Pleasanton Web Design

Here’s a recap of a recent Web Guild meeting

Advanced Search Marketing
Silicon Valley Web Guild
12/13/06

Speakers:

• Barbara Coll, Founder & Search Specialist, WebMama
• Jessie Stricchiola, Founder, Alchemist Media
• Moderator: Massimo Burgio, Search Specialist, Global Search Interactive

Barbara Coll works for large companies that have large advertising budgets. She started off by sharing the insight that there are not enough searches on the internet to capture all of the possible investment. The ROI for search marketing is so much better than that of conventional marketing channels, that companies would like to invest more, but there just aren’t enough clicks.

Big companies don’t just try to get the number on spot on the SERPS for their chosen keyword or phrase. They want to OWN the page. They want to be show up on the sponsored links (pay per click) as well as having as many of the natural results as possible.

Big companies also would like to own their own brand and control their image on the internet. It’s called “reputation management.” To the extent it’s possible to keep “your company sucks” and the like off of the SERPS, they are willing, or should be willing to pay to do it.

I believe she offered this tip (but I might be mistaken): The most valueable link you can buy for ranking in Google is a listing in Yahoo Directory. I’ve purchased these for clients in the past, and I think they were $299/yr. My little secret – if you buy it for the first year and cancel, they won’t remove your listing! Or at least they haven’t for the sites I’ve worked on. Anyway, I agree, that is one valuable backlink. Working on natural search engine position is crucial, even if you are running spend on PPC campaigns. Contextual ads convert at 1/5 the rate as search, so natural search engine position should always be on the radar.

Barbara also advised against pulling your yellow pages ad. That is, until everyone has their computer by the phone in the kitchen, like they do the phone book.

A company’s IT team is the biggest potential barrier to search engine marketing. A lot of the changes necessary for search engine optimization fall into their realm.

Jessie, who does search engine optimization (SEO) for smaller organizations says “Always optimize for organic.” Like I stated earlier. I guess that’s where I got the idea. She also warns to expect a “grandfathering period,” or a period of around 6 months, for changes to take hold.

Here are some additional tips, compliments of Jessie:

• Make sure all data is accessible.
• Don’t have site structure that blocks spiders.
• Use consistent themes – ensure your site is thematically structured.
• Develop more content – everything in print should be on site to increase site size and therefore pagerank.

That’s all I have time for now. Coming soon – Silicon Valley Web Guild, Advanced Search Marketing – Part 2

Similar Posts:

• Silicon Valley Web Guild – Advanced Search Marketing Part 2
• Google Analytics Bug – Search Engine Called “Search”
• Big Company Google Boosts Other Big Brands in Search Results
• Notes on Branding Presentation by Jared Spool
• Web Design Article – Website Promotion

admin Barbara Coll, Jessie Stricchiola, Massimo Burgio, advanced search marketing, seo, silicon valley web guild