As a parent myself and a new comer to the digital world I was amazed that some parents still think this “Fad” that their teenagers are going through will fade away. With the stats that were revealed to us last night the digital world is growing at a fast and furious pace. It is not going anywhere and it is up to us as parents to empower ourselves with this knowledge. I also believe that schools in general should be working towards incorporating this as part of their education system.

This is the future of our children and generations to come. Is it not better to have the “know how” so we can also educate our children with the correct “etiquette” of social networking and how it could affect you in later years to come.

We are looking for a results-oriented Internet technical marketing specialist, with notable successes in directing a broad range of SEO/SEM strategies and campaigns, PPC campaigns, technology development, strategic online planning, and revenue generation.

This is a unique and challenging opportunity to work with a highly motivated team in a positive, fast-paced environment, where your experience, creative thinking and exceptional skills will be appreciated and rewarded.

In summary, the SEO/SEM Manager will be responsible for increasing the site traffic position of client sites through both paid and organic search. He/she will develop the strategy for, oversee the execution of, manage the budget, and measure the success of all SEO and SEM efforts. Must have prior search engine marketing experience with a strong track record, excellent analytic capabilities, sound business judgment, and be comfortable in a fast-paced environment.

Is this you? Are you able to do all (or most) of the above? Then view the full Search Engine Marketing Manager position description and let us know that you are out there.

The primary focus of this position is to set up, implement, maintain, analyse and report on Pay Per Click services.

Duties, requirements and further details can be found here, PPC Specialist/Search Marketer.

Here is a summary of the report

The Search Marketing Trends report analyzes the factors that are driving consumers, followed by marketers, to online search engines.

Marketers have four basic search options: paid search, contextual advertising, paid inclusion—all three are types of advertising—and search engine optimization (SEO).

While paid search gets most of the attention and money, marketers are increasingly turning to SEO to acquire new customers.

All four options will experience increased spending through 2013. By then total US search marketing outlays will reach nearly $23.4 billion, and marketers will be spending more on SEO than on contextual advertising.

The Search Marketing Trends report aggregates the latest data from marketing and communications researchers with eMarketer analysis to provide the information you need to make smart, timely business decisions.

Search Marketing Trends: A Return to Basics

When website owners consider ways to market their sites on the Web, the most common Search Marketing methods they choose are often Banner- or Pay-Per-Click Advertising. These methods allow advertisers to calculate the Return on Investment within a number of days after going live with their campaign. In addition to this, live tracking tools allow site owners to monitor Site Visitors, Cost per Conversion and Click-through Rates to their site with a click of a button.

I honestly think that this is not an entirely new trend but certainly one that has gained much momentum and will continue to gain even more. We find that people are finely tuned-in to see a ROI in much quicker time and with the help of various free online tools available to the Internet-savvy site owner, control is now in their hands. The sliding scale has tipped over from marketing companies telling/advising clients what to do to clients telling the marketing company exactly what they want (even adding instructions on how it must be done).

It is true that in a world where everything has become “instant”, there is a new reality that people do not have the patience to wait for results anymore. We have become used to and are expecting to see immediate results. This expectancy has shifted over to Online Advertising. Website owners not only want instant visitors by using the quickest methods possible, but they want to see results and conversions and they want to also track the effectiveness of their campaigns, all at the same time.

Like I mentioned, the weight has shifted, thus, from a Search Marketing perspective, digital companies now not only have to deal with a fast paced industry where the metrics are constantly changing, but they also have to meet the higher customer demand. Clients are expecting better results, higher relevancy, bigger profitability margins and increased performance, which I believe is something Search Marketing companies have adjusted to sufficiently to deliver quality results, not only to meet the needs of result driven clients, but to even exceed client expectation.

The key here is that Digital Companies should not fall back on trying to advise the clients on what to do, but to embrace the fact that clients mostly know what they want and to simply then provide a strategy that supports and improves the client objectives. Any company should be able to adjust if they are open-minded to change.

For this very reason, they seldom look at long-term solutions and never think of the value that copywrited content or optimized website pages offer them for the long term. Search Engine Optimisation is probably one of the least thought-of methods to use for online marketing.

However, it is a very effective, proven way of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Much more patience is required when doing SEO, but it will deliver the desired results.

As mentioned above, SEO is not only a proven Marketing method, but a very effective method to improve volume and quality of traffic to any website. Apart from patience and the understanding of SEO implementation, regular testing and tweaking is required which is why it takes much longer than 24 hours to see your efforts pay off. The end result is just as rewarding as that of seeing conversions come through from PPC or Banner referrals. The trick is knowing that it is not only about getting more quality visitors to the site, but understanding how to convert these visitors into customers.

Search Engine Optimisation works when applied correctly and the key is that it needs to be applied in a transparent way with no shortcuts taken. More importantly Search Engine Optimisation can work quickly, effectively and drive massive amounts of traffic to the desired site.

There is always a right way and a wrong way to do things. Perhaps it is just the way I am, but transparency and honesty is the core of everything I do and this must be the foundation from which I function. So, from my dealings with clients, colleagues, site visitors and even search engines, this is the metric that stays constant for me. That is why (again, for me) SEO should be applied in the correct manner and be done without trying to take shortcuts. Knowing the risks of taking shortcuts and knowing what the right and wrong things are and how to implement or when not to implement them, is important.

In conclusion, it is perhaps not a question of whether you are considering Search Engine Optimization as a marketing tool. All Search Marketing companies will tell you that it is worth doing it. It isn’t even a question of whether you are doing PPC or Banner advertising because these are equally important and effective.

Perhaps it is more a question of how you implement any of the above, how you engage with your client and what the message is that you want to give people about you and about your site.

Perhaps we should start there and then decide which method is best to market ourselves or our business.

For brand marketers it:

• creates direct communication channel
• adds new media outlets
• creates engagement
• humanizes relations with the public
• facilitates marketing communication

Podcast SEO

• is based on planning
• deceide whether you want to do a once off pod-show or scheduled series – monthly, weekly, etc
• are you going to be a entertainment site
• name the show

You should do SEO for Video as you do for any site, so you should:

• optimize the sound of the video
• optimize your site or blog landing pages
• create a seperate page where the video will reside and optimize that page
• create an archive of previous videos

In essence the comments were that it is better to get good at free tools first before spending money on paid analytics tools.

From the panel, Brian Clifton from Google mentioned that they specifically provide a free solution as a way to get back to advertisers while it has to drive revenue back to the company.

Overall, the general feeling from everyone on the panel was that providing free tools is a good thing providing it is done transparenly.

The top key learning areas for measuring and tracking is to track more than web related media, we should track other media like mobile and such.

Another issue discussed was around privacy. It is getting harder for Analytics tools to track sites because of increasing security & privacy issues as well as the use of cookies.

In short, all agreed that Analytic tools should track visitor behaviour:

• where do users come from?
• what do they look at?
• what are they doing?
• do they sign up?

However, there seemd to be some disagreement in how various Analytics tools measure clicks and hits and it was unclear really what metrics were tracked correctly.

A few other mentions:
- Social Media – what is considered popular and how do we track it? – does it drive traffic?
- Behaviour, whether positive or negative. How do you track comments and mentions?

The future of Analytics:s

• more aware of conversion rates
• year of testing
• awareness of moving into metrics of measuring whether all my marketing is succesfful via my websites
• more awareness in culture of companies

A few things he covered in this session:

Usable architecture
- As marketers, our #1 goal should be to get people to the site
- #2 is to get them to do what we want them to do

The secrect of Search Engines
Searh Engines want to provide most relevant results by accounting for humans factors – they mimick human factors. We need to keep in mind what the human factors are what search engines might be looking at.

Site building foundations
- Architecture – how well the SE can get through your site
- How many links within and to the site
- Content of your site

These 3 are inter-related.

Matthew says that the #1 problem in sites are that their architecture is wrong – sites need to be easy to read and it should be easy to find the rest of the information you are looking for. Search Engines are the dumbest user coming to your site and therefore we need to make our sites accessible for them as well as the human visitor.

He then moved on to several aspects of site architecture and covered the following:
- We should use Google Webmaster Guidelines and also the W3C guidelines as a standard for design – both are similar to each other and give a good direction
- Does your site ask the user something? This is called user dependant action (something like a dropdown list) – Rather than using that, give people an alternative way to enter your site
- The SERP’s is the first marketing message people will see – you need to control this space – write good page titles and meta descriptions
- Don’t use cluttered or unfriendly URL’s that are not rewritten
one “=” sign – you’re good
two “=” signs – mmm, maybe
three “=” signs – not good
- Do you use a favicon? Perhaps you should (your brand can be saved to the user browser)

CSS & Standards
1. Can validated code help you rank higher?
2. Do sites using CSS rank higher?

Matthew basically asnwered both questions in one sentence by focusing on CSS. He basically said that CSS focuses on content and used right, it defines the content of a page. All the design elements are external and CSS reduces page clutter. So his answer is a yes.

Standards & Validation
1. Validation uncovers coding erros
2. It also assures that spiders can index content

Validation does not increase rankings but does affect it.

He then went on to the topic of mobile browsing, explaining that it is “getting hot”, and that our sites should be accessible via mobile phones and PDA’s. The bottom line for all of us is to design a site to be accessed “at any time, through any device”…

Next he talked about keywords. The #1 rule of keywords is to call products what they are and to not try and define a new market. So, when people are searching for “nails” you should optimize for nails and not something you thought was quirky and new.

Brands are NOT top of mind to people searches – needs are.

Then Matthew continued about importance of Page Titles, descriptions and keyword tags. He said Page Title tags is priority #1, Meta Description tags priority #2 and Meta Keyword tags are a waste of time. Personally, yes and no, I’d say the best is to use it, but not spend too much time on it. It can still help.

Then he continued on page structure and how people read a page. the fact is people don’t read, they scan content – 79% of users scan and 16% read word for word.

People scan:
- headlines
- meaningful sub headings
- bulleted lists
- headers: one idea per paragraph

You content arrangement needs to have the most important info at the top and, as Matthew suggests, you should half the word count to double the retention.

MAKE PAGES EASY TO SCAN with links in content – links in context

Lasly he mentiond problem in usability
#1 – small text on sites
#2 – scrolling text
#3 – blinking text
#4 – rotating text
#5 – text on fire
#6 – low contrast

It’s not my first visit to London, but it is a first for me to attend an SES event or any similar event for that matter. As the name of the expo implies, the SES events cover topics like Search Engine Marketing & Optimization which is my area of expertise and I am going to catch up on the latest trends in eMarketing.

The event is organized and hosted by world-renowned search authorities Mike Grehan and Kevin Ryan who will be two of the main speakers as well. My aim is to get all the juicy information on how to grow a company’s digital strategy by using search engine marketing (SEM/SEO/PPC/SMO) and I also look forward to networking with other International marketers and search engine industry professionals to discuss the trends in search engine marketing.

So I am going to rub shoulders with the “Big Boys”… the you know who’s of the Industry.

When I return I would have cemented all the knowledge I already have but should also learn more. I am really going to be like a spunge and see:

• How search engines list Web sites for free and through paid placements
• How to get free “organic” traffic by building a site that pleases search engines and your visitors
• How to efficiently purchase listings guaranteed to rank your company at the top of search engine results
• How to calculate the ROI of your search marketing efforts by tracking your visitors from the time they hit your site until they buy—and get tips on improving conversion if they don’t!
• How to build links that generate traffic to your Web site, and how to avoid the penalties of “spamming” the search engines
• What’s coming next in the constantly evolving world of Web search, and how you can profit from it.

Don’t go to far, I plan to cover much of the whole event by regular blog posts. Watch this space!

Oh, wait a second. This just in (in my mailbox that is)…

Google University classes are FREE for expo and conference attendees.
Learn how to use Google to change the way you do business in acquiring, converting and retaining customers on your site. Basics and Masterclass sessions are tailored to your knowledge level. The Analytics session is designed to help you understand and optimise how users interact with your site, allowing you to track both online and offline campaigns.

Man, I am so going to attend every session! Valueable stuff indeed.