Negative SEO: Search Engine War By Other Means

Here is a great video to watch for any serious SEO web-marketing manager: "Negative SEO: Myths, Realities, and Precautions - Whiteboard Friday", by Rand Fishkin, CEO & co-founder of SEOmoz. A great review of some of the darker arts of black-hat SEO, and how to protect your websites from negative SEO attack.

Connect with Erik Holladay at Linkedin.

Google Video shows 5 common mistakes in SEO - - and 6 Good Ideas

Google doesn't reveal any top secrets for SEO (why would they?), but this is great common sense and advice for everyone who is attempting to gain high organic search results on Google.

Here is the Google Webmaster Central Blog site for this very good overview SEO video. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/03/five-common-seo-mistakes-and-six-good.html

SERP Savvy Success: Number One out of 43.3 Million Pages

Focusing on organic search optimization can pay big SERP dividends. 

Thanks to precise, concise and relevant webpage content sitting in well-designed, refreshed, and maintained websites, I've been enjoying for some years many, many high search engine results page (SERP) results for many, many key search phrases... across multiple key market, service, technical and geographic niches.

Searching for SERP.

Today was a stellar example of SERP savvy success; a Google search result run today yielded an outstanding example of just how valuable effective SEO efforts can be. For a key service search phrase (three words), this specific webpage ranks number one out of 43,300,000 other webpages indexed by Google.

The search term is rather generic, which explains the 43.3 million indexed webpages. But the term has strong business value for our lead generation efforts. Because of our quality page content and additional related content on other pages in the website, along with multiple other web factors in our control and out of our control, Google's algorithm has decided our webpage was the most relevant for that particular search. Hooray!

Now it is time to put things back into a realistic perspective. One can never gloat about SEO for long. Search Engine Marketing success can never be taken for granted. You have to walk and/or run just to keep your position. Stop good SEO and you'll slide down the rankings over time.

Last week I created a new companion webpage for the superstar webpage, and the new page has had a strong debut at #10 SERP results out of 750,000 indexed pages. This is good, but not quite SERP nirvana yet. Will time and patience bring that page-rank up in the next few weeks, or do I have to revisit that page, slightly re-engineer it, tweak it, and see what happens next?

High SERP results are only part of a total SEO lead generation effort. Ranking is just a step in the process, a vital one, but just one step of many. After you have their attention with a high SERP you need to start selling. Important webpage selling features include having well-written content which your actual potential customers, not just search engine algorithims, will understand and be favorably impressed with. Having strong niche educational, feature, benefit and call-to-action content is important. Having good website usability and navigation is another plus. There is much more to consider besides SERP success.

SEO success is great, but it is wise to always look ahead and behind - - your 'aware' competitors are trying to chase you down and pass you up.

Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.

Google Adwords Approaches Infinity

Adwords Account Limits now let's you add "3 Million Keywords" to your Account.

3 Million Keywords and Counting.....

I just read Google Adwords' "Account Limits" web-page and I'm impressed. Effectively, for most marketeers and reasonably sane people, Google has reached near-infinity in terms of options available.... moving beyond mere stars and galaxies and into big-bang cosmic dust clouds when it comes to how massive you want to make your Adword campaigns.

I've been successfully managing Adwords accounts and campaigns targeting global, regional, language, and niche markets and geographies since 2003. Adwords is an extremely effective way to generate leads, advertise, and brand your services and products. Paid Search (Adwords, Bing) is one of the major pillars of Search Engine Marketing, along with (of course) Organic Search Optimization.

Newly updated information on Adwords account limits is very impressive:

AdWords account limits:
These are the limits for an AdWords account:
10,000 campaigns
20,000 ad groups per campaign
5,000 keywords per ad group
4 million active or paused ads per account
3 million keywords per account
10,000 location targets
100,000 active ad extensions per account
1.3 million references to ad extensions

Google goes on to say "Most advertisers don't reach this limit". Indeed..... I hope they are right because managing such massive accounts effectively and efficiently would require a small army to run it, along with a huge spend budget. At least now you know you'll likely never run out of keyword, campaign and ad group options with Adwords!
Learn more at Adwords Account Limits.
Learn more about using negative search terms for positive effect: Negative is Positive with Google Adwords

Executives Mistakenly Avoid Social Networks - WSJ Video

How Google's New Search Works - WSJ

Think Local for Great Organic Search Results.

Local + Generic Content SEO: New Web-page gets Google Top Ranking in less than 24 Hours.
A very successful organic search engine marketing tactic is to target local content searches for your product or service. Build relevant, precise web-pages geared towards specific locations and the business services/products you offer... then watch the leads come in. Using local search tactics is a classic form of long-tail search marketing optimization, with proven results.

Local  Search SEO can bring Big Business Benefits.

By "local", I mean a specific geographic area - - which can be as large as a state or province, and as small as a town or neighborhood. When the geographic targeting is combined with your targeted service or product, excellent search results can occur quickly.... resulting in more lucrative business enquiries for you, and less for your hapless competitors.

To give an example, I recently built a new web-page targeting a few niche technical services for a geographically targeted area - - a state in the USA, in this case. In less than 16 hours after going live, this newly minted web-page is scoring in the top 5 organically ranked web-pages listed on Google, beating out another 8 million web-pages indexed by Google per search, on average, to get these coveted positions. And the page is ranking very high for a variety of quality searches I want to be ranked on.

So quality content and geographic targeting for a new webpage resulted in top Google organic search rankings in less than 24 hours. Not all first attempts will be so successful. And even with this excellent debut, the new page is not yet ranking for other desired searches, so I'll monitor and tweak the content as needed. When it comes to successful SEO results, everything is always a work in progress!
A related topic for small business: Getting leads and promoting your business with a limited ad budget.

Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.

Facebook, Friend or Foe to Investors?

WSJ - - Google+ vs Facebook: It's No Contest

A Thank You Note to My Competitors (which I hope they never read)

Six Reasons to be Thankful to Your Competitors

Are you running over your 
competitors, or are they running
over you?

For success in B-to-B marketing and lead generation not only are your actions important, but what your competitors do.... or don't do.... or haven't a clue to do, make a big difference. That's why we should extend a tongue-in-cheek 'thank you' to some of our competitors. They can often make our job easier, without even knowing they are being so accommodating. We can divert 'their' quality business leads to ourselves with impunity.

However, to put this into perspective, we should never be complacent about our competition, for therein lies the road to defeat and ruin. A short list of reasons to be thankful, below, really serve as a list of dangers we all need to be aware of, for we are all capable of harming ourselves in this way.

Reasons to be Thankful to our Competition:

1. Poor Focus on Web-page Layout and Clutter:
Producing web-pages which surround and bury the core value content, the really important information a visitor is looking for, is a common practice and self-defeating. The "money content" is subdued, stifled, and trapped in a suffocating waffle of links, images, fluff and other content... the core content is diluted both for the reader and (happy days for us) search engines bots when they crawl their pages, resulting in lower organic search engine rankings.

2. Poor Web-Page Content:
Writing good concise, precise web-page content which targets a key product or service niche (or sub-niche, or sub-sub-niche) is an art and a science. We should thank competitors who launch web-pages with lousy content, especially if they are proud of the result. They just made our job a lot easier to whip them in search engine rankings. I could write a book about lousy web content on competitor webpages. In fact, many intelligent people have written books on how to improve web-page content for SEO. We should be thankful so many people appear not to have read them!

3. Poor Website Structure and Navigation:
A good webmaster is worth a lot, and should be cherished. A good webmaster who understands B-to-B and has a burning desire to rank high in organic search results is worth their weight in gold.... 24 karat investment grade. Having a mediocre or distracted webmaster can  harm a website's overall performance for lead generation. Having a mediocre or distracted webmaster plus poor content and navigation can be a disaster. There are so many things which can go right or go wrong depending upon the organization, resources, support and talent on offer.

4. Competitors behaving badly at Tradeshows and Conferences:
We should be thankful for competitors who suffer from self-defeating habits regarding trade-shows and conferences. Just a few of the event-wins (for us, not for them) are:
a. Not Being There (they skipped or overlooked a key industry event)
b. Being There but Missing in Action (Their booth is empty, delegates nowhere to be seen)
c. Being There, but Indifferent (They are deathly bored at their booth, glazed eyes, negative, non-engaging, don't mingle with attendees, reading, and are wall-flowers)
d. They brought the Wrong Message (They don't tailor their message to the event and market niche, and use a "one size fits all" approach, they brought the wrong people to the event)

5. Outsourcing Paid Search Campaigns:
Hiring an outsider to run Adwords and other paid search and content campaigns is another area for we should be very grateful to the competition. If the search targets are technical and niched, then tasked, informed and focused personnel inside the company will usually be far more nimble, proactive, knowledgeable and cost-effective and efficient than using an outside Ad Agency or consultant. Quality will be higher and wasted clicks and costs reduced by keeping this key marketing lead generation tool in-house. Another big competitive mistake we love is for them to run a one-size-fits-all ad across numerous market niches, with a landing page which is either not focused or requires the visitor make heroic efforts at navigating to a webpage which is relevant to them.
An ideal result for a competitor using Adwords, from our perspective, is for them to waste a lot of money on poorly managed campaigns and then decide it was all a mistake and completely shut the campaigns down... their new-found cost control is then applauded by their finance guys, while we, their competition, enjoy the happy competitive result of stealing their leads, paid-search marketing nirvana for us!

6. Competitors don't exploit Social Media:
If our competitors do not understand nor encourage Social Media marketing, then they aren't blogging, tweeting, posting, "liking" their company, letting others "like" and forward their web-pages, and otherwise promoting their brand, products and services to a huge potential audience. This is a big and inexpensive marketing opportunity for your company to exploit. Since your competition have left a large Social Media vacuum, fill that gap with your offerings. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and more are all opportunities to get in front of your prospective clients in a positive way. If you competitor hasn't figured that out, so much the better.

These "thank you" notes to the competition also serve as a warning to our own marketing and lead generation efforts. Objectivity, modesty, vigilance, and humility always serve us well. Overconfidence, pride, arrogance, ignorance, and hubris are marketing dangers to be avoided at all costs. A question we should frequently ask ourselves: "Are WE making our competitor's jobs easier?" If so, immediate remedial action is needed.

There are many other things for which we can be grateful to our competitors. We must make sure they don't have too many reasons to be grateful to us in return.

B-to-B Web Marketing Should Help Sales People Sell

Connect with Erik Holladay on Linkedin.