We examined the different types of search marketing firms earlier this year in our whitepaper: “The Anatomy of Search Marketing Firms”. But should a business outsource search engine optimization (aka SEO) in the first place?

The answer depends on your business. In some cases, the smart decision for a business is to outsource SEO to a marketing services company. In other cases, it makes sense to bring it in-house which could mean hiring consultants, hiring full-time staff, or asking existing engineers, copy writers and marketers to incorporate SEO into their work. Every business is unique and determining the your business’ needs, objectives and resources is the first step to answering this question.

What follows is an outline of the questions every business should ask itself before bringing SEO in-house or shipping it off to an SEO firm. Continue Reading »

One of the reasons (aside from great performance) that Google Adwords and other search advertising has become so popular is the ability to optimize campaigns “on the fly”. With unprecedented control in a self-service interface, the user controls budget, pricing, targeting and creative within a simple, easy-to-learn interface. But with all this control comes the downside of “over-optimization”.

Have you ever been too hot and turned down your air-conditioner only to find that you are too cold later? And then you turn the AC back up only to find that you are too hot later? The difficulty getting it just right is, in effect, what happens with over-optimizing search: The user logs in, changes all the parameters (keywords, bids, creative, etc.) to improve results and then finds that they did too much. So they log back in and make a number of similar changes to correct the campaign; except the campaign quickly goes back the other way. This happens to too many search campaigns and the following is intended to provide a brief guide on how to avoid over-optimization: Continue Reading »

Links are a critical component of ranking well in organic search listings. They are also one of the most difficult parts of a search engine optimization (SEO) program. Some SEOs will offer a quick fix and guaranteed results to improve a client’s rankings with their link-building programs. Oftentimes the campaigns deliver positive results at first. But in the long term, the client is usually left with a hefty bill to pay and no quality links to show for it. What happened?

Quality links from quality sites are hard to come by without effort. They require extended efforts to build, and the approach to achieving a long-lasting quality link can be manual, tedious and very time intensive. At the very least, it is an ongoing effort; not a one time, quick-hit activity. Continue Reading »

The following is an excerpt from the whitepaper, “The Anatomy of Search Marketing Firms: An Insider Look at Search Marketing Service Operations.”

Every marketer wants the best toolset to be used for their campaigns, but search marketing software is developed by a wide range of companies. Knowing who is behind development and maintenance of the software is just as important as knowing what features it offers because the costs and effectiveness of software varies by developer and can significantly affect the outcome of a campaign. It is crucial that clients clearly understand the benefits, limitations and market readiness of the software its employees and agencies use and the developers who make them.

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The following is an excerpt from the Thrivepoint white paper, “The Anatomy of Search Marketing Firms: An Insider Look at Search Marketing Service Operations.”

The approach that a search marketing firm employs in its strategy and tactics for achieving results is born from its search marketing philosophy. A firm’s philosophy is taught from day one to new employees and re-enforced to existing employees through process, training, compensation and other aspects of the firm’s culture. While every firm has a unique approach and competitive positioning, in the search marketing field, there are two general philosophies firms tend to segment themselves into.

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Hiring an SEM is at minimum a million dollar decision and for many marketers, the stakes are much higher. Advertising budgets will be allocated. Managers and line workers will be hired. Revenue will be projected and counted upon. Thousands of hours will be put into establishing and managing the relationship. While the upside will be apparent, how can clients limit the downside risk and hire the right partner?

Ensuring success and limiting risk starts with the implementation of a robust regimen of upfront planning before any SEM meetings take place. The upfront planning process is designed to ensure that clients are making objective and well-informed decisions that lead to long-term, successful partnerships with their SEM.

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In SEM (or other digital marketing) agency pitches, many buyers keep information close to the vest. Information is an important asset when negotiating a deal and buyers want to be in a position of strength during negotiations. However, there are some important pieces of information that can ensure that a sales meeting and pitch process is productive and efficient. Disclosing this information will ensure that the agency provides the right information for evaluation and constructs the best possible deal for the buyer.

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The search engines’ proprietary systems crawl billions of web pages to determines which pages will rank for each keyword within the top 10 organic search listings. These listings are the results on the search page that are not advertisements and to which approximately 40% to 60% of the clicks from the search results go.

With Americans conducting more than 12.6 Billion searches in October according to Comscore, search engines are on track to give away almost 100 Billion clicks for free per year. As you would expect, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become the must-do activity for online marketing success as businesses compete to get as many free clicks as possible from Google and other search engines.

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Statistics consistently show that searching the internet is the 2nd most common activity online (1st is email) with more than 50% of online users conducting at least one search per day. Search engines scour the web for websites and other content to index and provide strong search results to their users. When your website appears in the search results, you are receiving free exposure to your target audience. In addition, if the user clicks on your listing, you do not need to pay for that click.

The key challenge is that unless you pay for an advertisement or sponsored link, you can not control where or when your listings appear. The search engine maintains sole authority and editorial judgement of what sites to list. In an earlier post, we discussed six ways to achieve free traffic from Google and other search engines, but one of the most important additional aspects to achieving website rankings in Google and other search engines is your meta-title.
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Google offers a unique program for non-profit organizations to advertise for free on Google.com’s keyword advertisements – Google Grants. From Google:

“Designed for 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, Google Grants is a unique in-kind advertising program. It harnesses the power of our flagship advertising product, Google AdWords, to non-profits seeking to inform and engage their constituents online. Google Grants has awarded AdWords advertising to hundreds of non-profit groups whose missions range from animal welfare to literacy, from supporting homeless children to promoting HIV education. Google Grant recipients use their award of free AdWords advertising on Google.com to raise awareness and increase traffic. “

Google was recently shown to have more than 70% search engine market share and is routinely touted as marketer’s #1 performing advertising placement. The upside is the program is free, the downside is that there are some limitations and hurdles to getting it to work properly. Whether you have a Google Grant or want a Google Grant, here are three things to look out for with your Google Grant program:
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