Niche Organic Search Can Dominate for Quality Lead Generation

Long-tail search SERP home-runs can be achieved, if you know your target market language. 

I've just achieved one of those relatively rare, enjoyable SEO events where some of my niche technical service webpages dominate the top three organic search spots for one key search term, out of over 3,200,000 indexed pages... along with the number two spot on Adwords. Rarely, some of my webpages even achieved the top four organic SERP results, a "grand slam", beating out millions of other indexed pages.

SEO Niche is Nice:
How did I do this? Long-tail search exploitation is the main answer. Finding service niches and exploiting them. Often, just creating a new, cross-indexed, market-niche, sub-category webpage with relevant content will do the job nicely for top SEO results.

Niche Content Benefits SEO.

Focusing on location is another powerful way to differentiate a webpage and catapult it to the top of the SERPS. With proper research and reflection, this sort of niche long-tail SEO success can be duplicated many times. You'll get less visitors to these niche pages, but visitor quality will be higher. For business-to-business technical web marketing, I'll take quality visitors over quantity any day.

Can I rest on my laurels? Never. SEO is a lead generation contest that never ends.

For every SEO victory, there is another SEO challenge. For example, while building overwhelming success with one long-tail search term, another location-specific search term gave me "good" results, but the page I really expected to be top-ranked is not listed on page one, yet. OK, so is it time to think, analyze and take action? It is a newer page, but to ensure that new page ranks in the top results, I must monitor for it, and if results in a few weeks are not satisfactory I'll have to work on optimizing that new page.
Winning at SEO takes skill, analytical ability, productivity, a search-friendly website, patience, work, and persistence. 

The History of Search Engine Marketing

The Birth and Evolution of the Search Engine Industry Infographic.
If you are fascinated by and are a fanatic for search engine marketing, which I am, this "history of search" infographic is notable, interesting and entertaining. Markus Allen, the Editor and Publisher of a high quality Search Engine Marketing (SEM) information-rich website called "Search Engine Marketing Roundup", has produced a comprehensive historical overview of the evolution of search, from ancient historical times in 1994 to 2011. From Lycos and Webcrawler to Yahoo and Overture, to Bing and... oh yeah... the elephant in the search engine marketing room..... Google. An update for 2012, with all the anti-spammer algorithm changes made by Matt Cutts et al at Google, is awaited and will be very interesting.

Source: Search Engine Journal | Embed this on your own website (FREE)

SEO Tactics Beyond Content Marketing

Content Marketing Rules. No surprise! I am a huge supporter of Content Marketing driving SEO and lead generation. Great content provides a big competitive advantage in search engine marketing and lead generation in general. With 10 years of laser-like focus on web content marketing + SEO, I usually overwhelm and essentially crush my global and local competition. Yes, Content Marketing really works.
But there are alternative tactics which should not be overlooked. Rand Fishkin with SEOMOZ has produced an informative video on this very topic. Rand is saying don't forget to use all the proven web marketing tools for SEO and web marketing. For those ambushed link-builders burned by the Google Penguin and Panda anti-spam updates, this presentation offers viable alternatives.

See Rand's profile at SEOMOZ. He is CEO + Co-founder of SEOMOZ.

How to Set Goals for Your Marketing - Matt Bailey

"How to Set Goals for Your Marketing", by Matt Bailey.

Marketing expert Matt Bailey explains how to set marketing goals - by identifying revenue-producing actions and the segments and personas needed to accomplish those goals. "By measuring motivation and revenue, you can better measure success." He gave a similar message during SESSF 2012. This is an excellent presentation.

See Matt Bailey's presentation at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEWoxE5CLAw&feature=share&list=PL981F1D7041031039

Is Saying SEO is Dead... Dead?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not Dead. But don't get too complacent.

SEO extinction doom and gloom tends to come out of hiding whenever Google makes notable changes to its search algorithm. As Google is a quasi-monopoly in search, these dire alarms should be looked at and evaluated. The changes made by Google primarily focus on filtering out spammers and improving SERP quality. Big changes like Panda and Penguin can crush black and grey hat SEO efforts. But white hat SEO rarely is adversely affected. So use white hat tactics. In other words, if you conduct your SEO efforts with your target market needs, website usability, and original content relevancy as top of mind, then you'll have a good chance to succeed with organic search optimization for Google, Bing, Blekko, and other search sites.

Here lie the ancient ruins of SEO,
destroyed by barbarian pandas, penguins,
and SERPs.

Search Engine Land has produced a humorous infographic detailing the failed predictions of SEO disaster and SEO death over the years. Folks have been predicting the death of SEO for as long as SEO became an acronym for search engine optimization.

As someone who has been successfully conducting and managing B-to-B web marketing SEO for over 10 years, I find this infographic amusing and entertaining. We've heard urgent 'SEO is Dead' warnings before, I just didn't realize that SEO downfall predictors have been at this for so long. This infographic pulls all the SEO doom and gloom prognosticators together in one handy guide.

To see this infographic please visit: "The Death Of SEO, Failed Predictions Over The Years"

For anyone who has been at SEO for a few years, predictions that the SEO sky is falling can have a déjà vu feeling. Like other apocalyptic predictions of death and destruction (zombie invasion, thermo-nuclear war, magnetic pole reversal, peak oil, mega-quakes, killer asteroids, alien invasion, supernovas, super-bug pandemics, evil super-computers, mega-solar storms, etc.) this one has not happened, just yet. Given enough time, like a Monte-Carlo probability simulation, the unthinkable could happen, SEO could be squashed like a bug one day. So in this regard we shouldn't mock SEO death predictors, but monitor their early-warning chatter. One day, they could get it right.

Alternatives to Google Analytics 'Not Provided' Organic Search Keywords: Google Closes The Curtain on Organic Keyword Research.

SEO Ranking Factors as a Periodic Table

Search Engine Land has produced a very useful "Periodic Table" for search engine optimization ranking factors. This is a great at-a-glance graphic which can help anyone involved with SEO the opportunities, dangers, and housekeeping required to produce and maintain superior SERPs in the face of tough and determined competition. It's also fun to look at and impress your coworkers when you post it on a wall.


See the article on this SEO infographic at http://searchengineland.com/seotable. You can download the .pdf version here, and look at the complete graphic.

How to do Keyword Research - Infograph

Keyword Research Process Infographics.
Here is a good, simple graphic showing the major steps in keyword research for organic and paid search engine marketing.

From: Promodo.com
Learn more about keyword research at:
http://searchengineland.com/infographic-how-to-do-keyword-research-for-seo-134202

Geo-location and local search video: Bruce Clay discusses at SES San Francisco 2012

Bruce Clay is the owner of Bruce Clay, Inc. a well known internet marketing company. Mr. Clay is another valuable and informative speaker at SES events, and he was once again enlightening and thought-provoking at SES San Francisco 2012. In this interview, Bruce focuses on local search, Google's plans, and what changes to local search are likely over the next 18 months. A great video which reminds us that local search is very important - - and should not be overlooked.

Big Data Marketing Video interview of Bryan Eisenberg at SES San Francisco 2012

Here is a great video interview of Bryan Eisenberg on Big Data and Search Engine Marketing at Moscone Center in San Francisco during SES 2012. Mr. Eisenberg had just given an excellent presentation on Big Data during SES SF 2012, which I made sure to attend!

Here is the video interview of Bryan Eisenberg discussing Big Data:



Learn more about Big Data and search engine marketing at: Fun With Big Data @ SES San Francisco 2012

SEO Diagnostics @ SES San Francisco 2012

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Diagnostics for the Skilled Search Mechanic

Speaker: Chris Boggs, SES Advisory Board; Director, Rosetta

This session at Search Engine Strategies San Francisco 2012 was one of the most valuable strategic guidance presentations during the entire SEO knowledge-packed week, which is saying a lot, as all the SEO presentations were top-shelf in terms of quality and value. Chris covered mission-critical steps anyone can take to help understand the true situation when confronted with poor or mediocre SEO. He then shows a path forward to fix problems and exploit opportunities on a prioritized basis.

First SEO Diagnosis Steps:

• Confirm the SEO problem exists
• Look at the log data
• Look at the analytics data

Second SEO Diagnosis Steps:

• Begin Assessment
• Look at off-site promotion
• Look at on-site promotion
• Look at website's technical status

Ask yourself: 

• Is the content still worthy? Unique? Up-to-date? 
• What are the competitors doing?
• Does your snippet still work for a keyword?
• Is the right webpage ranking high? 

Links:

• Review your linking strategy, as the Google Penguin updates are punishing low-original content sites and spammy sites which have heavily relied upon link-building for SERP rankings.
• Black-hat Negative SEO - - beware of competitors buying links to YOUR site to hurt you.
• Is your anchor text over-optimized, so that Penguin is punishing your site?

Social Media:

• If you're having SEO problems reviewing your social media activities will be valuable. Are you exploiting this growing area of search behavior? Are your competitors busy with social media postings and content? Evaluate your relative positioning with Social compared to your competition, and take steps.

Intelligent SEO Diagnosis will help
your SERPs stand out in the crowd.

After diagnosing and taking action - - Go BACK and RE-MEASURE. "Things change rapidly with SEO."

Chris Boggs emphasized that putting a priority on potential actions to take is crucial.... there is never going to be enough time, investment or knowledge to do it all. So our priorities for diagnosis and action must focus on the most lucrative fixes - those fixes we think which will generate the most profit at the end of the day. He stressed that SEO managers should be in 'diagnostic mode all the time' to get the most out of your efforts.

Chris stressed the 'sweet-spot' is when you are working on PROACTIVE fixes, not REACTIVE ones. Proactive actions include analysis of a new competitor, review of algorithm updates, catching market or industry shifts, and 'cleaning your own rifle' - - making sure your SEO campaigns are clean, efficient, and effective. Reactive fixes are similar to panic-driven actions - - scrambling to repair sudden losses in traffic, conversions, phone calls, email, etc. Better to avoid having to implememt damage control in the first place, with proactive diagnostic methodologies.
Common SEO problems may be caused by our own people. Serious problems can occur from our IT making changes  to pages which can hinder search engine bots (robots.txt), for example. Other SEO problems can originate from issues as simple as not using best practice for H1 and H2 titles. Your existing CMS system may be lousy, or inadvertently set-up to hurt your SEO efforts. Constantly  "check with your IT team!" is Chris' advice.
New competitors, or reinvigorated competitors, can cause SEO problems. "Check your competitive neighborhood". Use analytical tools to drill-down, analyze, and see those important "Uh Oh" moments.
Chris listed a number of useful SEO tools he likes, including Bright Edge, Google Webmaster Tools, URI Valet, Majestic, Raven, and SEOMOZ.
At the end, Chris emphasized that the best SEO diagnosis and fix is good content. "Content is still King". Links will still have place in SEO, though deliberate at-scale link-building campaigns are losing value thanks to Penguin. Chris stressed don't ignore social media. Matt Cutts from Google himself pointed in a direction where Google will search deeper and rank social media content more highly than in the past. This all points to having great, original content on  your website as a prime proactive step which can be taken to improve your SEO and SERPs.
My other take on this presentation and many others at SES is that we should learn to exploit Big Data (analytics) as much as possible. Conducting SEO campaigns without factual website analytics knowledge to help guide us is similar to driving a car with just one eye open, a lot can be missed!