Lead-Gen SEO

Certain professions - even certain segments of marketing - necessitate fast turn-around, instant response, and an on-call expectancy.

SEO doesn’t. At least it shouldn’t.

PR - yes, most definitely. If you have a crisis on your hands the media will determine just how big or small a story it becomes within 24-48 hours. By 72 hours its too late. Most any crisis management expert will tell you that you need to do three things to make the best of the situation.

1. (over) fix the problem
2. (over) apologize, sincerely
3. do it immediately, yesterday even

Note number three. If you are in a PR role you should get used to this. The same may be true if you combine SEO with PR, in what is apparently termed SEO PR.

But what if you are into SEO for Lead Generation? This is basically what my firm does - utilizes SEO, PPC and other online marketing activities to generate leads for service firms. Day in, day out. Month in, month out. Its a long-term strategy, not an emergency-driven or crisis-mode type of game.

Let’s not make arbitrary deadlines in lead-generation SEO. Further, let’s not get worried about one day early or one day late. 10 days, fine. 1 day, silly. Organic SEO for lead generation is a long term strategy.

So the impetus of this post was this… A contractor I work with was doing some copywriting for a project we have. She completed 90% of it on time (early by my count) and a few days went by and I had not seen the other 10%. I sent her an email, and she replied basically saying “hey sorry I got sidetracked, I’ll have this to you later today”. I told her to take her time and she got it to me the next day, making a note to thank me for my flexibility:

Give these a try–let me know if there are any changes you need me to make.

Thanks again for your flexibility!

Simple note, but it got me to thinking. Why is everyone on such a deadline mode? Maybe its just my vantage point, but I think we’re all too stressed out and too focused on later today and tomorrow that we miss the big picture. Sacrifice long term success for short term gains? Silly.

My reply:

Thanks! And no problem. I try not to be one of those “the sky is falling and we’ll all die if we don’t have this page tomorrow” types of people. SEO takes so damn long to show results anyhow that one day either way seems rather trivial.

I’d rather have you not think of me as a thorn in your side so that the one time I actually do need something quickly I don’t look like I’m crying wolf!

I think its important to have your contractors like working with you. Sure you pay them money. Some people view this as a license to be demanding and push around their contractors. I think that is short-sighted. You have to remember that your contractors typically work with several other firms besides just yours. This means they have choice. Especially with SEO - its in such demand. Its better to be their favorite partner than their least, because then they are more likely to help you out and go the extra mile when you really need it.

How to get your contractors to love you
These are a few things I try to do:

• Send a small gift card to them every once in a while
• Don’t always try to negotiate down their price
• Every once in a while tell them to add 10% to their price b/c you want to make sure they are getting taken care of
• Pay their invoices within a day or two of receiving them

That last one is easy… unless you are talking about a ridiculous cash-flow issue, I think its something simple you can do. Still the same cost, but it helps make their lives easier. People like getting paid quickly. Instant gratification.

I’m not just being soft here, if your contractors think of you as their best client, than you’ll find that they quote you better prices (b/c you are less of a pain in the ass factor). They’ll do your work first b/c they know they’ll get paid more quickly. In general, a better all-around relationship and it really doesn’t cost you anything more monetarily.

If you (as an individual or freelance consultant) or your company is looking to set up a blog as a “marketing tool”, I encourage you to strongly consider tying that blog to your existing website or another domain that you own, rather than a third-party hosted subdomain (like http://ourblog.blogspot.com). Why?

1. It looks more professional
2. You maintain control over the asset (the domain) - you own it
3. It ties in more directly with your existing website
4. The SEO effect of inbound links to the blog can (if on the same domain) help all other pages on your site, and visa versa… rather than splitting your link juice.
5. No reason not to

With that, I’ll share with you a brief dialog that prompted this post:

Client:

A colleague of mine owns a small software development company and I recently noticed that he has started the BLOG thing…

My Reply:

Blogs are nice tools and tie in nicely with SEO in that they

1. attract links
2. make adding and updating content easier and thus lead to more of it

However, I would have advised your colleague to tied his blog into his brand name - either at http://blog.companyname.com or a new domain like http://www.companyblog.com. This way he would “own” the domain.

Using your own domain with WP or Blogger is in fact very easy to do even while still using the convenience and ease-of-use of hosted platforms like Blogger or WordPress.com (as opposed to more full-version applications that you host on your own server like full-blown WordPress or TextPattern).

The key to online marketing success with blogs is two-fold (to over-simplify):

1. you must stick with it
   a few posts a week for a long time. don’t burn out too fast. don’t expect overnight miracles.
2. realize what a blog can and cannot do
   it helps build relationships with your market, and it can help position its authors as experts in a field. its NOT very successfully used as a direct sales or lead generation tool. if you position it as that you’ll be disappointed. its much more indirect, and often that’s hard for someone with a serious sales background to embrace.

I probably should have added “3. become part of the blogging community within your topic/niche by commenting on other blogs, issuing trackbacks, linking to other blogs when appropriate and sharing in the conversation”.

If you are going to half-ass it, a blog is probably just going to waste your time. If you are willing to dedicate some time to it though, it can be a very useful tool for highly qualified lead generation (directly - as you have branded yourself as an expert) and also will help with your site’s SEO efforts, which in turn further helps generate new leads. In this particular case, the client has a very good understanding of both the technical and softer-marketing aspects, and so it could be an excellent tool as part of their online marketing strategy.

So today I just helped two of my colleagues set up their own blogs. We wanted to use hosted software such as Blogger or WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress aka WordPress.org).

These hosted options are less-customizable, but are much faster and easier to both setup and maintain. This means more time for creating content, promoting the blog, building a brand and generating leads! I can see how more time on content and link-building (read: relationship-building), and less time on the technical software management can be a good thing.

Lastly, we wanted to use our own custom domain names rather than having something.blogspot.com or something.wordpress.com. Better for branding, and also gives us an “asset” by relating the brand, links, content, etc. with US - the authors - rather than with Blogger or WordPress. This way we could switch platforms and not lose our entire audience and the asset we had built on someone else’s domain.

So here are the pros and cons for using Blogger (Blogspot) vs. WordPress (WordPress.com) for a hosted blogging application:

Blogger
Pro:

• Very easy to use interface
• Easy to configure layout arrangement
• Can use www or non-www for custom domain
• Totally free - just cost of your domain registration

Con:

• Can’t customize a style template (???)
• Lacks common blog features (or at least terminology) like “trackbacks” and “categories”, instead uses “labels”.
• Took me a little while to get the www version working correctly (CNAME record)
• (Edit: Added Later) Comments are held on the blogger domain, not your custom domain… meaning to search engines the copy/text in the comments is not something you will benefit from SEO-wise

WordPress.com
Pro:

• More features than Blogger, yet still less “unnecessary stuff” than full WordPress (.org)
• Very easy to tie the domain to the blog account
• More conventional “blog” type admin, especially if you are used to WordPress
• More configurability re: settings, spam filters, etc.

Con:

• Costs more - $10 per year plus cost of domain registration
• Maybe a bit more intimidating for a newbie to the blogging world
• Not as easy to make small layout changes (???)
• Can NOT use the www-version of the domain (see here - “note”)

Conclusion
I won’t take a hard stance - both are very good. WordPress.com is probably better for those who are willing to spend a little more time and want a few more features. Seems more customizable… if you can live without the “www” for your custom domain and the $10 fee for doing what you can do for free on Blogger (nominal, but its a principle thing). That said, for a newbie Blogger might be the better pick b/c it takes less time and work to just get started posting new entries.

Taking everything into account, I’m going to lean slightly for the WordPress.com option. However, not strongly enough that I would consider converting over this blog which I just set up a few days ago through Blogger.

For new blogs I create or help clients/associates to create, I will probably choose WordPress.com most of the time, and occasionally Blogger when I want something more “easy” and “lightweight”.

PS - Check out Lead Gen 101 and What’s New in MD?

Gavin Ingham recently posted 98 lead generation strategies. He says most businesses he consults with only use a few, and simply aren’t implementing as many different tactics as they could be. I agree, but 98 is a huge number. Admittedly, I could only bring myself to quickly scan his list.

While the general topic of this blog is lead generation via search engine optimization (SEO), I’ll take a slightly more broad approach than just SEO, but probably much more narrow than Gavin’s take - let’s just focus on online methods…

…by Building Customer Relationships

1. Blogging: goes along with “expert branding” below, helps build credibility and exposure
2. E-Newsletters: once a month or so, stay top-of-mind
3. Personal Emails: stay in contact, but don’t think mass-emails or automation
4. News Aggregation: be a source/resource for your customers

…by Reaching New Prospects

1. Natural SEO
2. Sponsored PPC
3. CPM Banner Ads
4. CPM Video Ads
5. Vertical Search Engines (B2B)
6. Online PR
7. Brand Yourself as an Expert

Peter Ehat at SEO.com wrote a post entitled “Does SEO Die on Web 3.0?“. I say yes, most definitely it will die. Without a doubt. Hopefully I will be retired by then, but if not I’m sure I could find a nice stable career as a mortgage salesperson.

Search in Web 3.0:

You don’t search on Google. Instead, Google searches you. They have enough data, can’t they just figure out what I need before I realize the need to search for it?

Here is how it would work:

1. Larry Page brings me a glass of water.
2. I say “Thanks Larry, what’s this for?”
3. I begin to feel a parched throat coming on and suddenly feel better about my use of Google Desktop.
4. I notice that my television suddenly starts showing ads that offer me a snack to go with my water.

The web is great. Tons of information. Problem is its damn stale. Text, text and more text. Boring.

Forget reading SEO blogs, forums, articles, etc. If you want to learn SEO, watch some rap videos.

No I’m serious. m0serious in fact. If you do nothing else this week check out mOserious’s Youtube page. Listen to the lyrics. Good info there. From now on this will be part of my firm’s new employee training.

If you have animation please use in moderation! Word up homie. Word up.

So the real juice behind what makes a blog something other than just an easy way to post things on a website is the RSS technology that drives digital connectivity.

Blogs can automatically notify other blogs and feed readers (used by savvy blog-reading consumers… most of who are also blog owners and publishers) of updates. They can distribute content to other sites, notify other blogs when you are talking about them, etc. Even better, its totally automated and a piece of cake. You can even “subscribe” to someone else’s entire blog to receive instant update notifications whenever they post something new (without having to check their site), or just subscribe to a particular category if they discuss several topics, only one of which you care about.

And oh yeah, RSS doesn’t just enable blogs to communicate with users and with each other… it also pushes their content to search engines in a matter of hours, whereas typical web updates to non-RSS static webpages require you to wait for Google or other search engine spiders to visit your site and notice that you’ve updated. That typically takes a few days, and can take longer. Tough if you are in a “time is of the essence” type of industry, or commenting on recent news. By the time your blog is found, the story is dead. With RSS, you can enjoy rankings in Google within a few hours of posting, which are primarily fed via Google News.

Think push versus pull.

So what about that Technorati bit in the title?

You’ll notice I tend to go on a tangent before ever addressing the true topic of the post. Oh well. That’s me.

Since I just set this up yesterday, today I did a quick search on the title of yesterday’s post. No results. Thus, I’ve decided I should be a bit proactive in ensuring that other blog search engines receive my blog’s “push” of updates. Technorati is one such blog search engine. Its basically THE site about blogs, and up-to-the-minute blog updates. Google Blog Search is also similar, as are about 5,000 other services.

Anyhow, Technorati let’s you claim your blog, which enables you to see additional information, control some of the branding and description, etc. Good stuff. To do this though, you need to verify that you are the blog owner. One way to do this is to create a new post with a special code in that. When Technorati sees it on your blog they know you are the real owner. So being as that was my impetus in writing this post, here goes:

Technorati Profile

Pushing content or notifying other blogs and services of updates you’ve made (automatically of course) is known as pinging. Another site to consider is the popular Ping-O-Matic. Gotta love the name. 30 seconds of your life though, well worth it for additional traffic and exposure. Sometimes these services want the URL of your RSS feed in additional to your blog’s URL. Another 30 seconds searching the help section of your blog’s documentation will give you that, it varies from one provider to another.

Okay enough about that. Generally speaking this blog will be more opinion and fact-less conjecture rather than narrative “what is”, but hey we’re just getting started…

I have to say I’m quite impressed. I’ve built and managed several blogs over the past couple of years using WordPress, which I’m a huge fan of - but Blogger is extremely easy to use. I started setting up this blog 20 minutes ago (not 10, I lied) and I’ve got a nice little template, have already added Google Analytics and even my own domain via my GoDaddy account. Still killing time though before the domain resolves (should be within an hour).

I really like the “page elements” feature too. Made it real easy to add my Analytics script and also to modify the page. In general I feel the interface is easier to use than WordPress, and I’m now likely to recommend a Blogger account for many of my clients who want “quick and easy” blog. For those desiring more customization and more power-use features, I’ll likely stick to WordPress - but for light, quick, easy, etc. Blogger seems to be very nice.

My only complaint would be that it requires a Google Account. As I have several services and accounts with Google for different business ventures I’m associated with, this requires a little management on my end - which account for which features, etc. Its complicated. And boring. No use wasting Blogger’s db storage space on further elaboration!

Another observation - no “categories”??? I see Blogger makes use of “labels” though. I’m either missing something or just need to become a little more Web 2.0 and get with the whole label-program.

Okay so why this new blog. Well, three reasons:

1. My business partner Ryan just set up a Blogger blog and I’m jealous
2. I have had a Blogger account for participating in other blogs for a little while, but wanted to make better use of it.
3. I run a Search Marketing firm, but all of our clients are service firms. Their websites generate leads. This is a very strong interest of mine - online lead generation. If you check my profile, you’ll see I also co-own an online lead generation firm.

To elaborate on #3 above… I’m starting to explore this as my true area of interest rather than SEO which is one source to support lead gen efforts. Companies want leads, not search rankings. Search rankings are merely one way to get leads. If you get search rankings and no leads, you’ve failed.