Learn the tried and true best practices SEO, SEM, PPC and the analytics used to measure success. This session will take the sometimes wild and wooly world of Search and put it into plain simple terms with the case studies to prove the ROI potential for all of us if willing to do it right.

1. Search Engine Marketing
Online Marketing Summit 2009
Kevin Lee, Chairman & CEO, Didit
© 2009 Didit

2. Didit transforms businesses
through digital media
technology and strategy in
search engine marketing and
targeted digital advertising.
Performance Trust Account
(PTA): $25-100K guarantee.
2007
We don’t do SEO, we have
mastered auction media &
2007 & 2008
run PowerProfiles.com a
D&B partnership.
© 2009 Didit

3. What do you want to learn?
I've taught classes in SEO / Paid Search that take
14 hours to complete. Some SEM conferences
cover this topic in four days with four tracks.
Clearly we can get very specific or cover some of
the more general best practices. That all depends
on you.
What do you want to learn?
© 2009 Didit

4. Top Position
Organic or Paid, top position is required for high
volume search visitors and high visibility.
© 2009 Didit

5. SEO isn’t about ranking for dream keywords
Good search position can be a byproduct of
good content development and a good
search-engine-friendly site.
• Standing start, DNB.PowerProfiles.com
• Blogs
• Content rich sites
SEO isn’t geeky, but having a good CMS
written by geeks is critical.
© 2009 Didit

6. Branding and Search
SEMPO survey says branding is an objective.
© 2009 Didit

7. Branding and Search
Yet brand lift was rarely a measured metric.
© 2009 Didit

8. Google measured brand lift 4-days later
Yet brand lift was rarely a measured metric.
© 2009 Didit

9. Branding and Metrics
© 2009 Didit

10. Brand Receptivity, the Psychic Postal Carrier
Search engine marketing is like direct marketing
with a Psychic Mailman (postal carrier):
• Keywords are like mailing lists – scarce, valuable
• Search listings or ads are like the envelope
• Your web site … the material inside the envelope
• Messages hit the searcher at the perfect time
•The searcher is thirsty for info, leaning forward
and open to information
•Search fulfills the needs of searchers, and helps
you accomplish your marketing goals
© 2009 Didit

11. Who is your SEM target audience?
Your target audience for your site and your SEM
efforts may extend beyond the obvious:
• Prospects
• Customers
• Channel partners / resellers
• The Press and Analysts
• Employees (who may use the web site as a resource)
• Potential employees
Consider the needs and behaviors of all important
constituents.
© 2009 Didit

12. Google, Yahoo, MSFT’s Mission
The search engines number one priority is
relevance, particularly Google.
Keep your hand up if you truly believe that you are
the most relevant of all possible results for your
Boss’ keywords?
There lies the SEO quandary. The search engines
have a direct interest in making sure you are NOT
at the top unless you belong there.
Can you give yourself a little edge when your
competition does an inferior job at SEO, yes…
© 2009 Didit

13. SEO is not a game
Organic search results appear based on a search
engine spider (crawler or robot) visiting your site.
Alternatively, your site may be included in the
results partially based on the fact that a human-
run directory has listed your site.
It takes work on your part to make sure your site is
“search engine friendly.” That is organic SEO.
If you belong in the results for a search, then
getting there is an SEO challenge. If you don’t
belong in the results no amount of energy can get
you there permanently. The engines police
against irrelevance and reward relevance.
© 2009 Didit

14. Defining Success in Organic SEO:
Don’t go crazy trying to track and manage organic
search position across specific keywords.
Instead, get your great content as search engine
friendly as possible. You’ll get more traffic and if
your content is targeted so-too will be your traffic.
High quality traffic drives:
• Sales
• Registrations and leads
• Large number of pageviews (sticky visitors)
•Longer time on site (minutes spent interacting and
reading
• Interaction with the site (commenting, blogging)
© 2009 Didit

15. SEO Success Depends On:
A) How many other sites are seeking to get organic
or paid traffic on a similar keyword set and content
B) How many sites have similar (or identical)
content with better “reputations”
C) Magnitude of resources (human capital, PR and
other capital) which those sites are putting into
organic SEO
D) Your level of SEO investment and execution
E) Changes in the engine algorithms that favor one
site type over another
F) Whether your supporter assets can be fully
leveraged.
© 2009 Didit

16. How Hard Should You Fight?
Ironically, for organic SEO, the worse your site is
now, the higher ROI you’ll get on SEO
investments
• Sites with poor SEO normally have some easy fixes
• Larger sites have an advantage due to more content
• Older orgs that are well known have a natural advantage
• Value of a visitor will impact ROI of SEO
• Competitiveness of sector will impact ROI. If you are only
fighting three other orgs for high position on key industry terms
or product terms, your job is easier
• Do your constituency use search heavily when researching
issues?
© 2009 Didit

17. If you are the most relevant and not there:
Fix what’s wrong. What do search engine spiders
do?
1. Find good content
2. Identify that content and separate it from
extraneous information
3. Grade the content for clarity
4. Extract the essence of the content
5. Assign the content a source reputation score
6. Understand the context of that content
7. Assign communities, explore interrelationships
8. Catalog the URL of the content
9. Keep the content information fresh (re-spider)
© 2009 Didit

18. Google Webmaster Central
Most of what you need to know about SEO is
available at Google’s Webmaster page:
How can I improve my site's ranking?
Sites' positions in our search results are determined based on a number
of factors designed to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search
results. These factors are explained in more detail at
http://www.google.com/technology/
In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing
the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. For more
information about improving your site's visibility in the Google search
results, we recommend reviewing our webmaster guidelines. They
outline core concepts for maintaining a Google-friendly website.
© 2009 Didit

19. The Google Toolbar for SEO
SEO practitioners rely on more than just Google
Webmaster Central. We love the Google Toolbar:
Toolbar Shows PageRank plus more useful SEO
info:
Sites' Back-links
Cache
© 2009 Didit

20. Readability of Content by Search Engines
Search Engine spiders can’t see everything on
your web site the way a human visitor to the site
can. Search engines can only read/interpret text.
Text must be in spider-friendly readable formats:
1. HTML (file extension doesn’t matter), names of
elements embedded in HTML + Alt Tags
2. PDFs (properly formatted)
3. Word documents
4. PowerPoint files
5. text files / RTF files / CSV files
8. a few other selected file types.
© 2009 Didit

21. Content Search Engines Can’t Read
Files the search engines can’t read accurately:
1. images (only knows name and AltTag)
2. graphics
3. animations
4. fancy Flash movies
5. JavaScript DHTML Content
6. dynamic content and media (AJAX, iFrames)
The search engine can’t even tell when you have a
navigational element that is an image what that
image actually looks like to the surfer.
© 2009 Didit

22. Back to Basics for optimal site-side SEO
SEO is about going back to basics for textual
content so that the engines get what they need.
• simple
• compelling
• Descriptive (both the body and the title tag)
• clear
• complete
Many old or simple websites do particularly well for
SEO because the developers had to rely on text
and copy. Think eBay, CraigsList, blogs.
© 2009 Didit

23. Inverted Pyramid Style for Copy
How many people have written a press release or a
journalistic story?
Writing for publication in newspapers or magazines
or for press releases uses a a concept called the
inverted pyramid style. Start with the meatiest
part of the story, even the story’s conclusion, and
then support that conclusion or the essence of the
story with more facts or emotional copy.
Each page of your site has a concept that
describes that page, as well as how that page fits
into your site. Keep that core concept in mind
when writing the copy for the page.
© 2009 Didit

24. The Content Management System (CMS)
Many of you don’t have control over your CMS.
You work with a web vendor and that’s what you
get. Consider a blog like the free Wordpress
software if you can’t make your CMS Spider
Friendly.
No Javascript, Flash or pull-down form navigation
unless mirrored in text
Navigational Breadcrumbs and Sitemap links
Text link navigation
Good URL formation - No Session IDs
Unique Title Tags, Some Other Meta Control
© 2009 Didit

25. The Almighty Anchor tag
Search engine spiders have moved toward
weighing external variables when determining
relevance. The most important concepts to
understand are.
Links from trusted, reputable sites will generally
improve ranking (Yahoo, DMOZ.org)
An anchor link is one that includes the keyword or
phrase as the underlined portion. Most engines
consider the words or concepts in anchors when
determining relevance.
It’s quantity but more importantly quality of links
© 2009 Didit

26. The Almighty Anchor Tag & Links
Communities exist online for every industry or
topic. Some search engines are weighing links
between community sites as more relevant.
Do not buy into link farms. Build your links with
online PR and leverage your network/eccosystem.
• Bloggers
• Suppliers
• Distributors
• Customers
• Press
Reciprocal links between sites are rumored to be
less effective or even ineffective.
© 2009 Didit

27. The Meta Tag you need, the Title Tag
There are several Meta Tags, most common are:
•Meta Title
• Meta Description
• Meta Keywords
All you really need are unique descriptive Title Tags
for each page that take the user and the engine
into account.
•Remember if you rank the title should be
interesting
• Essence of the page
•Should match the content on the page
© 2009 Didit

28. Reputation Management and SEO
Reputation management: You want as many
positive / effective Google/Yahoo/MSFT listings for
your name as possible. Typical vehicles are:
1. Blog Posts
2. Job posting sites
3. Sites that provide a custom URL:
1. Yelp
2. MerchantCircle
3. DNB.PowerProfiles.com (contact me for trial)
© 2009 Didit

29. The Value of Paid Clicks
1. More high quality traffic
2. Better Quality Score
© 2009 Didit

30. Genius?
Idiot?
© 2009 Didit

31. Pareto
(80/20)
© 2009 Didit

32. Audiences, Not Clicks
Who are the audiences?
What do they respond to?
Are there audience members you
don’t want?
Can you rescue a poorly
performing segment?
© 2009 Didit

33. Geotargeting
© 2009 Didit

34. Geotargeting: Conversion Rate
- Average conversion
rate: 1.5%
- New York City
conversion rate:
2.1%
→ You can bid over
25% more for NYC.
© 2009 Didit

35. Geotargeting: higher spenders
New York shopping cart:
$178
Average shopping cart:
$122
→ you can bid more for
NYC.
© 2009 Didit

36. Dayparting
© 2009 Didit

37. Demographic Targeting
65 +
0-5
© 2009 Didit

38. The POWER
SEGMENT:
the Perfect Storm
© 2009 Didit

39. Predicted Lead Quality
© 2009 Didit

40. Post-click behaviors
© 2009 Didit

41. Evaluation, analysis and testing
© 2009 Didit

42. Data-driven click modeling
Predictive
… or
Reactive
© 2009 Didit

43. Conclusion
•Stay Educated on best practices
• Make SEO best practices part of Standard
Practices
• Use the right vendors and technology.
• Find the right mix of in house and outsourced
Copies of PPT? kevin@didit.com.
© 2009 Didit