This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO) and how it can be an important part of a company's marketing strategy. Some key points: - Conductor is an SEO company that helps clients like Travelocity optimize their websites to perform better in search engine results. - SEO represents a large and growing opportunity as more people use search engines, but it requires proper planning, resources, and measurement to realize its potential. - Companies should assess their SEO opportunities by analyzing key search terms and estimating traffic and value. They then need to build an SEO strategy, audit current performance, and create a budget to improve over time. - Proper metrics allow companies to track progress, learn

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Unlocking the Most Powerful Segment of Web-Marketing Seth Besmertnik, CEOSeptember 30th, 2009 at FirstMark Online Marketing Summit

3. Company Founded in 2005 in NYC

4. 60+ employees, with backgrounds from Google, Yahoo, agencies, and technology providers

5. ‘Conductor Research Labs’ devoted to providing empirical answers to the mysteries of natural search

7. Deep In Middle America….

8. There was an important meeting… CEO: So it’s settled! We will start the work on the water purification plant in 12 months CFO: The budgets have been approved and we are ready to go BOB: There are only a missing pieces to our planning needed Fantastic! We are going to change the world! ACME Project Planning Committee

9. Bob Begins Searching for a Critical Vendor

10. Long Story Short… . . .

11. 6 Months Later CONTRACT SIGNED 750mm Dollars

12. More Success Stories in B2B Help Desk Software 120k in Revenue Email Marketing 280k in Revenue Email Encryption 420k in Revenue VPN 339k Marketing Automation 190k in Revenue Network Management Software 90k in Revenue Engineering Process Management 1.5mm in Revenue Network Security Hardware 447k in Revenue

13. Opportunity in Natural Search Search Growth ‘08 $13.5 Billion | ’13 $26.1 Billion SEMPO Paid Search CPC costs are up +15% from 2008 Forrester Over 37% of paid search advertisers are in bidding wars for top positions Enquiro 56% of Google queries serve 0 paid ads Comscore Marketing Budgets Natural search accounts for 15% of paid Sherpa Traffic 86% 14% Paid Natural Spend 89% 11%

14. Natural Search is Free, No? That is What Most of the Fortune 500 Thought… Some of these are now our customers …average spend around $500k a year on SEO Source: Conductor Q3 2009 Fortune 500 SEO Study

15. What is Your SEO Potential?Is SEO a Top 3 Priority?…maybe it’s not a big enough opportunity?

16. Perform an Opportunity Assessment Before Diving In…

17. Define the market opportunity Isolate keywords for top 50,100,1k,2k, non-branded terms Gather volume and ranks Use a CTR Curve to define potential visitors (If you can, get Per Visit Value (PVV) data for each keyword) Download worksheet from Conductor.com

18. What is SEO Worth to Your Organization? Total Realized Opportunity 16mm Visitors Total Unrealized Opportunity 160mm Visitors You can download this template from conductor.com/firstmark

19. Deciding Your Strategic Priority Level

20. An Action Plan to Tackle SEO

21. Building Out Your Strategic Plan

22. Determine your market position

23. Baseline Your Current Performance You can download this template from conductor.com/firstmark

24. SEO Assessment Audit Each of 4 Categories: Strategy, Buy-in & Skills Processes and Systems Keyword / Content Tracking, Reporting & Metrics You can download this template from conductor.com/firstmark

25. Delivering a Budget for Natural Search Salary ≠ Media Buy Don’t underestimate the cost of staying current with continuing education Technology and tools are the difference between dealing with 10 keywords and 10,000 Link development and link building is critical to ranking well Outside budget (CMS changes, content, etc…) needs to be clearly agreed upon

26. SEO is all or nothing ∞x 0 = 0

27. Investment: Organic vs. Paid Conversions Investment

28. Stepping Stone SEO Metrics Create a timeline on maturing your metrics Q1 Q2 Q4 Q3 Q1 Q2 MILESTONES SUCCESS METRICS Conversions Attribution Campaign Level ROI PRE-TRAFFIC POST TRAFFIC

29. Stepping Stone SEO Metrics Create a timeline on maturing your metrics Q1 Q2 Q3 MILESTONES

30. Track your progress Keywords Rank Movement Rank ‘Worthiness’ Issue Resolution

31. Track and Learn from Your Competitors Keywords Track Competitors and Top Rankers Rank Rank ‘Worthiness’

32. SEO Maturity Cycle Compete Share of search calculations Monitoring & alerts of important SEO changes External validation & auditing Lost opportunity cost identification Measure Scale Try Invest Opportunity discovery Specialist resources Real SEO prioritization Attribution modeling around SEO Reporting using business metrics Regular and systemic ROI reporting Shift from tactical to strategic Internal / agency investment Tactical focus No auditing No scale No ROI Education & evangelism Small resources No formal mgmt process

34. Can re-evaluate keywords / content much more quickly

35. Appreciative of low-cost customer acquisition model

36. Big

37. Unwieldy

38. Slow to react

39. Stuck in traditional customer acquisitionStartup Fortune 500

40. Finding Good SEO People is Difficult – 3 Options Learn it all yourself Find someone you trust Make metrics your guide

41. Download these resources at: www.conductor.com/firstmark Follow Seth on Twitter -- @Besmertnik MARKET OPPORTUNITY CALC SHARE OF SEARCH CALC SEO MATURITY ASSESSMENT

42. Questions?