It took a couple of pining hours, but when Sara our blog guru and fashionista de officina arrived she immediately said “Oh my gosh, look at your shoes! Oh my, those are amazing.” And then graciously she endured my enthusiastic telling of the siting and capture of these stunning pink and wedge heeled mary janes finished with white trim, a peek-a-boo toe opening and a big white flapper-dancer button clasp.

Just about now you just might be thinking “I thought this was a b2b web marketing blog,” or “Crud, I Googled s-h-o-e instead of s-e-o; I must really be tired…”

Hang in - you’re in the right place. This is a b2b internet marketing agency blog. The topic today is online social networks, and the question is how much of an individual’s personality is appropriate for their social network presence, especially in industries like ours, where we are likely to have an online presence for career that flows quickly in to our personal online profiles.

Barring the extreme, say, for instance, a case where I’d have a facebook persona called Notice My Cool Shoes, and another account with completely different credentials called Susan McElhenney Views Source…where does professional social networking stop and personal hanging out on the web begin?

A creature of detail, I’ll move us to examples. That I do Search Engine Optimization, that’s professional. That I am a working mom with 2 young children…appropriate detail for my Facebook profile? Linked In? How about my interest in transcendent bikram yoga? OK, now, how about the detail that I’m a long distance runner? What if I run with a group called Marketers Marking Miles? What if I run with a group called Moms For The Right to Nurse Our Babies While Standing In Line At the Bank? Are these affinity groups part of my work blog profile? My linked-in profile? My facebook profile? What do you think: Can I twitter my new pink shoes?

We’re kicking off a vlogging series called Search Camp today. There will be short videos on the topics that our clients and colleagues have a lot of interest in. You’ll even have the opportunity to earn merit badges that you can use to breed wild envy among your fellow marketers. Social media marketing is going to be the focus of the first few videos since we get a lot of questions about it. So here’s the first little video… hope you enjoy it!

Click to play

SEO’s prevalence can be maddening. Recently, a client’s design firm questioned our methods and suggested that they not implement our strategy. From the client’s point of view their concerns seemed valid, especially since the designer lists SEO as one of the services they offer. They suggested that below the fold copy with lots of keyword phrases is borderline black hat.

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We’ve talked about the algorithm change over at Google and how it demands actual high-quality content and links from sites if they want to be ranked well–that’s on top of the standard SEO practices and good site architecture. When talking about content, a lot of people want to know what we mean by that. What is good content, and where do you find it? And links?!

Well, you have to make it yourself. You have to think about it and put the work into it. No, it’s not some fifteen minute fix where you go to a site and click some buttons and voila! A really good place to start that gives you both content and links is writing and submitting articles on topics relevant to your business. You write an article and submit it to some of the article submissions sites–there’s probably a small fee–then newsletters and news outlets can pick it up and publish it. The article will link back to your site, giving you a link each time it’s used.

It’s pretty simple to do. What are the basic topics people ask about your industry or business? Can you do a short (under 10) list of things to ask or consider or know about whatever it is that you do? Can you de-mystify something briefly? Know something about the hot topics? Then write up an article and get it out there in the world. An hour or two well-spent doing this can get you a few dozen relevant links in a short period of time. If you put the article up on your site as well, you’ve added well-written, pertinent content to your site. A pretty good use of an afternoon if you ask me…

There has been a recent change in the Google algorithm, meaning many sites have seen changes in the rankings for cherished search terms. After muttering about it for a couple of weeks, I’ve decided not to take it personally. We’ve been #1 for one particular term for years, so suddenly becoming #2 is not THAT big a deal–especially since the competing site doesn’t have anything like the depth of information, the links, the content or the design licks that our site does. After all, it’s the human who decides which site looks interesting.

And, it’s relatively easy for a site to concentrate on a single term to compete, but our methodology for site optimization looks at 25-30 terms. For our own site, there are 50 terms we monitor, and we have dozens of terms on the first page of Google…we do a good job of filling the niche we defined as our target. Over the years, we’ve been through several major algorithm changes, and the good news is that things settle out, and the cream still rises to the top. None of our clients has ever seen substantial change to their rankings, after the storm passes.

None of us likes change, but change forces us to adapt. High gas prices help us act on our conservationist values, and we suddenly understand the cost of running errands one at a time. Something we all need to do from time to time is to consider how Google looks at our site. What pages are being served up, and which are not being served? There are two major factors to consider: quality content, and quality links.

Take your list of targeted terms and take a fresh look at your rankings. Page one rankings are definitely keepers. Terms that are not in the top 20? It may be time to remove them from your strategy. For those terms that fall onto the second page, now is a good time to think about building them up–move the content higher up in your site, or replace some of those dud terms with these up-and-comers. Also, think about longer keyword phrases that you might have unique content for–unique is a high value at the Googleplex.

Are all your links pointing to the home page? Then you’re missing a huge opportunity. Keyword-based links that point to relevant content pages can be just the thing to pop a #15 ranking onto the first page–and since the vast majority of people only look at Page One results, it’s well worth the extra effort to sharpen your SEO strategy with quality content and quality links.

I’m taking care of a friend’s cats while he’s out of town. While I was leaving his apartment, a stink bug flew at me and attacked with extreme prejudice and unmitigated ferocity. OK, I’ll admit that it was probably just trying to find someplace to land peacefully, but my head is not as bug-friendly as it may look.

I began flailing my arms about in desperate defense, ultimately relying on the plastic bag in my hand as a weapon against this cruel stink bug berserker. You may remember that I am taking care of cats. The plastic bag, which I was taking to the dumpster, was not empty.

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We have a couple of people coming in to interview this week, and it brings questions to mind for me. Not the obvious ones–though those are bouncing around in there–but ones about how I can shortcut the long and winding path to getting what we do. It takes a while. Once you get it, then you can start innovating. Things come zipping along nicely, and it goes from being a bunch of acronyms to being a delicious basket of possibilities. For most people, there’s a hurdle of frustration and boredom before the “aha!” moment with search marketing, made more frustrating because you understand the potential but haven’t quiiiiite clicked with it yet.

This is part of a larger block of thinking I’ve been doing for the past couple of months. It would be awfully nice to be able to have some nuggets of insight in hand this week, though. For me, it’s made more important because we’re interviewing a potential summer intern tomorrow morning. She’s smart–4.0, worked on the AdFed team whose project went to nationals, really wants to learn about web marketing and get some actual work experience. I had a couple of office jobs in college hoping to get experience and learn, only to find myself mired in the admin pool. That sucks, but it sucks more when you’re the smartest one there and get to do things like staple and take an inventory of the magazine and catalogue subscriptions. In the year 2000, I got praised by the boss two levels up from mine for the brilliant idea of using the internet to find the information nobody had been able to locate. I mean praised as in stood up in front of the office and talked about as an example.

The last thing I want to do is waste my time and the time and resources of someone who actually wants to learn and could do a great job. Yes, it’s just a summer job. I get that. But if those of us who live a level or two above the norm in the tech atmosphere could find a way to put people closer to that Matrix moment of understanding by being clear for once, we could reap some really amazing things. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s personal and you find in your own time. Social media is that way–once you figure out how to use it and connect in ways that make sense, it’s powerful and not a task. Virtual worlds are that way–once you make friends or learn to create/build, everything falls into place and you’re hooked.

What’s the magic connecting point for what we do and how quickly can we bring people to it? Is it seeing the results graphs for what happens in the months after the site you redid goes live? Is it finding the competition’s weak spot and trouncing them? Or is it simply moving into mastery of a craft that can’t be skipped ahead to?

The Google toolbar (and others!) is a favorite internet marketing tool of mine. It may not seem like a marketing “tool” to everybody, but when I spend time researching on behalf of a client, Google toolbar is front and center. So, I thought I’d let you in on a most-used trick: searching a site, even if there isn’t a search window on the site.

To begin with, download the Google toolbar (not just the little search window that’s installed in various toolbars) from toolbar.google.com.

Let’s say you Google a word, get a bunch of results and then don’t find the term you were searching for on a particular site that was returned as a result. There’s a little icon available on the Google toolbar that looks like Mr. Magoo (for those of us old enough to remember him!)–or maybe it’s a magnifying glass with spectacles. I have no idea what it’s supposed to be, but it sure is a handy little guy.

(Yahoo toolbar has a similar function available via the “Search Web” drop-down menu.) This function allows you to search for a term “only on the current website.” If it’s not showing on your Google toolbar, right click a blank area of the toolbar and select “customize.” You’ll be able to click/drag the icon onto your toolbar.

So, for example, when I’m researching a particular search phrase for a client’s organic SEO project, I use Mr. Magoo on the various (mostly competitor) sites and get a feel for how they’re using the term. You can check your own web pages to see if your copy is reflecting the search terms that are important to you.

Enjoy this Mr. Magoo search-in-a-search trick. Actually, you can use it from any site without doing a search first…as long as you have the toolbar open.

Okay, let’s talk about some down and dirty marketing. I have a bee in my bonnet about something, and a survey says a bunch of other people do too. I haven’t come up with a catchy title or neat phrase for it, but it will be a series of posts tagged around the main topics concerned: customers, brands, and loyalty. Surely I can come up with something better… (or maybe you can).

Forgive me, but I’m going to use a little industry lingo because hey, I’m not a philosopher and we’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re all used to looking around at marketing and advertising stuff–the articles, the blogs, the case studies, the campaigns–and we can get really inspired by them. I mean fired up about the kinds of things that are possible. They’re not easy to do, as evidenced by the multitude of failed ad campaigns. They take a team of people working really hard to pull off, and even then they might not be successful. That’s not the intimidating part for me. No, the intimidating part is that they’re B2C, for companies that have a loyal, energetic tribe of followers.

People out there have logos of computer companies tattooed on their bodies. They start blogs to track and detail new products and interact with other fans. How on earth can we inspire that kind of loyalty–even a portion of it–for brands and products that aren’t part of our daily lives? (more…)

It’s spring, and my brain is in overdrive. I don’t know if it’s the usual seasonal restlessness or if it’s a combination of a lot of ideas and influences percolating at once, but man oh man, I cannot stop thinking. For once, my thinking is turned to work. I usually think of travel, of art, of letting my body and life fly as fast and free as my mind. A creative, relaxing trip to Spain with one of my best friends is in the works for June, so that beast is quiet.

Instead, I’m tenaciously drawn to excellence, to actually identifying and solving the problem, to being utterly devoted. It does me no good to be devoted to serving the next big thing, to being an early adopter for the pleasure of “been there, done that” once everyone else picks it up. I’ll do that for my own enjoyment. For clients and friends and readers, though, I want to bring them what they need and want. My question to them shouldn’t be, “Have you seen this cool new thing?” It should be, “How can I help you? What can I do to make your job and life easier?”

To that end, I’m putting together questions and a survey to actually sit down and ask how we’re doing, what we could do better, and what you need to know about in the sphere of web marketing. The companies and people that you see and want to emulate are awesome because they know their audience and serve them well. They encourage and enable their people to go out and do their thing and do it well.

I love this video. That’s what we want to do for web marketing. Ask us your questions, tell us what you want to know, what you need, and we’ll answer. We’re marketers first and foremost, and we want to be your partner in web marketing, plain and simple. Not to sign you. Not to market to you. We care about making your job easier. About helping you make sense of the million things you could do and the few you should do. We want you to be able to answer the questions you get asked. We want to make you look good in front of your boss. Seriously.