Search Engine Marketing Results

Search engine marketing results drive significant traffic and many brands live or die based on search traffic, although most don’t really understand what’s always driving the traffic. The typical mantra for the SEO manager in charge is typically,  do more with less; or, what’s going to give us better search engine marketing results and what is this going to cost? Then, let’s rock!

You may be much better off not wasting a lot of time on search engine marketing results and get much more marketing ROI with a stellar content strategy, coupled with basic on and off page SEO optimization. Why? It’s a shifting landscape out their in search engine land and Google’s algorithm, not to mention second tier search engines  is always in flux.

Who really understands robots, search algorithms, on page vs. off page SEO - the arcane complex terminology of search marketing is like a mirage in the desert - looks great from a distance but when you get there your frequently left with nothing.

Our recommended Search Engine Marketing Strategy

1) Do basic keyword research using Google Analytics (which should already be set up on your site) and come up with 50-75 Keywords to use for your content strategy for 90-120 days. Then, build content around these with 3-5% keyword saturation per page, blog post or piece of content. Don’t go crazy with keywords - Google and others will figure out what your content is about. But, do the baseline work.

2) Do some “off page” link development via Press Release marketing, integrating your content URLs with your social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest if you have an image strategy) - each time a page or blog post is updated it needs to be syndicated via your social media accounts.  Do some baseline link development work with social bookmarking, PR syndication (as above), comment tagging on targeted web sites, build a Squidoo or Hub Page with good content that reinforces your brand messaging, with links back to your site.

3) Make sure you content is being syndicated - if you are using WordPress (you should be!) then utilize the build in pingomatic services that WordPress includes (we have a custom list), make sure your content is automatically posted to as many third party (social and others) web sites. It’s a brutally competitive landscape for traffic - the old days of building a web site and hoping you get traffic are long gone. Drive competitive advantage and search engine marketing results via aggressive content syndication on the best platform, WordPress.

4) Forget about SEO and build your newsletter list - make sure you have a call to action on your web site for Newsletter signups and update this once a month. The defacto industry standard is Aweber, although there are a ton of WordPress plugins that will give you a broader brand reach by just shooting out an update of your blog to subscribers.

5) Publish a blog on a WordPress Platform - publish as frequently as possible, with a minimum of 2-3 times per week. Each post should have some keyword optimization and be broadly syndicated across the social web and make sure you have a Feedburner account set up and pingomatic services as above.

If you follow these five basic steps you’ll generate search engine marketing results. If you want a deeper dive into search marketing we highly recommend signing up for Aaron Wall’s SEO Book (subscription service) - it’s high value and low cost.  Aaron and his team know more about search engine marketing  than many “high visibility” search marketers feature in conferences.