eMarketing 101 General

Please do yourself a favor and stop working for a second. Here is a common scenario I hear all the time regarding entry-level SEO (Search Engine Optimization) project. The way the project is presented clearly points out how unreasonable business owners can be when they lay out the web strategy for potential online success. Yes, I am talking to you and potentially a lot of people you know. I seriously don’t want you to lose your business and I really want to help you but please listen to me carefully. This information is free and can save you thousands.

Business owners come up to me and say: here is my site (in a very competitive market).
I am a small entrepreneur with no (or very small) budget. What can you do? How much would it cost so that I can rank higher up in search results? (at the top if possible) I am guessing they expect me to say, for $2,000 I can bring you to the top. I know that for $2,000, it will only scratch the surface and it won’t meet their expectations. Since $2,000 seems too much for them sometimes, what are the options?

What strikes me at first is that people start an online business without knowing the kind of forces they are up against. They count on me to explain the force and magnitude of the obstacles on their path and the likelihood they can succeed online. Some people call it market research. And please don’t shoot the messenger. They don’t seem to have a good understanding of their online competition and how much their competitors might have been investing to deserve the position they currently uphold at the top of search results. There are so many sites on the Internet, what makes you think that YOU deserve the right to be #1? If you think I am crazy, wait until you read about my vision for developing an online presence. In a nutshell, there are so many sites out there that it needs more and more resources to accomplish what used to be easier, years ago. Or if you prefer, what used to require $1,000 to get a decent position in search results, now needs more like $10,000. The intensity of the players is increasing. And, there are only 5 spots that matter in SERPs (Search Engine Results page) according to the latest study on the Golden Triangle. Do the math: thousands of competitors, 5 spots. Be serious.

Therefore, if you don’t have the funds to invest to earn your way to the top in your very competitive category, here are your options as far as I see them:

* Refocus your business on a very niche market (and niche search terms) within the global market
* Team up with your competitors (coopetition)
* Go for the top: invest heavily in your web strategy, site content, design and search marketing (organic, paid, link building) or
* Abandon your site! (and do something else)

I am saying all this because there is request that came to me today in the Ringtones business. I once promoted ringtonesusa.com from a previous job so I know first hand how difficult it is to promote a site in this category. You compete with giant carriers with behemoth budgets. There are thousands of players worldwide. There are thousands of entrepreneurs with more money to invest than you which would also be more knowledgeable on how to build an online business. Can you match that?

The bottom line is, since we do market research before you start a brick-and-mortar business, you also need to do market research before you commit your hard-earned money in an online business. Traffic is the crack-cocaine for an entrepreneur in the web world and it needs (way) more than $2,000 to get to the top. If you can’t match (or exceed!) the level of investment of your online competitors, team up with them or do something else.

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It is with great pleasure and excitement that I announce a new project for eMarketing 101. In the next few months, Hop Studios and eMarketing 101 will collaborate to execute a complete redesign of MovieMaker.com supported with a complete Search Engine Marketing plan.

Travis Smith from HopStudios.com is definitely a master at redesigning website with the use of expression engine, a premium content management software from small and medium size businesses. It is therefore with a lot of enthusiasm that I forsee the synergies between our respective skills set. As soon as the project kicks in near May 28, I will post some preliminary challenges in SEO, results and relevant information. Stay tuned. 

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Mon ami Craig Riggs de Turner-Riggs Workspace est à la recherche d’un assistant de recherche francophone pour un projet dans le domaine littéraire Canadien. Les heures de travail sont variables et sont échelonnées durant tout le mois de Mai, à raison de quelques heures par semaine. Le tout comporte entre 40 et 80 heures de travail.

Craig Riggs at BarCamp

Vous pouvez lire ci dessous d’autres informations la dessus: (en anglais cette fois)

“What we need to do here is to add a research assistant to our project team for an ongoing study of the Canadian book retail sector. The study will look at the book business both in Quebec and, to a lesser extent, France, and a number of the sources we need to consult are available only in French. Unfortunately, we’re a pretty unilingual crew so we need someone that can help us to make our way through some of the French-language sources. It’s not a huge job--1-2 weeks and we can provide a fair amount of support in terms of sources, orientation to the project, active direction, etc. All that to say, we’re looking for someone who knows how to search for and evaluate information--a lot of this will be web-based--and someone who can work quickly and reliably with our little crew. This is probably a gig for a younger professional with sharp research skills.”

Si vous connaissez quelqu’un qui serait intéressé par ce contrat, s’il vous plait, donnez moi vos coordonnées ou communiquez sans tarder avec Craig Riggs à craigriggs{at}shaw{dot}ca. Merci!

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My friend James from Work Industries must have said it a thousand time: You should start a blog. For a year I also heard him say: We fear change. It is hard to admit it, but this can apply to me every now and then considering it took me this long to start a blog. Monique, James’ lovely girlfriend and partner in Work Industries, was kind enough to teach me the first few lessons about blogging 101 a few weeks ago which I post it here.

Since I find this helpful, I think it might help you too. Here are the first few tips about blogging for newbies:

1. be smart (it’s easy to make stupid mistakes and or post without
considering the implications. This is a public record of you.)

2. respect existing confidentiality agreements (don’t blab about your
current or former employers unless you really, really can do it
anonymously)

3. don’t break news, don’t disclose confidential info (Don’t leak
stories from your employers or clients, it could cost you your job.)

4. be cautious with third party info

5. respect prior employers and employees (don’t air dirty laundry,
especially on a blog)

6. identify yourself (don’t post anonymously in comments, etc. on
your blog or others)

7. be cautious in how you offer support or advice

8. Speak for yourself (don’t respond on behalf of your employer, your
client, your friends, etc. unless you are authorized to do so)

9. Think about reactions before you hit “post”, how would this look
on the front of the Globe and Mail

10. When in doubt ask

Hope that’s helpful. Other advice is spell check. Modify posts by adding a new post and linking to the old, or by adding an UPDATE to the original post rather than rewriting it. Thanks Monique!
If you like this, make sure you subscribe to her Underwire Newsletter: Full Support for Non-Techie.

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In the last few weeks, I have been thinking, discussing a lot about this article which presents my vision in doing Search Engine Marketing and what it means to me being user centric. This started on a flight to Montreal 2 weeks ago. I have become a not so great traveler over the years so I had to occupy my brain as much as possible. I hate turbulence. But I am an agent of change. Go figure. I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about my preferred subject in search marketing: the search marketing philosophy. Since I have been battling for the implementation of a user centric philosophy in every search marketing plan I have worked on over the last 7 years, it is fair to say that you will find a lot of passion in here explaining this criticized vision from traditional media advocates.

The single most important distinction between traditional media and search marketing, and other professions in the online marketing business, lies in the challenge of adopting a user centric attitude. It is as different as doing target marketing as opposed to being targeted by a user. Call it bipolar if you want, but it does not get more opposite than that. I have been doing search marketing professionally for a long time and everyone I explained search to have had a very hard time understanding (and implementing) that reverse marketing thought process. Even the ones who self proclaimed knowing about search don’t seem to “get” the most basic of its core & fundamental principles, which is why I have to start there & be firm.

Being user centric needs courage
One of my mentors, Gord Hotchkiss, made a blog post a few weeks ago about User centricity and one of the things he pointed out was that companies do not have the courage to be user centric. In his words, he says you need to have balls the size of Texas in order to adopt this mental framework. I have to agree with him, considering the strong resistance I have seen over the years from people who can’t take on this challenge and do not have the courage to step forward. Most companies can’t let go what they have always done and the philosophy they have followed in their traditional advertising interruption marketing way of thinking. They stick to the same self serving branding, key messages & methods and they start doing search with that same attitude that have prevailed in traditional media for more than 50 years. This is why they fail in search marketing & their online presence in general. That gets extended to the ones of their clients unfortunately. As such, Bryan Eisenberg makes it abundantly clear in his book Waiting for your Cat to Bark which basically explains why your customers behave like cats and follow a “what’s in it for me” mantra. In my opinion, you don’t have to look any further. SEM is very simple, once you have the courage to adopt a user centric attitude towards your online presence.

It is all about me
I think most of us like generous people, the ones who reach out for others, the ones who help and listen, the ones who do not mind suffering to alleviate someone else’s pain. You think about someone right now. You know these individuals are remarkable. You also know people that only care about themselves, the ones that are ego centric, selfish and greedy. It seems to me most marketing people, and of course their clients, represent the latter group. They want to start making an interaction according to their own agenda, and take little time to engage a real dialogue with their consumers . They strive to have the most outstanding ad to impress their colleagues so that peers & advertising associations can give them a medal that they will later use to get more business and replicate the past. Whether or not it serves the purpose or reached a business objective is another question which is often overlooked. The user comes last. In my opinion, most advertising people, from a traditional media standpoint follow an “it’s all about me” attitude, which is precisely what we need to break from. This is my observation. Here is the bad news: it is not about you and never will be. 

Copy and paste
One of the things I hate the most in traditional advertising is their lack of creativity when it comes to developing copy for ads. I must have explained it a thousand times; you can’t take your self serving tag lines and stick it online in Google Adwords for instance. How many times have you seen it though? You can’t interrupt the users with a message that only serves you, the advertiser. Most people simply copy & paste across all media channels and wonder why it is not working like they have planned. A lot of companies are using their self serving expressions & tag lines in paid search campaigns, as opposed to trying to be relevant for the user. Even phrases to TELL the users what to do won’t work. Most of the time, they fail to include the keywords users are using in their copy and fail to mention in what way the users can benefit from visiting their site. They only think about this potential exchange from their perspective. No one wants to be friend with you if you only think about you. Like Seth Godin, the author of Permission Marketing, once said, marketing online is about converting a stranger into a friend and a friend into a customer (and finally into a lifetime customer). So in order to convert a stranger into a friend, you have to be friendly. Here is how you can do this.

Help them, be admirable & believe
The very first thing you must do before launching a SEM plan is to understand how your audiences, feel, think and which search queries they use to express their intentions, and why. You have to understand them if you want to help them. If they want to shop around, let them, the same way you would let them if you had a retail shop. Be nice, be friendly & inform them about what you have. Don’t pressure them to buy. Bid on keywords that are relevant to them, even if they are not purchase oriented. Serve them well. It will be rewarding in the long run. Be generous, be kind, don’t interrupt them & don’t use copy they would find in the unfriendly and intrusive traditional marketing formats. Believe. Think of the best sales person you have had in your last purchase in adopt the same attitude. Sometimes we buy because we have had a great service. It pays to listen. Online is no different.

Conclusion
Being successful in search marketing involves having the right attitude. It involves being really interested to help the users in their decision making process through the dozens of search results they can choose from. It involves genuinely be caring about them and their search for a problem to solve, which is expressed through their search query. In one word, you have to be user centric. You must have the courage to put yourself & your client, second. If you embrace this philosophy, you are on the right path to become a good search marketer. Don’t ever, ever let go of this perspective, regardless of the amount of people who will ask you to. In order to become a search marketer, you have to be capable of standing for what you believe in, every single day. The rest will fall into place and your search campaigns will rock. Therefore, if you want to do search marketing as part of your media plan, you have to be willing to change your way of thinking & embrace a user centric attitude. If you fail to do so, I am confident that your web strategy as a whole, or the one of your Client, has little chance to make the headlines.

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Il y a longtemps, j’ai dû passer un an à Montreal pour des raisons multiples et pendant ce temps j’en ai profité pour écrire cet article qui détermine les avantages de la promotion d’un site via les moteurs de recherche. C’est un article en français et je vous en fait part ici, en entier. Bien qu’il fut écrit il y a quelques années déjà, les fondements du marketing sur Internet via les moteurs de recherche n’ont pas changé.

La promotion d’un site Internet a bien changé au cours des dernières années. Après les déboires des dot-coms des débuts, la surenchère des prix des bannières publicitaires et, plus récemment, des fameuses pop-ups que tous détestent, il faut se questionner. Comment peut-on promouvoir un site Internet en 2007? Pendant longtemps on a cru que la promotion d’un site se faisait avec l’achat de bannières publicitaires de la même façon qu’on achète un espace publicitaire dans un magazine. Or, le mode de paiement des bannières, au coût par mille (CPM), soit le coût de 1 000 impressions de bannières, correspondait à l’époque à plusieurs dollars par visiteur, ce qui finalement générait un ROI (Retour sur l’investissement) négatif! La plupart des dot-coms de tous les secteurs d’activités sont arrivés à ce piètre résultat. Pendant que Yahoo détenait 80% des parts de marché au niveau de la recherche sur Internet en 1997, Google développait un algorithme de recherche puissant, qui sortait des normes établies par AltaVista, Excite, Lycos et les autres moteurs de tout accabit. Le marketing via les moteurs de recherche, communément appelé référencement de sites, a pris naissance. Puisque tous les internautes (et vous aussi je parie) utilisent les moteurs de recherche pour trouver une information, il est dorénavant très judicieux d’utiliser ce véhicule de promotion par lequel ce sont les consommateurs qui partent à la recherche des vendeurs de produits et services, ce qui en terme d’efficacité surpasse toutes formes de marketing traditionnel.

Au fil des ans, les moteurs se sont mis à développer des produits et se sont associés les uns aux autres pour rentabiliser leurs services aux quelque 619 millions d’internautes à travers le monde. Une nouvelle norme a donc vu le jour au niveau de la promotion de sites sur Internet : la visibilité via les moteurs de recherche. Les professionnels dans ce domaine sont (encore) rares et passent pour des marginaux tellement les connaissances de ce secteur sont méconnues. On retrouve d’ailleurs un nombre incroyable de mythes tous plus farfelus les uns que les autres au niveau de la promotion de sites, comme en témoignent les statistiques, puisque 94% des sites n’obtiennent pas d’achalandage de l’ensemble des moteurs de recherche (en 2003). [Je parie que le pourcentage est le même en 2007]

Pourtant, aujourd’hui, il est clair que la promotion de sites avec des bannières publicitaires et les pop-ups est vouée à disparaître. Google vient d’ailleurs de lancer une fonctionnalité fort intéressante sur sa nouvelle barre d’outils de recherche (http://toolbar.google.com) permettant d’enlever toutes les publicités indésirables (pop-ups) dans votre fureteur. Vous pouvez télécharger cette barre d’outils gratuitement !

la solution : la promotion via les moteurs de recherche
Au cours des deux dernières années, l’univers de la promotion via les moteurs de recherche s’est adapté aux nouvelles conditions économiques du Web. De nouveaux outils peu dispendieux, extrêmement effiaces et donc rentables ont vu le jour et le positionnement de sites est devenu nettement plus sophistiqué. Une bonne dose de connaissances, de travail et de budget en Marketing électronique est désormais nécessaire pour faire fonctionner une entreprise sur le Web. Pendant que tous les gens d’affaires croient encore à tort qu’il suffit d’être “indexé” pour générer du trafic sur un site Internet, les moteurs de recherche eux ont grandement changé les règles du jeu. Google.com par exemple, qui détient maintenant 60% des parts de marché au niveau de la recherche sur Internet, a instauré des barêmes extrêmement sévères, ce qui fait que tous ceux qui utilisent Google sont satisfaits des résultas obtenus. Ce sujet fera à lui seul le contenu d’un autre article, mais on peu en déduire que la route est longue, ardue et requiert des investissements substantiels en temps et en argent pour obtenir de bonnes positions dans les moteurs de recherche.

Si vous voulez mesurer votre visibilité actuelle sur Internet, je vous conseille d’utiliser un des outils offerts par marketleap.com (http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm). Vous entrez simplement votre URL ainsi que le mot clé le plus descriptif de ce que fait votre entreprise et vous allez obtenir un rapport détaillé sur 11 moteurs de recherche. Si vous n’êtes pas dans les 3 premières pages, communiquez avec moi dans les plus brefs délais: Alexandre Brabant.

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I am proudly announcing that this week of April 09, 2007, I have my very first strong lead for a Search Marketing project because of my eMarketing 101 mobile, pictured here before a trip to Whistler:

I have had those eMarketing 101 stickers for some time, which makes a lot of TJ Jeep owners jealous (I swear). Some actually confessed they want to start a business just to be able to put some stickers on, “because your Jeep looks cool, man”. If you see me around, please wave, say hi or anything and give me your card. Traffic is what it is all about, so why not advertising my own Search Marketing shop on the street. Makes sense right? 

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Last year, I wrote this article about targeting the tail of search queries to maximize return on investment in Paid search advertising. For the benefit of everyone, I share it with you in its entirety: 

A lot has been said about pay-per-click management since its introduction in the late 1990s by GoTo.com, now known as Yahoo! Search Marketing. Google jumped on the bandwagon as first-generation “paid search expert” Kevin Lee was fueling education and general enthusiasm for a brand new form of online marketing known as pay per click (PPC).

I remember the day it became clear to me that in order to get the most out of every online marketing dollar utilizing pay per click, we had to target the tail, or focus on search words that are used less often, but carry a far greater level of information. The term “targeting the tail” took some time to get into our everyday online marketing conversation, but intuitively our discovery confirmed itself over time as we dug into a gold mine. This article unleashes the gold nugget of Search Marketing. So listen up.

Even though PPC management techniques have been around for years and the underlying principles for targeting the tail are quite simple (really, a million of microscopic target markets that need to be looked after with precision in every step of the PPC creation process), few pay-per-click campaigns reflect this basic principle. Just plain not taking the time needed might be to blame for this lack of sound customer-service focus in elaborating a campaign, but for now, let’s take a look at some other arguments for targeting the tail.

The Challenge: Rising Click Cost
SEMPO recently published their latest report, “State of Search Engine Marketing 2005”, where it clearly points out that the biggest share (83%) of online marketing expenditures is spent on paid search advertising. That being said, as more and more companies are fighting hard for the top five paid positions, all that they see climbing nowadays is their average cost per click and their blood pressure.

The Tail And The Purchase Sales Cycle
If you build PPC campaigns in a competitive environment like travel, you know by now that this query is searched more than 2.7 million times a month (source: Yahoo! Search inventory tool). The first question that should come to mind is: Where do all these people want to go? A little more analysis allows us to discover that a one-word search query is often initiated by an online shopper who is not quite ready to buy, but as they progress in the sales cycle, they will eventually refine their search query to something substantially more specific that reflects their true intent. What was at first an intuitive online behavior was confirmed later on: focusing on tail search term queries is like selling to customers when they are far more advanced in the sales cycle, and therefore much closer to a completed sale. Responding to the uniqueness of their intentions and desires is in fact good customer service.

Campaign Optimization
Once you understand the need to target the tail and you have established the keyword inventory you are planning to use for your campaign (including misspelled words, synonyms etc.), it is time to work the ad copy. It is in fact quite painful to go through every keyword contained within the tail, regardless of your product/service category. As a Google or Yahoo! Search Marketing rep will tell you, in order to make sure your customers understand that you are talking to them, you need to repeat the search terms in the title of your ad as well as in the description. Of course, they also need to land on a page that reflects the content of the initial search term they used, but that is another topic all by itself. Doing so implies that you write the ad copy on a keyword-by-keyword basis, which is especially the case for Yahoo! Search Marketing, as they allow you to refine your campaign at the keyword level. Sometimes it takes days or weeks to go through your keyword list, but when you are done, you will be flabbergasted by the results and will thank your lucky stars that you took the time to work your keyword list to that level of detail. At the end of the day, not only will you be more impressed with the results of your campaigns, but also your customers will think your site is relevant to their true intent and will respond positively to it.

Closer To Completed Sale: ROI
As I pointed out earlier, one of the secrets of a successful pay-per-click campaign lies in the tracking and the measure of the ROI (Return On Investment), especially when it comes to the search terms located in the tail and their corresponding cost per click. I have found that there is in fact an inverse relationship between the quality of a search term in its ability to convert into sales and its cost. In short, terms that cost less convert better. Then again, it takes a bit longer to build campaigns that contain hundreds, if not thousands, of search terms. By doing so, it should not come as a surprise that the average cost per click of a newly optimized campaign can go from over a dollar per click to $0.50 or even lower. If you can get more qualified traffic per dollar you invest, while every other variable remains stable, you will generate more sales at less cost. You will then be able to measure your cost of sales over time and will be pleased to see it dropping as you drill deeper in the tail.

Conclusion
I have heard too many business owners say that they care about their customers and are always striving to find ways to serve them better. If that is truly the case and you believe you are building a customer-service-driven organization, then you should take the time to understand all the search terms that your target audiences uses in search engines to build pay-per-click campaigns around their desires, needs and wants. Their search behavior should be your guide in developing your online marketing plan, which implies using all the search terms within your category. Targeting the tail is not difficult per se, but it needs time, dedication, and effort. Fortunately, there are tools out there to help you get the job done, and, by doing so, not only will you be delighted with the results, but so will your customers.

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