Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

While I’m certainly not a bashful person, I do tend to shy away from too much professional bravado.  However, I got a kick out of some of our organic results when I took a look at them today. A while back I published an article about geo-targeting with SEO, discussing the benefits of targeting your local market first, particularly in highly competitive environments.  In it I discussed our approach at Netvantage, where we made it a focus to establish ourselves in the local market before moving to broader, generalized terms.

Well, since I have been doing a lot of speaking engagements lately, and I also was introduced to an article which made it clear that you need to call out proposed “gurus”, I thought I’d throw this out on the table to prove the value in what I say.  We have three primary services here at Netvantage Marketing:  Search engine optimization, paid search management and web analytics consulting.  So in terms of geo-targeting these terms, we want to be the prominent firm for these services in Michigan.  So, according to Big Brother Google, how do we stack up?  As of 1:25am today (no, I don’t sleep), here are our results for:

• Michigan search engine optimization
• Michigan paid search management
• Michigan web analytics consulting
  *Click the link to run the search
  

Admittedly, we have teetered between number one and six for “Michigan search engine optimization” recently as we have turned our focus slightly towards other terms, but we have the top two listings for “Michigan paid search management“, “Michigan web analytics consulting” and even “Michigan web analytics” pretty solidly sewn up for the time being.  Granted, these are not the most competitive keywords on the market, but they are competitive and provide us a solid flow of highly targeted traffic.

We aim for transparency at Netvantage, and we laid out our strategy and just wanted to show that it’s working.  Since we can’t publicize what we do for our clients, I figured this would help show that our strategies and tactics work.  If you go back to the original article, you’ll also see that I pointed out that we aimed to segue this tactic into national level rankings.  To show how that’s working:

• Paid search management
• Web analytics consulting

Well, that puts the bullseye firmly on us for our competitors, but I think it’s important to display that our tactics work, even in the most difficult of markets.  And trust me, trying to SEO against the nation’s best SEOs (and Michigan has several of the best SEO firms, including OneUpWeb and Pure Visibility) is no small task.

***CAUTION:  Blatant sales pitch to follow***

SEO is the most important marketing tool we have, and we want to make it just as valuable to you.  Contact us online to learn more about our services, or just give us a call at 877.204.0234.

George Orwell once said, “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”

While most advertisers would turn up their nose, let’s be honest, often times he is right.  How often does a radio ad, television ad, or a billboard offer you something you need?  For us cynical types, it’s just random noise that muddles up our day.  As Orwell mentioned, it’s just drawing attention to what is essentially unnecessary for us.

I have a graduate degree in marketing and I LOATHE traditional advertising and am completely desensitized to it. But this is the beauty of search engine marketing and pay per click advertising.  Rather than rattling the stick, you simply set the swill in front of your customers when they decide they want swill.  Voila!  Customers love you again!

Businesses, despite their brave stances and declarations to dedicate resources to marketing, rarely do so when times get tight.  Which is where we’re at now.  As I said in my (surprisingly popular) blog back in June titled “When sourcing web services makes sense”, search can be an extremely cost effective marketing vehicle, particularly if you have a product or service with a solid gross margin.

As companies cut their PPC spending it provides opportunity to grab market share and gain new, loyal customers at lower cost per click, at that.  Further, PPC will let you target new markets - something particularly important for companies in struggling local economies like Michigan.  Often times companies have failed to truly push their web presence because they’ve been able to rely on their local market and local sales team.  Without paying to build the infrastructure to support a new sales team or having to find a qualified sales person in Kansas City (as an example), the company can push their products through their PPC campaign by ramping up an aggressive PPC campaign geo-targeted to that market, and even build appropriate landing pages for that market. PPC provides an avenue for short term growth by geographic diversification, and better leveraging web assets.

Search engine optimization is a bit of a harder sell, as many struggling companies need results yesterday.  But, with that in mind, unless executives are jumping in life rafts and posting their resumes on careerbuilder, it makes all the sense in the world to budget some funding for SEO.  Again, remember that everyone else is cutting back, and that gaining top rankings is a never ending race.  While your competitors cut back or even stop their SEO efforts, they’re essentially taking indefinite water breaks.  If you keep running, you can gain a lot of ground on your short sighted competitors, and potentially put them in the rear view by continuing aggressive SEO efforts.  And gaining and maintaining top rankings in Google is the gift that keeps on giving!  So while PPC has its own benefits in terms of targeting, search engine optimization provides immense long term benefits in this time of tightened purse strings.

So while I agree with Orwell, I don’t think he’d apply that statement to the world of search.  This is a whole new animal…like a liger.