The Defrag Conference held in Denver, Colorado in the beginning of November, played host all of the top execs in the search industry including Tom Chi of Yahoo!, Bradley Allen of Siderian Software, Derek Murphy of Isys Search Software, Tom Tague of Thomson Reuters and more. So naturally there was some incredibly interesting dialogue regarding the future of search going on there. During Steve Larson’s presentation on “Next-Level Discovery: Open Search, Semantic Search, etc.” the top question on everyone’s mind was this: What will the next-generation of search engines look like?

“The only problem with search is that it’s awful, but other than that it works pretty well.” Tom Chi of Yahoo! Corporation said of current search engines. He was referring to the fact that although search is a wonderful and useful tool, it could also be a little more user friendly and helpful. “People are still doing navigational searches for Ebay.com” he added. This is significant because not only are they getting relevant direct results on their results page, they are also getting lots of other stuff they don’t need – both in direct results and in the ads section. It’s become “flooded with too much noise” as Murphy puts it. People hardly know what to do with the millions of results they get.

As a basic internet instructor for adults I see it everyday. Students look up at the top right hand corner and see that there are millions of results for “Gardening” but I can’t get them past the first page for some reason. If what they are looking for isn’t right there in those first ten results, they just give up. They would actually rather try another keyword than venture deeper in to the website. Occasionally I can get them to page two or three, but that’s as far as they’ll go.

Another problem is unintelligent search results. When users search for “eby.com” they don’t get anywhere, even though what they’re looking for is obvious. Major search engines aren’t compelled to change this because those faulty search results yield the same profits that correct ones do.

Yahoo! has started to take steps to help its search platform evolve through SearchMonkey, which I’ve talked about before. It is essentially a mix between a wiki and a search engine in the sense that it allows website owners, developers and programmers to create applications that enhance the users search experience.

Other search engines like are working on vertical search systems that give more specialized results. Siderean is interested in developing a vertical search for business tools, networking and resources. Both Yahoo! and Siderean are taking a smart step forward since part of the problem, according to Tague, is that search corporations need to solve is how to integrate search with social graphs and networking.

So what’s the future of search? Will change come in an amalgam of search, wiki and social networking? Or in an evolutionary bang in proportion to algorithms? No one seems to really know what the gen-next of search will look like. But don’t worry. Users can rest assured that the experts are on it.

Popularity: 22%

When iPhones first came out the demographic was mainly affluent professionals ages 20-35. But with iPhones being increasingly accessible to the middle class and teens, more and more people are hooking themselves up with one. This is significant for e-biz owners because according to M:Metrics, more people use the iPhone to surf the net than any other mobile browser in the USA. The New York Times also reported that 58.6% of iPhone owners used their device to access and use a search engine. There are also over 350,000 iPhone in service in Europe (2007) making it #2 on the top most used mobile browsers. In the USA, people actually perform 5000% more Google searches on their iPhone than any other internet capable phone users combined.

But that’s not all. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in the USA teenagers have astronomical amounts of buying power. Not only do they hold their own part time jobs, but they also have tremendous influence over their parent’s purchases. According to the US National Center for Education (2008), there are approximately 15 million high school students and 8% of them (or 1.2 million) own an iPhone. In spring of 2008 about 9% of teens who did not already own an iPhone wanted to buy one. In six months that number jumped to 22%. Out of all the students who planned on purchasing a new phone in the next six months, 33% of them specifically said they wanted an iPhone.

Anyone in the marketing field knows that technology such as smart phones and the internet have become important parts of teenage life. They are incredibly dependent on these as an intricate part of their lives in school as a learning tool, socially outside of school and for recreational browsing. Granted they aren’t the only customers that businesses should cater to, but they are the immediate future of internet browsing and purchasing. Their habits are the future habits of America.

So the question remains: Do you have an iPhone friendly website?

With phones being so much more than just phones, it’s important that websites and bloggers ensure they are iPhone compatible. By either making your current website iPhone compatible or setting up an additional iPhone compatible website, you are making yourself more accessible to customers. Not only that, but your original site will collect more quality links for it.

There are two problems that iPhone users face when using their mobile browser. The first is a download speed that is slightly slower than their desktop counterparts. The second is the small screen resolution of only 320×480. Website managers need to develop a site that loads quickly and doesn’t force users to scroll through the page as much. They can do this by reducing (or eliminating) any unnecessarily large pictures, Flash or “heavy” content from the new/updated website. Also, many websites are optimizing, coding and configuring themselves to work with iPhones accelerometer so that different content can be displayed by holding the iPhone different ways.

It’s also a good idea to start developing some relevant iPhone apps. Applications for the iPod are relatively inexpensive and they are a huge market right now. In economically hard times, the iPhone apps can be considered a small, affordable luxury and provide the user with news, games, weather, music or whatever. Creating your own application not only helps to drive traffic to your website, but can make you a little extra on the side as well.

There are websites that can help you build apps and configure your website for use on the iPhone as well as other smart phone brands. However, you may at some point reach a point of difficulty that a professional becomes necessary. Whatever you decide keep in mind that the iPhones have been and will most likely to remain the most popular mobile browser in the world. But after the iPod phenomenon, did we really expect anything less from them?

Popularity: 40%

SEO is one of the most important online marketing trends available right now. Almost everyone knows that you need good quality text, keywords and links combined with lots of popularity and a good reputation to make it big. But it’s also important to take a holistic view of your online business pages. Your website is a valuable SEO tool in itself. By building (or remodeling,) your website so that it’s more easily accessible to spiders, you can boost your search engine score astronomically. It’s also important to have the “SEO-friendly website” conversation with your website design company and/or SEO firm if you have one to make sure that they on the same page as you. So with out further ado, here are some things that you should keep in mind when building or redesigning your website:

1. Content, Keywords and Links. As always ensure that your content, keywords and links are unique, of good quality and relevant to your business. Your back links should also be relevant so be sure to look out for and reject illogical links. Use absolute links which are less likely to have issues, but also allow you to get more backlink love if your content gets scraped. Remember that when it comes to keywords there is such thing as “too many” so don’t overdo it.

2. Make your links and keywords easily accessible to spiders. Drop down menus make the website user friendly, but they aren’t spider friendly. Somewhere on the page you should be placing good old-fashioned text links so spiders can find them. Also, be aware that SPIDERS CAN NOT CRAWL IMAGES OR FLASH. Be sure to label everything with text and include text descriptions so that spiders can find it more easily. Use minimal AJAX and Flash, and you shouldn’t be using frames at all.

3. Viral Videos and Pics. Enable the “Enhanced Image Search” option and list a video sitemap in your Google Webmaster Central account. Also, get your videos played on viral sites like YouTube, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Metacafe and MySpace. All these places are crawled by Google. When posting captions and descriptions for pics and videos use words like “image” “pics” or “video” since many searches for pictures or videos include obvious words like that.

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4. Unique Title Tags. Make sure that each title tag on your website is different and has a keyword in it. Don’t put your company name in there unless you are so big and popular that people ask for you by name. In other words, unless you’re Wal-Mart, Gucci, or Vera Wang, you should put your name somewhere else on the page… like at the end.

5. Interior linkage. When linking pages within your website, don’t simply hyperlink the words “click here”. Use keywords instead. So if you’re selling diamonds then hyperlink the phrase “Buy Wholesale Diamonds” or “Wholesale Diamond Information”. Also, if you have “index” associated with your home page (ie: DelawareDiamonds.com/index.html) then be sure to arrange it so you’re not splitting your links. You don’t need index.html, default.php or any of those. Your URL should just be your URL with a plain-Jane dotcom (net, org, edu or whatever) ending. When linking internally though, spiders and search engines don’t pay attention to your URL file extension.

6. Location, Location, Location. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, be aware of local search keywords. Don’t be afraid to put your location (i.e. Florida, New York, Presque Island,) into your keyword phrases. “Delaware Diamonds,” “New York Fashion” or even just “Presque Island Store” instead of “our store” helps people find you better. This is especially important if you count on your customers finding you online, and buying your products/services in-store.

7. Make sure to buy up any similar URLs to yours and have them redirect to your website. This is not the same thing as creating doorways, gates or mirror sites. What this does mean is that if your original URL is http://www.happybusiness.com then you could buy up http://happybusiness.com, happybusiness.net, happybusiness.org, and have them all automatically and instantly redirect to your original site. This typically works well for website URLs which are commonly misspelled by searchers. A good example is Barnes and Noble: you can enter www.barnesandnoble.com into your address bar and you’ll automatically be redirected to www.bn.com. Just a note though before you go buying up URLs; Don’t buy up links that haven’t been updated or used in over a month. The best way to tell is to do a Google search for “cache” plus whatever website your looking for. i.e.: “cache:www.whateverwebsite.com”

8. Sticky Forwarding. If you’re completely renovating your website and changing domain names then be sure to use “sticky forwarding.” This will allow users to get redirected from your old site to your new one and help them transition through the change better.

9. Check Yourself. Google up some server header checkers (you can actually do a search for “Check Server Header”) to get a tool that will check your redirected websites. You should be popping up with a report that says: ‘301 moved permanently” or “200 OK” if they are set up and used the right way. If not, either fix them or get someone to do it for you.

10. Guilt By Association. Make sure to run occasional blacklist checks if you are running on a shared server to make sure that you’re not sharing space with any banned or notoriously shady websites. This could actually affect your ratings with search engines. It also helps to make sure that your domain ownership information is visible by search engines.

11. Sponsorship. Philanthropy is actually rewarded by most search engines. Find non-profit organizations on the web, see if they are looking for sponsors and reap the benefits of those back links.

12. RSS Optimization. It is what it sounds like. You need to be optimizing your RSS feed the same way you would any of your web pages.

13. Beneficial Blogging. Your title tag and blog title are two different things so make sure you’re optimizing both separately. Use a “call to action” style of blogging where you provoke people to respond or react to what you’re blogging about. Also see if you can get someone of influence to post something special on you blog. Build up to it ahead of time: i.e. “Coffee Guru, Joe Schmoe will be posting with us on October 10th!” You can also ask the person of influence to post comments and opinions on blogs that you’ve written.

14. Social Networking is SEO. You can’t do SEO nowadays without incorporating social networking into the mix. Websites like Digg, Facebook, Twitter and Del.icio.us have become SEO essentials. Also, adding components like blogs, podcasts, social content, reviews, sharing apps, user ratings and comments help to boost your website’s “viral appeal.” It does take extra time and effort to do this right and not spam every blog you come across so make sure that you or whoever you hire knows what they’re doing so your website doesn’t get penalized.

15. Quality not Quantity. I know I talk a lot about page rank, but it’s actually not so important that you’re #1. There are plenty of websites that outrank the #1 spotters in hits, quality, sales and time spent on the site simply because the lesser-ranked website has better and more relevant content. Another important thing to do is keep adding to or refreshing the content that you have to legitimize your website to search engines. You should be adding new content or changing content about 3-5 times a week to keep spiders happy.

Popularity: 46%

Web directories are not search engines. They are categorized lists of websites and function much like an online version of the yellow pages. Web directories are also not considered to be link farms which makes it a beneficial place to put your website address and work your way up in the search engines. In fact you’ve probably come accross Google , Yahoo!, Mozilla and MSN which all have their own directory listing sites. There are many others too if you are willing to search for them.

How you get listed in a directory is completely up how much you want to pay and where you go. Some websites will offer free submission or will list you at no cost if you are willing to add their link to your page. Be wary of free directories though since depending on how legitimate they are, you could end up getting penalized for link farming. More importantly though, you should consider paid submission sites because they practically never have a no-follow application which means your website will do better in search engine rank/ratings.

You have to be careful when submitting your website for consideration to a directory. Submissions are usually evaluated by real-live humans who are looking for spammers, black hatters and bogus or scammy websites. In order to let them know you’re legit, be sure to submit your website to the right category. If the directory doesn’t have a category that you really fit into, then suggest one and explain why you think you should be put there.

Hitting the web and doing some research on the directories that you want to submit to is the best way to ensure acceptance. Create a list of directories that you would like to be placed on and start looking into them. Some things you’re going to need to know are:

Mimic the Manager/Editor’s Preferred Style. Writing a very precise description that imitates the directory editor’s style will make it easier for him/her to accept you quickly and with few, if any alterations to what you’ve written. You can find this out by searching for businesses with similar keywords that have already been accepted. Look at their descriptions, keywords and categories and submit your keywords, description and category suggestion based on what you’ve found.

Equal, but Different. Ensure that although you descriptive style resembles that of the other businesses, your description still accurately reflects your unique business services. In other words if your company provides five specialized services or has a unique target market, then be sure to include that information.

The Long and Short of it. The criteria for business descriptions can be vary greatly from web directory to web directory. It’s useful to have several descriptions ready of different lengths. Have one that’s 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, and 200 words long. You should certainly include 1-5 keywords (one for every 10 - 20 words perhaps) but don’t stuff them in or make them too obvious since that will get you rejected. Keywords are allowed by web directories, but they certainly aren’t going to accept sketchy submissions.

Industry vs General Directories. When submitting to a web directory, keep in mind the type of directory it’s marketing itself as. Always be sure that your content belongs in the category you selected, your information is unique and your keywords aren’t crammed in there like a pack of sardines. You also want to place your keywords correctly so that search engines can pick them up easily. Only choose keywords that your company uses in the name or title of your website. Anything else may look suspicious and the directory manager will remove them.

Additional Things to Keep in Mind:
Always submit your homepage first. You can submit more specific web pages later, but it’s good form to start with the basics. Chances are that your individual web pages will be accepted if your main web site was.

Keep in mind that directories rank websites by keyword popularity within each category. I can’t reiterate enough that if you don’t typically use a keyword for your website in the title or business name, then don’t use it in your description. It will only get you rejected for looking like a spammer.

If you do get rejected you can resubmit your website after about four weeks, but don’t resubmit more than three times. After that contact the directory manager and find out what you can do to get in there. Sometimes it’s your keywords, submission lengths or maybe it’s your website. Getting into directories can help boost your rankings and they don’t have as stringent rules as search engines. If you aren’t successfully complying with them then you certainly aren’t going to rank well in search engines either. It would be beneficial for your website to find out what you can do differently and accommodate their standards.

Popularity: 46%

Over the past year or two I’ve been hearing quite a bit about Gray Hat SEO. There seems to be a few ideas out there on what Gray Hat is and how it is achieved. This in itself makes it a “gray area” thus possibly earning its name no matter what the actual definition. Either way, the tactic is always questionable and borders on Black Hat, if not crosses the line completely. It’s a highly debatable issue, but here are the major veins of reasoning in regard to what Gray Hat SEO is and why it’s used.

1. New SEO tactics that wouldn’t necessarily be considered White Hat because still they involve manipulating content, keywords, codes, web pages and/or URLs to increase SE score and rank. On the other hand, they haven’t been deemed Black Hat by search engines yet. (Emphasis on yet.)

2. Another form of Gray Hat tactics are those that have been deemed Black Hat techniques, but are subdued to a point that search engines won’t pick up on it. An example might be keyword stuffing just under a concentration that a crawler would notice. However, there will usually be a high enough keyword density that a reader would be able to pick up on it.

3. Many people believe that Gray Hat SEO is Black Hat techniques which managers use in ethical ways, thus justifying the behavior. The reasoning is that Black Hat is typically used to spread spam, viruses, malware or promote scam-products or services. Legitimate businesses who are trying to increase their page rank feel that using some Black Hat tactics are okay because they aren’t spreading spam or causing harm to others. These “lesser offenses” won’t get them banned, but could get them penalized.

4. A fourth theory is that because search engines basically give score/rank on two things: Good search engine results, and lots of visitors. Gray Hat uses mild black hat methods to achieve white hat results in search engines in order to get visitors, but ensures that those surfers are getting the relevant and quality information they were looking for. This sort of goes along with all three of the examples above.

Gray Hat SEO tactics generally take longer to discover than Black Hat because the intent isn’t necessarily malicious. However even though you may take two steps forward by using Gray Hat, eventually search engines will have you taking three steps back. It takes longer, but White Hat has an advantage over other methods because the results are long term and ultimately bring in more traffic (and cash) over time. So really, it’s not an ethics issue. For true SEO marketing professionals, it’s just plain common sense.

Popularity: 46%

Proper SEO and SEM techniques are often things that marketing managers have to learn themselves. They certainly weren’t teaching it when I graduated college back in 2005. No matter how much we research or how hard we try, it’s all too easy to find ourselves in some sticky situations by doing things we never knew were wrong. I’m talking of course, about Black Hat SEO practices. Here’s a list of things (in alphabetical order) everyone should avoid in order to keep their website from being banned from every major search engine out there. You’ll notice that a lot of ideas listed below are simply a matter of good ethics or common sense, but just in case you didn’t get the memo…

Astro-Turfing
Don’t launch a fake PR campaign or create a social networking upheaval based on false information just to generate traffic to your website.

Celebrity Look-A-Likes
When someone posts blogs, or creates blogs and forums under the name of someone significant. By “significant” I mean either a celebrity or someone who is well recognized in their industry. This celebrity impersonator will usually post comments or blogs that are damaging to a competitor. A less illegal, but certainly just as immoral act would be if an industry guru posted discouraging comments on their competitor’s site anonymously to ultimately drive traffic back to their own website.

Cloaking
Another form of misrepresentation. It’s when you are Showing one set of keywords and content to spiders and bots and a separate set of content to visitors.

Code Swapping
Other wise known as the “old switcharoo.” This is when companies take a top ranking page URL (usually one they’ve purchased) and swap it around so that it shows a different page that benefits their business. This is almost always a temporary fix, so it doesn’t make much sense to swap code if you don’t need to. Most companies have legitimate reasons to swap around their code if they are changing their business model or even owners. However, swapping code for the purposes of duping search engines is against the rules.

Doorway Site
Similar to gateway sites, but instead of having a link or redirection tool that the user follows, the user actually never even sees the doorway site. It’s just a fake page used to trick spiders into indexing the main page higher up on the SE.

Gateway Site
These can be identified as web pages with practically no content in them except for some (possibly hidden) keywords. They usually have some sort of text in the center or up top that says: “Click here to enter” They have no use to the web surfer, and their purpose is to simply rank high in SE results so that people can click on that link and be taken to the real website, which may not rank as well or have scammy content.

Google Bombs
Remember when you learned that if you Googled “miserable failure” George Bush’s website would pop up at the top of the SE list? That happened because hundreds (thousands?) of people linked Dubbya’s Whitehouse homepage to their websites by hyperlinking the words “miserable failure”. That was just a collective joke, but when one person Google bombs it can get them penalized or even banned – and that’s not funny. A website owner can create a Google bomb by hyperlinking the same (usually irrelevant) text to the same URL on various other websites. This will allow them to jump up in ratings when people Google that keyword. That is, until they get banned.

Google Bowling
Google bowling is essentially sabotage. It’s when a company links SEO spam links to a competing company’s website in hopes that Google will penalize or banish their competitor.

Invisible text
Not commonly used anymore since it’s easy to get caught. It’s when irrelevant keywords and phrases are hidden on a webpage by either making them incredibly small, hiding them in the html code of the page, or making them the same color as the page’s background.

Keyword and Meta Tag Stuffing
When companies fill up their web page with as many keywords and meta tags as possible in a pathetic attempt to get better SE Ratings it’s called stuffing. Typically they are hidden, but many times they aren’t. Fortunately Google doesn’t view this as “quality content” and it won’t work.

Mirror Sites and Purchasing Expired Domain Names
Sure, those expired sites may have great page rankings, but by using multiple websites and using them as mirror sites, (or websites with the same content, but different URLs) and to create backlinks to your original site, you’re making yourself a likely candidate for dismissal and penalties.

Page Hijacking
This involves creating a duplicate site of an existing website which will ultimately redirect users to an unrelated website. This specific tactic is often used to download malware and spyware on to users’ computers once they have reached the hijackers website. Whether or not the real website is malicious, this tactic will still get you banned.

Scraper Sites
Otherwise known as “Made for Adsense” (MFA) sites. These websites use automated programs that steal and amalgamate various content from top ranking websites in order to create original looking content for themselves or a third party.

Spam of All Kinds
There’s a few kinds of spam that we’re talking about here. Most of these are blantently unethical, like comment spam or spam pages, but others like “wiki spam” were used commonly simply because the marketer didn’t know better.

Blog Spam (Splogs) are essentially “link farms” (a colony of web pages that all reference each other) and are created for the sole purpose of spamming other blogs and driving traffic to either their own website or another “main” website that the spammer owns. They can do this by placing links, keywords and hyperlinked text on random blog sites. It is often a source of comment spam.

Comment Spam is when a company posts comments in the blog, forum, wiki page, guestbook or articles section of a high-ranking website in order to improve their own standings on a search engine. They are usually obvious to anyone to sees them. They may or may not be relevant to the discussion, they usually contain some kind of link or information that leads the reader back to the spammer’s website, and they are chock full of keywords making it even more conspicuous.

Spamdexing or Referrer Log Spam. This works on the basis that when a web surfer accesses one website through a link on another website, the website that originally “referred” the link is entered into a referrer log. This is essentially a list of websites that have referred people to that site and is usually displayed publicly on a special “links” page. Sometimes the referrer will employ the use of software to automatically and arbitrarily access a large amount of websites over and over again creating numerous amount of backlinks through these referrer index logs thus improving their page rank.

Wiki Spam. Wikipedia started using “nofollow” values in their html code back in 2005 because of this black hat tactic. It’s when website owners/managers use the open edit capabilities of wiki pages in order to backlink to their own website. While users can still follow these links, they will not affect the website’s rank on Google since Google’s algorithm is designed to ignore “nofollow” links.

Final Word on Black Hat SEO
About a year ago some major companies were caught using interns to do some Astroturfing. (I remember one company was Amazon’s Shelfari. I know there were some others but I can’t find a record of them anywhere.) They hired on interns, told the interns to post spammy blogs on other people’s sites and when they were caught, the companies basically told everyone that they knew nothing about it and blamed everything on the interns. Although these companies recovered in the Google rankings fairly quickly, their reputation with customers and blog owners remained bruised for a lot longer.

The general rule of thumb is to be careful and do your research. If you’re trying a new SEO method or your not sure about something ask someone who probably does know. Hiring a professional SEO/SEM company is always a good idea - just make sure they have a “No Black Hat” policy. If you do find yourself banned or penalized by a search engine, don’t panic. Banishment isn’t necessarily final and neither is falling in rank. Contact the search engine and find out why then work with them to correct the problem. You’ll usually find that they’re pretty reasonable. They know that most SEO/M managers don’t do these things on purpose and don’t want to be tagged as a Spammer or Black Hatter. Unless of course, they were going to change careers anyway.

Popularity: 41%

I recently posted an article about the importance of properly naming your website and webpage headlines as well as adding in the right (and the right amount of) keywords. With the economy being what it is, many people will be starting up new online businesses soon. In order to help with their efforts, I decided to write up a quick entry on the importance of creating an SEO friendly business name.

A substantial amount of searches performed online are direct brand searches. In other words, people are searching for companies by name. In order to make sure that your business name isn’t drowned out in the rankings, be sure to follow some simple rules:

Get some hired help. I highly recommend hiring a SEO agency, marketing firm or SEO consultant to think of something for you. But if you insist on doing it yourself…

Make sure that your business name does NOT contain any popular or highly competitive keywords. A name like “Jill’s Discount Toys” is more likely to get ranked poorly if “discount toys” is a hot keyword, even if a potential consumer searches for Jill’s company by name. The reason: Because if “discount toys” is a competitive keyword then everyone is going to use it.

Think about acronyms. Can your business name easily be shortened into initials? Think IBM, MRI, AIG or UNH. All of these are businesses with names that the general public thought would be easier to shorten to a set of initials, and therefore search for them that way. The problem is that there’s always more than one business out there with the same acronym and the likelihood of not being drowned out (especially as a small and brand new business) by those other guys is pretty slim. I’ll give an example: Let’s say your business name is the “Salvatore Engineering Operation”. It’s very easy for the general population to search for your business as SEO… well we all know what that is going to bring up and it’s not Salvatore Engineering Operation. So be careful when advertising and putting your name out there.

Be memorable. Easier said than done, I know. Using a clever name, logo or tagline can help people remember your name better. People also remember colorful marketing, unusual color schemes and well organized and branded company logos/names. When people can make an association between your name and something clever, it is easier for them to retrieve that information from the back of their minds. This will also help to prevent people from turning your business name into an acronym.

A common scenario: “Uh, I know it started with an “S”… “S-S-Something” Engineering Operation… oh well, I’ll just Google SEO.) They may also decide to search for the only words they remember: “Engineering Operation.” These two very general keywords will bring up all kinds of companies, none of which are probably yours.

Don’t forget to think locally. If you think your name may be turned into a set of initials, (and you’re absolutely stuck on naming yourself that) then think about putting your state, providence, country or whatever place you feel necessary into your name. “SEO of Maine” or “Napa Valley SEO” may get your business name a little closer to the first page of search results – although it’s still unlikely in the case of “SEO”.

Don’t spend your SEO budget unwisely. You need a place in the rankings, but your new company name just isn’t raking in the hits. So you start to think about PPC and Sponsored Ads. The problem with PPC ads when your company name consists of competitive keywords or ellipses, is that you are going to illicit a lot of poor quality clicks. In other words, anyone searching for an SEO company may click on your PPC ad, but they won’t help to generate an income since your SEO is an engineering company. Without the right name those PPC ads are just costing you money.

Do your research. Get a list of ideas together for your company name and start searching for them online. Also do some searches for abbreviations, possible misspellings, partial names and any other possible ways that a searcher can screw up those business names you’ve thought up. You can even try “reverse engineering” the process by looking up the least popular keywords you can find and building your company name from those. Above all be flexible. Don’t get stuck on one name and be stubborn about it. If it won’t work, then it won’t work – end of story.

Popularity: 25%

There’s a global financial storm brewing and it’s just getting started. Here in the USA we’ve got a subprime mortgage crisis, rising gas and energy costs, (I know, I know. Our gas prices are lower than most of the world - but it still hurts,) overall inflation due to those rising gas and energy costs, and the bankruptcy of some of our major financial firms. Just this week the USA Government made a very controversial move by bailing Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG out of trouble. The bust of these major financial companies has even affected India’s recently booming economy, where most of those troubled firm’s IT positions were outsourced to. Russia’s Micex index fell 25% which is the largest financial crisis they’ve experienced since 1998. I’m also sad to say that Japan, Vietnam, Europe and many others are either heading for or already engulfed in a similar economic crisis situation.

Luckily, for those who are running their business online, the internet could act as a kind of “flotation device” in which we can ride out the storm. Don’t get me wrong, the seas of our global economy will still be fairly rough, but online businesses can make it through if they play their cards right. So far US technology stocks have not been reduced to ash the way other industries have. In fact Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo and IBM are all in very good financial health right now. Internet usage is up due to an increase in telecommuting and job searches. Which also suggests that the search demand is growing (or at least not shrinking) too. Granted increased searches and traffic don’t necessarily add up to increased sales if people are just searching for new jobs. However since internet businesses don’t have any major connections to the financial industry they automatically gain more faith from investors and consumers. Also, the internet is notorious for bargain hunters looking for good deals on essential (and even some non-essential) items. The trend towards consumers purchasing less from the brick-and-mortar counter parts of online stores should increase dramatically. In short, there may be less frivolous spending going on in the near future, but more of what sales do occur will be online.

Also, as our new “Net-Gen” gets older and starts to flood the workforce, we should see many new innovations, uses and opportunities for the internet to boost our economy. We should see an increase in consulting, freelance and contract workers as people start their own home based businesses. Internet jobs won’t pay what they used to as companies try to grab the cheapest talent possible, but there will be work nonetheless. Online businesses have super low start up rates by nature so if you haven’t already, find your forte and hit it.

If you already own an online business, be sure to play it smart. This doesn’t necessarily mean play it safe all the time though. It’s better to take a risk on a project that has a more predictable or quicker return on investment, as opposed waiting until something “better” comes along. Stagnation is very dangerous in times of recession. It’s also better for the global economy as a whole for business to take care of themselves and invest their time and attention wisely.

Also, now is a good time to closely analyze your overall financial picture. If you don’t think, or don’t know if you can weather out the next year or so, you should either cut your expenses and ultimately jobs, or invest in growth (the smarter and more responsible of the two options). Invest in traceable advertising and marketing to make ensure you’re not spending more money than you need to. SEO, pay-per-click, email blasts, webvertising are all intelligent choices for online marketing. Just remember to use offline marketing wisely and keep your offline and online marketing mixes fairly consistent.

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According to SEO Guru, Chris Sherman, two thirds of individuals perform online searches based on offline marketing efforts. As a direct result of their online search efforts, 40% of them will end up buying a product or service from that store. In this age of internet marketing, it is still hard for small and medium sized businesses to measure the effectiveness of integrating online marketing efforts into their mix. However, the overall numbers should certainly make it worth a try.

Currently, online retail sales only represent about 4-8% of all purchases made in the USA. That means that the majority of all purchases are still being made from traditional brick and mortar stores. So why should offline retailers focus on online marketing and SEO? Because according to BIGResearch, 89% of offline purchases in 2007 were largely influenced by online research conducted by the consumer. Not only that, but TMP Directional Marketing released research data suggesting that approximately 82% of individuals who use local search engines followed up with some sort of offline action such as an in store visit or a phone call.

Marketing managers are calling this the ROBO effect (Research Online, Buy Offline). And it seems to be more than just a trend. These numbers have been going strong since the inception of search engines and are headed up. In 2007, over $500 billion of offline purchases were influenced by online research. (eMarketer) Jupiter Research estimates that that number will reach $1 trillion in just two short years.

Sherman states that this offline/online research/purchasing pattern is a “vicious circle.” Effective offline marketing campaigns will drive people to the web to do more research. In turn, 39% of people who did an online search based on offline information purchased a product from the same company whose ad prompted the search in the first place. Again, individual stores have a hard time measuring the effects of their offline ads in correlation to their online presence. But it’s undeniable that having some sort of searchable online presence will induce sales that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred, or may have occurred somewhere else.

It seems that mostly large businesses are the ones who are desegregating their online and offline marketing efforts. Even so, only 55% of online marketing managers are integrating their SEO efforts with offline channels. For instance, television ads are by far the most effective way to prompt consumers to do a search. However, only 12% of all companies use television as a means of driving people to their website or a search engine. SEO and SEM managers don’t intentionally ignore the obvious channels for driving internet searches and traffic. Most search marketers work for small firms that can’t afford television ads. But don’t worry, there’s hope for the little guys.

Get a web address if for no other reason that to blog, draw in consumer participation and offer more information about products. If marketers want to take it one step further, they can offer an 800 number for consumers to make their order. Another option that many businesses like Cabella’s and Payless Shoe Stores offer is the ability to order online and pick up their order in the store that is closest to them. This is a great way to create an online presence while driving traffic to your store.

Use the same branding online as you do offline. Colors, logos, tag lines, etc. should all be integrated into your website and online advertisements. Many businesses are using videos, articles and blogs to drive traffic to their website as well. This enables your website address to show up in integrated searches. And lastly, make sure that there is keyword synchronicity between offline and online content. This will allow users to find you more easily.

Before and during your website’s construction make sure your target audience knows its coming. Buying your web address and then setting up something aesthetically pleasing or interesting that says “website under construction. You will be able to learn more about XYZ company’s products on January 01, 2009.” Give a date. You’ll be surprised how many people will remember.

This of course, brings us to advertising. Although television is the most effective way to prompt people about using a product, businesses can use newspapers, magazines, radio shows, email blasts and even direct mail to get their business name and web address out there. What’s important is that they know who you are, they have some keywords they can use to find information about you online, and they have a web address. The point is to think holistically and use a consistent design and message everywhere so that they will remember who you are and ultimately have you in mind when they go to make their purchase offline.

When people search online 36% are looking for news, 31% are looking for images and 17% are looking for videos. Sherman states that “Search marketers should put a priority on optimizing press releases. Optimizing other types of digital assets is important, but should be secondary.” He also states that it is important to know who your target audience is and don’t be afraid to assign them “personas” so that marketing campaigns and in-store customer service efforts can be tailored to them. For instance Best Buy has discovered and named four customer profiles: “Buzz” the techie, “Barry” the wealthy professional, “Ray” the family man and “Jill” the soccer mom. Each one of these identified personalities will receive different kinds of information and product offers in-store and out.

Another way to drive up sales in your brick and mortar institution is through the use of social networking. Social networking is essentially online buzz marketing. By creating your own blogs and participating in other companies/peoples blogs and chats you can build up your own image, improve a negative misconception that the public may have had about your business or a product, and offer the kind of information that people need to feel comfortable making a purchase from you. It essentially plays on the power of word of mouth and reviews. Social marketing needs to be done right though. The focus should be on sincerity, responsiveness, and a casual non-sales approach. Social networking (marketing) is especially useful because it involves direct communication with the consumer when they feel least inhibited. They are more likely to give honest opinions and tell you exactly what they think, want and need. It’s like having your own focus group, but better.

Here’s a few more online facts that may shock and surprise you. According to the Universal McCann’s Comparative Study on Social Media Trends, April 2008:

• 73% of active online users have read a blog
• 45% have started their own blog
• 39% subscribe to an RSS feeds
• 57% have joined a social network
• 55% have uploaded photos
• 83% have watched video clips

Many search marketers face organizational challenges when attempting to integrate SEO/SEM into their marketing mix. Stakeholders may see the internet as unknown territory, and therefore are threatened or intimidated by it. They may also have some sort of “vested interest” in keeping with traditional offline marketing techniques. However, by sharing best practice techniques and case studies proving the success that offline and online integration can bring, they may slowly change their mind about it.

Good marketing means working smart and knowing your customers habits. Right now all consumers believe that knowledge is power and the internet is a source for both. This makes online search engines a powerful tool for offline businesses if they decide to use it. Remember to think holistically, remain consistent in branding efforts and use it as a part of a larger online/offline marketing campaign.

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Quite often, we get asked questions like “How much should i spend per month on paid search?” - This one is a fantastic question, however, there is really only one person who can answer that and that is you!

Some things to consider when developing a budget for your paid search campaign:

1. Determine some solid campaign goals. These can be branding, traffic, conversions or whatever other metric you find is most relevant to your business.
2. How much each click is going to cost you - Do some keyword research, try to get an idea of what each click is going to cost you.
3. Workout how many clicks you need to make a difference to your bottom line and at what point you make a profit. I would recommend analyzing your current conversion data and starting with that to workout your ROI.

Now that you have some basic figures around what goals you need to hit to make you profitable, you should be able to work backwards and then workout how much money you can spend on your paid search campaign.

If you are running a CPA based campaign and you are making profit directly from the clicks, then its an easy argument to say that your budget should be unlimited. The more clicks, the more profit. Simple, so as long as you keep hitting your average conversion goals and your CPC stays within your target range, let it spend!

If you are after click volume and your revenue is based on lets say page views through an advertising network, the equation isn’t much different. Take your average CPM and work backwards, taking into account things such as the average number of times each user returns to the site etc to see how much you can afford to pay per click and still remain profitable.

The tough decision with budgets comes on purely brand based campaigns as the flow on effect from this is sometimes hard to directly attribute to paid search. So i guess, without knowing specifics about the brand, the tracking or anything else this is more of a “What can i afford to spend” kind of dilemma where you bite the bullet and allocate X$ per month and then re-evaluate.

This isn’t intended to be an in depth article about defining budgets, simply some thoughts around ways of allocating budgets and getting clients thinking about some more fundamental questions which factor into their search budget allocation.

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