Leverage Blog: How to Exploit the Web.

Search Engine Optimization discussed in Newsweek

In a November (2005) Newsweek I found an article in the Business section about search engine optimization (SEO.) Well-done Newsweek. Did the article inspire the small-medium enterprise? Well, not exactly. The practice is described as a “Shadowy world,” and optimization firms are likened to lobbyists.

Lobbyists? Now that fills me with pride.

Brad Stone gets it right in several areas though, including his comment that some sites appear at the top due to unscrupulous methods. This is true, but not for long.  Google (and Yahoo! and MSN) are too big and too smart to let “search engine spammers” skew their results.

The fact that SEO is being covered in a magazine like Newsweek is inspiring to me because it helps bring the opportunity into the mainstream. SMB’s have so much to gain from SEO, but many of my clients aren’t yet making the investment because evaluating the service is difficult.  And with everything else that’s competing for your attention throughout the day researching something new often gets re-prioritized. Hey, I get it.

The article targets the consumer/searcher more than the business-owner, and the tone of Stone’s somewhat dark portrayal of the SEO industry plants the seed of fear. Granted it’s warranted to some degree, as there is plenty of deceptive advertising out there ("TOP 10 SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT GUARANTEED!!!") as well as over-promise, under-deliver among "SEO specialists." My advice in moving forward is simple-- gather information and select someone that understands where the internet fits in your business model (and someone that you trust.)

The SEO opportunity for the SME is of course huge, especially for geographically-bounded businesses, but when they have reason to fear the vendors they will hold off on the investment.

OK, back to the shadows.

Brand, Branding, Brand Marketing

A client yesterday asked me for my definition of a brand and why they matter. While not specific to internet marketing, I thought I would share part of my response:

Brands are among the most intangible of corporate assets, but if skillfully developed and managed they are capable of delivering enormous profits. At their peak, brands lift products and services sharply over the commodity level. They confer status, inspire emotional connection, and help the consumer identify what they are. Elevate the brand and your customer suddenly becomes less price-conscious and more loyal.

Websites are a great branding opportunity for branding because your clear, persuasive, effective content is available 24/7.

Great long-term benefits.  Invest today.

del.ico.us, Blink, and smart thinking

Ari Paparo, the creator of a website tagging solution called blink.com (1999) shares his thoughts on how del.ico.us succeeded where Blink did not.  It's insightful.

Tagging (simply stated) is a new website surfing technology focused around communities of individuals sharing bookmarks. I'll add a 'brief overview' on it soon...

When I was with a startup called CampusEngine I met with Backflip, a competitor of Blink. We developed a publishing technology for college newspapers (and gave it away for free. Don't ask) and were interested in integrating anything that would bring and keep students online. After a meet-and-greet and demo I liked the tool. Simply put, it helped you organize (tag) information on the web. As it relates to networks of people sharing their opinions and ideas however, I remember backflip as something I would use as an individual, not necessarily share with friends and colleagues.

This is not to say there wasn't a social or sharing component to Backflip, but the pitch didn't draw my attention to that aspect. I probably would have responded to a "social glue" message; my job was building social networks of students on college campuses around the online campus newspaper. Students like ‘social’ almost as much as (ahem) ‘sharing,’ and I was after pageviews, so that would have been a fit. Perhaps Backflip was guessing (or getting feedback from the market) that the most valuable aspect of their tool was personal organization. Great people at Backflip, by the way.

Welcome

Welcome to the Wheel Media weblog, a internet marketing digest for the small-medium enterprise. My goal is to provide business leaders with some tools to make smart decisions about design and marketing online.  I look forward to educating, inspiring and learning from my clients and peers.

For those who are new to this medium, it's designed to be interactive and open; a free-flowing site of ideas. I'll know I'm succeeding if I stir my visitors and customers to action-- adding their comments to the blog and more importantly, creating internet marketing strategies, funding and staffing them adequately, executing, and evaluating.  Exploit the web!

I'll touch on smart web design, discuss new and evolving tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), tagging, blogging, email marketing, and more.  I've got a long reading list of books and other blogs filled with brilliant ideas, as well as tips on conferences and smart startups. I welcome your comments, your emails and your success.

The SME has so much to gain from the internet:  Let's get to it.

Michael

Internet marketing tactics to exploit: An overview

On an ongoing basis I'll be providing brief definitions and explanations of the marketing strategies and tactics used on the web today.  Many are not new and have been proven by the Fortune 2000 business community, while others will be innovative and evolving, and some are not limited to the label of 'internet marketing,' but classic approaches that leverage the net effectively.

Because my core focus is the executive of the small-medium enterprise (SME) I will keep these posts high-level and brief-- about a 30-second read.  My goal is to give my clients and readers a quick overview of the opportunities; to get you thinking about how these tools might align with your business, and how to evaluate and prioritize.  Questions?  My email address is on the About page.

Some tactics will be newer than others (blog marketing, for example, versus the more-established search engine optimization and permission-email.)

Watch for the 'getting started' posts.