Dan Soschin

How to Get Started with SEO

If you are new to SEO and are not relying on existing expertise, well, you have your work cut out! No doubt you may be a little intimidated too. I have long said that basic SEO strategy and skills can be easily taught, so long as you have a basic understanding of how to build a web page and how to write.

Vasilis Vryniotis at OnlineMarketingConnect.com, compiled a checklist of 60 SEO-related tasks to perform on your site as you implement SEO. It’s a great guide that will be a valuable asset in your SEO efforts.

Obviously, this is not the only list or resource out there, so do you homework. You can also purchase a few books on the subject, but make sure the book you purchase has been printed in the last 12-18 months. SEO is ever evolving, and a text older than 18 months may be partially out-of-the-times.
How to Build An SEO Team

I’ve long suggested that basic SEO strategy can be taught to key members of various departments throughout a company and that an internal SEO strategy will ultimately pay more dividends long term versus outsourcing. I’ve been helping organizations learn how to write optimized for the web, how to blog and so much more.

Simon Heseltine at Search Engine Watch wrote a great high-level article about different strategies you can take when approaching SEO at your organization; many of these will be dictated by the size and skill of your organization.

Nonetheless, his article gives you some ideas on how to approach this area.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3641993
Get Comments and Get Rankings

When leading instructional sessions on blogging, I often discuss the value of comments and how most blogs these days are not “if you write it they will come”, but rather “when you write it, no one cares”. While pessimistic, it’s quite true. If you want to people to find and read you blog, you need more than just high quality content, you need a marketing strategy. One of the ways to market your blog is to get comments. But, how do you get comments when no one knows your blog exists?

Well, you start by commenting on other people’s blogs first. When you do, you want concise comments that reference your blog.

Next, you want to write about what other people are writing and then reference their posts. This will encourage other blogs to read and follow you.

This takes time and effort, but doesn’t cost a thing.

Here’s a great post by HubSpot on this very topic:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/news/search-marketing/index.asp?nlid=2236&cd=dmo121&adref=nlt031511
SEO Audit – How to Get Started

Alan Bleiweiss writes a great article about performing SEO audits at the Search Engine Journal. It dissects the many elements of performing and SEO audit, including how to get started and the areas to cover. I recommend using this article as a great source to help provide direction and support when you are pitching the importance of an audit and how it will take place.
How to Start a Social Media Policy for your Employees

If you need a social media policy (and every company needs one that has more than a few employees), I suggest two things to get started.

1. Search the net for starter templates. Most social media companies offer suggestions and templates.

2. Check out Stephanie Schwab’s article on social media policies. It’s one of the best articles on the topic of what to consider incorporating into your policy that I’ve come across recently: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/the-anatomy-of-a-social-media-policy/
Will Searchers Change their Google Love?

Ryan DeShazer writes about recent search headlines involving JCP and content farms… asking the question if consumers will change their Google usage…

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=146861

I’m not convinced the layman knows the difference. All sorts of studies show that 1 in 3 don’t know the difference between paid search and organic; poll 10 people off the street and I bet only one knows what SEO is; and none know what a content farm is. We have a different view as industry insiders. However, I do believe the search market will change dramatically due to social search; but not for the issue of SEO and content farms.
The Power of a Bad Review
Erik Saas just wrote a piece regarding a couple of surveys showing that consumers are highly likely to share a bad experience with their networks. This has long been reported as the case but perhaps somewhat ignored by many companies?

A study by Kaset International found:
- 96% of unhappy customers never complain
- 91% will not buy again or use your service
- An unhappy customer will tell nine others about their bad experience
- 13% of unhappy customers will tell 20 or more people
While this survey is over five years old, the data is still profound. In fact, the 13% figure is probably much higher today, than when this report was released, primarily due to social media.

What can you do? For starters, you need to be listening, which involves monitoring your brand not just in social communities, but on the entire ‘net.

Once you start listening you’ll be able to address issues more proactively and target areas of your business that need improvement. It really is THAT EASY. The improvement may actually be the hard part!

Here’s that article:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=146772&nid=124747#
Group Buying is a Commodity Service

I’ve been saying for a while now that services like Groupon are at risk due to the low barriers to enter the market by competitors, even those who are not well funded. Here’s one company, Group Commerce, that is proving me right – by enabling any web publisher to enter the market through a white-labeled group by program.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=146553&nid=124655#
The Enemy of the Searcher

I just love this article by Richard J. Tofel, Someday, the sun will set on SEO — and the business of news will be better for it. It’s a great piece of commentary on the future of SEO, including an insightful retrospective on how it has evolved into something that benefits the advertiser at the demise of the searcher.
Out Spent? Focus on the Long-Tail

I’ve always been an advocate of the long-tail search, especially for advertisers with small budgets (and more time), who can afford to spend the effort on building campaigns focusing on long-tail search phrases. For instance, if you are an online university, you’ll find that general key words such as “online degree” can cost as much as $20 per click. Yes, per click. But, phrases such as “online history degree in California” cost considerably less – by as much as 90%. So, if you have the time to build out these phrases, and to create adds that properly match the phrase – and then landing pages that coordinate, you can gain some great leads at a low cost.

Additionally, there’s a report out by MarketingProfs that discusses the same concept but for domains. They show that long-tail domains have higher CTRs for advertisers. Going back to our example, “online-degrees.com” might not have as high a CTR for advertisers as “online-degrees-california.com”, and so on.

Here’s that article: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2011/4605/long-tail-websites-deliver-higher-ad-ctrs?adref=nlt031111 which shows that CTR lift varies greatly by industry.