websites says. Anyone who has actually used it, let me know if it’s worth $18/month to start. Trackur says that it searches all media, not just Google (which is what Google alerts searches - but on a sidenote, Google seems to have a pretty good handle on the world’s information, so what else is Trackur searching?). Trackur also allows for more in depth filtering than Google alerts along with saving mentions of your keywords for later review and sharing them with colleagues. Overall, I’m still a bit skeptical without being able to a direct comparison to Google alerts. They do have a free 14 day trial, so if you sign up and find it’s a good fit, let me know in the comments.

Addict-o-Matic

Addict-o-matic is egosurfing on steroids. You can quote me on that, addict-o-matic marketing department. Addict-o-matic is nice in that it pulls in search queries from many different websites in one easy-to-view search interface. Looking up a popular brand, Facebook, yields some pretty fun results from numerous sites without actually having to run out to those sites. This tool can be useful as a daily checkup on any brand doing social media optimization for videos images, blog posts, twitter, etc. A great future feature would be to provide updates to users if anything changes on these pages, so I don’t have to continually come back. Ah well, it’s free and it works.

FiltrBox

I’ve been using Filtrbox for the last few days to monitor some of my clients mentions on the web. It’s got a really slick interface, and again, it’s free. Like Google alerts, you enter search criteria and it sends you daily alerts as to the status of the keyword mentions it finds. You can also chart mentions over time, similar to Google Trends. You can also add direct plugins for source material from mainstream media, the blogosphere, Twitter, and Twitter’s nemesis, Friendfeed. It also provides some really nice login structuring to allow for deep filtering. So I can create a filter that says “honda AND (toyota OR chrysler) AND EXCLUDE hybrid AND SUV”. It also allows for direct importing from Google alerts, which is the mark of someone who knows who their competitors are and embraces it. Nicely done Filtrbox!

Just a few links I found from around the ‘net this week:

• Social thing - organize all your social media websites into one lifestream. Signed up for private beta, looking forward to an account so I can explore this a little further.
• Google Trends for Websites - Now you can view Google Trends for websites. Really nice information, but I’m not sure competitors are going to appreciate this. I’ll have to see what I was doing last June - take that Sempo
  
• Google continues it’s uptick in search market share - Not surprising, but Yahoo also increased. I’m assuming this is due to their recent press associated with the Microsoft (non)deal. Microsoft dropped, which is again, not surprising.
• MySpace underwent a redesign - Not sure if it will stop the slide in global traffic, but once these things start in the world of online, users are usually quick to jump ship for “the new hot thing”.

The story was floating around for the last month or so that this might happen, but many have wondered if it would. Well, the wait is over, it appears that Google and Yahoo are indeed partnering to offer Google ads within the Yahoo search platform. According to the conference call transcripts, Yahoo will still be running Panama and Google ads will appear beside their results.

Overall, part of me is excited in that I may only have to do two media placements in the future, Google and MSN, as Yahoo’s search advertising will essentially be defunct, although they act like it won’t be. Then there is the other part of me, which is somewhat disheartened. With Google now serving their ads on Google and Yahoo, it seems that CPC’s (costs-per-click’s) are going to increase as advertisers move from solely Yahoo based solutions to Google-centric solutions in addition to competition increasing for the top keywords as more advertisers move over.

The one nice thing about this is that it essentially changes nothing for end users. So search behavior should, technically, remain the same with Google, Yahoo and MSN continuing to stay the course with their market shares. Although, I have to think that some consumers will hear this news and think that Google and Yahoo are merging, and as a result, move over to Google, I think the majority will stay where they are.

Really, I see this as the first step to a Google acquisition of the entire search arm of Yahoo. Other than the seemingly corporate minded Justice department, what’s stopping them from purchasing the Panama platform and perhaps other assets?

Although I’m normally all for Google and the great products they create, this whole deal with Yahoo makes me cringe just a bit. What do you think? Am I overreacting or is this a sign of things to come?

So you’ve been working for months (or years) and now you’re #1 for that keyword you’ve been trying to rank highly for in Google (and any other search engines). Congratulations! You tell the client, you tell your friends, and everything is coming up roses. Then all of a sudden, the client says “Well, I guess we won’t be needing your services anymore.”

You: Uh…..I…..oh damn.

Here are five tips you can use to prove your worth to your client, beyond just gaining rankings:

1. Additional keyword optimization.
   This is pretty obvious, but just because you are #1 for “yellow widget” doesn’t necessarily mean you are #1 for “yellow widgets“. Make sure to continuously research additional keyword opportunities for your clients so you can have them on hand when they ask for them.
2. Competitive Analysis and Intelligence.
   Just because you are #1 today, doesn’t mean you will be tomorrow. Google is finicky about their search algorithm and likes to change things up every few years, just so everyone has as a fair shake (and so they can make a few extra dollars from their own services). Put yourself forth as providing competitive intelligence to both fend off and outmaneuver your clients competitors.
3. Optimizing additional media.
   Maybe you were just optimizing pages on your clients website. Maybe you were only doing press releases. Regardless, there’s always another opportunity out there to optimize something else your client didn’t think to put on their website. Maybe they have some corporate PDF’s laying around on their intranet, which their customers would love. Maybe they have some old corporate videos that are both informative and ridiculously campy. Put them on YouTube and see if you can get some viral traffic going.
4. Reputation Management.
   Your client may appreciate ranking well for “widgets in Chicago”, but they probably don’t appreciate the fact that they also rank well for “worst company in Chicago”. Let them know you can give them a hand with that as well using SEO as PR, SEM, social media optimization, and other techniques to present their side of the story.
5. Internal Education.
   Although, some SEO’s might feel like this is like giving away the keys to the kingdom, in most cases, your client doesn’t have the time, manpower, or technical knowledge to do this on their own, that’s why they hired you in the first place. So reaching out to them and offering to train their internal personnel on best practices for optimizing a press release or webpage isn’t going to take away your next paycheck. In most cases, it will actually provide you with additional opportunities, as those personnel go home and tell other co-workers, their friends, or their spouses about “the great stuff they learned today and how it can help their company.” That co-worker/friend/spouse turns around and tells their boss, and voila, you have additional leads coming in for more work.

In any case, as a good marketer, you should always have something else on the table beyond just gaining search engine rankings.