I got a call a few weeks ago from an exceptionally talented woman I used to work with at a pretty big agency. She is a super hot account manager, and she had been getting some queries from clients through her team indicating interest in SEM services. She called me.

The gist of the call was that she wanted to know if I might give her team an insight into SEM; pros, cons, opportunities, challenges and market insights. The team, being mostly traditional media execs and hard web devs (all very good I might add) were not enthused by the idea of a lunch and learn with an ‘SEO person’, and she was not going to get funding for it. Ergo I agreed to go in for a lunch and learn over my lunch hour and give them a run down, gratis.

Initially (after the most inspiring parking experience I can remember courtesy of God) I was worried that no one was going to show, but over the 45 minutes I chatted and went over a prepared ppt and answered questions, the room filled up. Apparently they had thought I was going to bore them to death with ‘keyword research’. I don’t think I actually mentioned keyword research more than once.

It was very insightful from my point of view. Initial blasé and almost humorous interest ended up with enlightening Q&A as we continued through my ppt, with more and more direct and targeted interest from the web devs as we progressed. Unfortunately I think I pitched it a bit ‘low’ level for some of the account execs, but some of them were really interested and both happily surprised and encouraged by what they already knew, and what they could understand.

I walked away with a new set of contacts, a new set of web developers in a really great Calgary digital house with awesome talent who requested if they could tap me with more questions. They have my email, and they are not the type of company or people to take advantage. I’m cool with that.

I realize that from a financial point of view doing something for free is bad business. However, I strongly believe in both loss-leaders and in the power of effective SEM; both SEO and PPC. I also believe in giving a little for a practice I believe will benefit businesses.

My final take-away is this; this company has

• clients that need SEM
• the in-house talent to create incredibly attractive and functional websites and other marketing collateral as well as marketing proposals
• the ability to manage, produce and deliver on client briefs…

They now also have the ability to:

• speak to SEM queries and pitch accordingly
• answer basic SEO and PPC questions
• understand basic bad vs. good SEO practice, and 
• they totally get the need for great analytics to allow for efficient benchmarking, reporting and client profitability and ROI proof

They also:

• understand the possibilities and challenges associated with SEO and effective PPC
• have a contact to bounce ideas off ..of (? – terrible grammar)
• have someone they can call to find a contractor for SEO,PPC or SEM services

They are excited.

I am thrilled to have been able to spend 45 minutes with a progressive company to enable them to effectively begin to explain SEM to their rather substantial client base.

If I personally get anything financial out of it in the long run – great. If I don’t, I already have the enormous feeling of gratification of being able to educate out some basic SEO and PPC principles to a progressive, attentive and open audience who took it to heart and participated in learning. I hope to get a full series going… it would be huge fun for me as well as something I would just love to do, a knock on from my days as an economics lecturer. I miss those days.

I think if I could spend my time educating companies on SEM, I would be a very happy bunny. It was an enormously positive experience for me… Of-course, I would like to start actually making some money for it at some point … just sayin’… I’m a nice person and all, but I have three little kids and a mortgage, you know how it goes – altruism starts with a feeling and ends with a need J.

God bless you everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians!

• ‘A recession is when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression is when you lose your job’

It ain’t sounding so funny these days…

But wait. It’s not that bad for search marketers, depending on how the industry deals with it as a whole, and how independent practitioners and companies deal with the current economic climate on a micro level.

From a business perspective:

Traditionally, marketing budgets are cut during a recession. But search marketing is not traditional marketing.

Search marketing is basically virtual point of sale display marketing, but far more relevant and targeted:

• PPC enables an ad to be displayed for the exact term a consumer is utilizing to search for a product, service or information at the exact time of interest.
• Efficient SEO ensures a businesses visibility on its brand name in the search engines, and its visibility on highly relevant and targeted converting phrases which are of personal interest to their target market, particularly if they are geo-targeted.

Even if businesses stop or cut-back on advertising on TV and radio or in print, many already have a web site. This is the time for them to maximize their internet exposure.

People still need goods and services in a recession. Mayhap not as many as they would like to have, but wants and needs are very different animals. If people are strapped for cash, if filling their car is becoming a burden, if their job situation means they need to sell their car, if they are at home due to job loss, the fact is that for reasons of both necessity and time to kill they may very well be online a lot more. If they are, they are (apart from fluff internet use) most likely going to be looking for certain goods and services they can purchase online and have delivered via the postal service.

What is it we do again? Bingo…

And we’re not the only ones that know it. While SEO is still a mystery for many, its use, benefits and potential profitability in terms of ROI are becoming more and more well known:

• According to research supplied by PRstore early this month, more than 25 percent of new orders from their 40+ markets nationwide are for website design, and sales of related products, such as search engine optimization (SEO), are also up. ¹

Apart from the obvious benefits of being able to search for a product or service as well as related reviews online which save time and money in terms of opportunity cost and actual transaction costs, there is also the issue of immediate gratification:

• When people are stressed about money and concerned about their next pay check, the impulse-buy phenomenon in almost all types of purchases (apart from luxury purchases) is heightened. If a consumer knows they actually need something but may not be able to pay for it next month or the month after, they are in many cases more likely to purchase it as soon as possible with the cash they do have to off-set the possibility or likelihood that they may not be able to do so in the coming months.

While this is not a great outlook for the consumer, it does offer a great deal of fodder for effective SEM practitioners who are targeting the right words, with usable targeted landing pages that offer a good user experience, support and great returns policies; both from a PPC and an organic search perspective.

The impulse-buy behavior doesn’t stop after month one – people continually ‘need things’ in our consumer society, and if money is short they are more likely to purchase immediately they have the cash if they perceive the purchase to be necessity. A new dish-washer is certainly not a ‘necessity’ in general economic terms, but I know few housewives in middle class America who wouldn’t consider it to be so if their old one packed up. This is not a commentary of our society, and personally with three kids under 8, a fulltime job and a blog I love, my dishwasher, my washing machine and my tumble dryer are pretty darn necessary – while we can afford them… There is no dichotomy in that statement; if I had to choose between ‘extras’ for the kids in my weekly shopping bill or getting a new washing machine after 3 months, I’d get the washer – no contest. Maybe not my perfect washer, but it would sure be good enough to last me a year with the warranty. My mind-set may not be perfect, it may be warped by our society, but it’s what I grew up with. If I had to start washing by hand for some reason, I’d do it – right now I don’t. And yes, I recycle.

While it is true that people tend to focus on saving and conserving money during an economic downturn, saving behavior is greatly influenced by their levels of consumer confidence in the economy; and consumer confidence is fed by business confidence.

If businesses shore up, cut back on inventory holdings, slash prices and go belly-up, consumers get the willies and save harder. Most businesses are price takers, so it’s up to the industries to get together and keep themselves solvent by forming price strategy and inventory (supplier) agreements. If they can effectively do this, appease the consumer by enabling purchase with discounts, but upholding inventory levels within reason, not only is their industry more likely to survive, but the consumer confidence in their market will increase, as will the consumers independant incremental appreciation of economic stability.

The problem with a credit crunch is that it feeds right down to a supplier level. The raw materials suppliers can’t get the bucks on a monthly basis to purchase the inventory they need to make the products their manufacturers or retailers need; or the interest rate is prohibitively high and they are limited due to cost. The lack of supply of these ‘raw’ materials causes a shortage for the retailers. Consumers see a shortage of goods and panic. These shortages in the business sphere can usually work themselves out in a few months, the problem is that the precipitate consumer panic creates a tidal wave of concern that is usually at least 50% unfounded, and that in turn knocks back on the businesses who, after severe shortages, suddenly have (despite a shortage of goods in a normal market) an excess of supply as consumers aren’t buying… they cut purchases from the suppliers, who are already struggling with credit and interest rate problems, compounding the suppliers issues as they try to pay for what they owe, and the suppliers may go bang… It ain’t no fun being a first-point supplier in a recession, which is why they are so very cautious. And that is the vicious cycle in a (totally blase) nut-shell… It’s not necessary, but it is a fact – mob mentality rules in a recession… Industries, businesses, households and individuals need to think for themselves.

Sorry, got side-tracked…

Businesses need to market their goods, especially in a recession – assuming you aren’t Ferrari… If you are, you shouldn’t be too bugged by the recession anyway – if someone has the money to buy your vehicle, they are unlikely to be hit too hard, unless they were invested in AIG…There’s always the exceptions to the rule, eh? But the economy is not ruled by the stock market; it is influenced by it to a great extent… but wall street in many cases and to a great degree doesn’t impact on the SMEs for many months… the collapse of banks is an entirely different story.

I don’t live in the states, but I agree with Trump’s statement that this may well be a cleansing – and in my view; about time… but that statement of mine is entirely economically biased, and as a wife, mother and employee – my heart goes out to the American people. I will say as an ex-economist I don’t think it’s going to be all that bad, and give it 9 months, the DJ will be back up past the 11.5K mark and employment will be above current levels. Prove me wrong I hope you do.

Laura’s SEMI-thought Conclusion:

Here’s a random thought…if SEMPO, SES, SMX etc were to contact all registered members and do a membership drive to boost numbers, and then band together to actually target mass audience portals including TV, radio and the internet promoting SEM services, it would be in the interest of the industry as a whole.

If registered members were allowed to provide geo-targeted hourly rates on specific web portals hosted by these ‘authority sites’  for specific services in a transparent manner, it might not only clear up some of the mystique, but also serve to drive demand for the services we provide as a whole.

I wish I had the money to start a portal service for SEM services on a geo-targeted basis around North America, facilitated by some overt advertising to businesses on a mass level. I don’t, but I think it would work, and I hope it happens.

This is a totally un-thought out thought – but I think further thought (thought over-load) would grant it both merit and substance… this is just a blog post. If I got you err.. thinking, I did my job. Thanks so much for reading.

^{1. PRstore (HitSearch Ltd)}

Introducing the cast:

• 5 year old son – C1
• 5 year old daughter – C2 (Yes, they’re twins. No, I’m not a rabbit)
• 7 year old son – C3 (Just started Grade 2)
• Me – err… Me

C3 – Mom, we have to ask our moms and dads if you can come to school and tell us a bit about what you do. What do YOU do mommy?

Me – I work on the internet sweetheart.

C3 – YOU made all those cool games?… (C3 gets very excited) Wow that is sooo coo… (mom rudely interrupts)

Me – No honey. Mommy works for a company who helps people to make their web sites easier for people to use and find on the internet.

C2 – But we know where the games are mom. The pretty star always takes us to them, just like it took the shepherds to Jesus.

Me – Yes sweetie. Err, no sweetie. The shepherds followed a real star. The star on you computer is called a favorite button because it’s where we put your favorite games for you to play them and find them easily.

C2 – Yes mommy. You made it easy for me to find them.

Me – You’re right sweetie (no arguing that logic), but that’s not all that mommy does. I al….

C3 – Oh, grow up! The internet is the Googley thing where mom types in things like ‘monster trucks’ for us to see pictures of mud and trucks and stuff. (Little angel is already a mucky Googler in the making…)

Me – err. Yes but…

C1 – No. It’s where she finds the ‘lectric man when the fireplace goes poof

Me – err. Yes but…

C2 – Mama…

Me – Yes honey.

C2 – Can we have a cookie?

…..

10 minutes later

Me – See this boxey thingey (looking at Google search box with 6 glued-to- the-screen little eyes).

C1, C2, and C3 – *very solemnly* Yes Mommy (I love it when they say that. So very, very rare.)

Me – Right tell me something you want to know more about.

C2 – princesses!

C3 – monster trucks!

C1 – rocks! (geologist in training…)

Me – err… OK. The rocks gets it – how about we look for information on treasure, like rubies or aquamarine stones or emeralds and see what the internet tells us?

C1 – yay!

C3 – *grumble*

C2 – do we get to keep the treasure? (5 years old and I already feel kinda sorry for her future husband J)

Me – (barreling along) – right let’s type in ‘aquamarine’. [C3] help me out.

*C3 gets it right third time – Grade 1 teacher gets a mind–logged thumbs up* – mom adds the word ‘gemstone’ to avoid *noise*

C1, C3 – what’s that then? (looking at a SERP screen)

C2 – ooohhh! Pretty! (looking at picture of flawless aquamarine) Can we keep it?

Me – No, we can’t keep it. Hmmmm, actually…. speak to daddy. (Shame on me…) *Ahem* …well, each of those underlined blue lines is a different page on the internet that has different information and stuff to learn about aquamarine stones.

C1 – that’s like a gazillion pages mom. (I’m on normal search with 10 results)

Me – no honey, these are only ten pages OF a gazillion pages about aquamarines. These pages are listed here in what we call the search engine results page – which we call a SERP (smugly said with emphasis by all-knowing mom) Pick one and I’ll read something about aquamarines to you.

C2 – Will here be another picture? Can I tell daddy? Can we keep the next one?

C3 – Moooom…

Me – shh.

Mom breathes deeply and shifts small people around her lap and off her back to make viewing *more* pleasurable. Big office chairs are apparently made for 4 people. Mom reads about aquamarines – adlibbing a bit to make it more fun. Snow White and the seven dwarfs make a brief appearance in the narrative.

Me – So, let’s see how many other pages there are about aquamarines. *Click*, *Click*, *Click*

C2 – Mama?

Me – Yes sweetie?

C2 – Can we have some tea?

…. Some time later, and after a bath. Three dry, clean children back on and around bedraggled, drenched mother…

Me – Where were we?

C3 – You showed us loads of pages of stuff about aquamarik stones.

Me – YES! *err*, yes quite right dear. SO! There you have it!

Mom with Cheshire Cat grin prepares to close the deal.

Me – Mommy’s job is to help other people – like you –  find pages about aquamarine gem stones or other stuff that are really interesting and easy to use, and to make sure people – like you –  find them on the first page, not way out here in the nether-net (mom-word). It’s like helping people find the treasure they need everyday for all kinds of different things.

C3 – Totally get it mom. That’s great! You’re a userper.

C2 – No silly. She’s a aguamariking treasure hunter on the internest.

C1 – I don’t care what they say mom. You’re the best mommy ever. Can we see some real rocks now?

All three children stare at me expectantly. Mom totally thrown by obvious utter failure.

Me – …who want’s ice-cream at Callaway Park?!

Happy Ending….

C1, C2, and C3 – had a wonderfully expensive afternoon at Callaway Park….

 …

Other Ending… Mom is considering volunteering for a course in child communication….

Heck, if SEO is such a waste of time, perhaps the purveyors of these gems of wisdom should stand by their convictions and do exactly what SEO advises against to prove their point.

Without further ado, this is my advice for all those who really and truly feel that SEO advice and best practice is a waste of their precious time and money…

1. Don’t conduct any keyword or online competitive research. Pfft, I mean you know your site and your product so of course you know exactly what people are looking for when searching for your online offering – so you should definitely focus on the phrase ‘preowned automobiles’ if you’re a used truck salesman in a farm community of the Midwest – it’s all about the brand

2. Ensure that you utilize a noindex, noarchive and nofollow tag in your <header>

3. Use the same title tag for every page, or just leave it out – no biggie

4. Make sure you include every possible variation of your keyword at least twice in the meta description and meta keywords tags; better yet don’t use the meta description and double up on the keywords in the meta keyword tag to be safe

5. Don’t make use of Alt attributes. In fact, stop wasting time and just robots.txt out your image folder, much more efficient use of web dev time

6. Don’t bother with <H> tags – users can see the headline just fine

7. Make sure your navigation is in JavaScript - or Flash at the very least - and apply a nofollow tag (just for the heck of it) to every navigation link, but not outbound links – that’s just silly

8. Keep your pages as clean as possible by using as little text as possible so as not to confuse your users

9. Be clever and include at least 15 lines of repetitive keywords in the same color text as your background to make sure your pages are topically relevant to the search engines, assuming you care about search engine traffic in the first place … no, no, not SEO.. Search. Traffic. – Pay attention…jeez

10. If you simply must include content, make sure you scrape it or use auto generated content – much more efficient really, oh – and definitely use iFrames

11. It’s fine to make sure people find pages on your site by including them a few times each

12. If you are in the US but your major market is Canada, make sure you buy a .com and host in the States, and never pay any attention to the quality of your server… everyone goes down once in a while

13. Make use of dynamic URLs with special characters and session ids, don’t bother with mod-rewrites – another colossal waste of time

14. Change URL naming protocols frequently and definitely apply .302 redirects, or just leave it and let it all come naturally

15. Don’t bother with a custom 404 – Google has a handy 404 error page you can use for free

16. Be clever and fool the engines by using doorway pages

17. Definitely don’t worry about choosing a canonical version, the users see the same version of the page you’ve designed for them anyway

18. Don’t worry about trying to get backlinks, they’re totally over-rated. If you must (some idiot says it’s important – the SEO Manager no-doubt), then commenting on every blog you know – every page on every blog is much better – will get you lots of links fast. Or use a backlink bot (referrer spamming) - even better

19. You should, however, ensure that you link out to as many sites as possible – doesn’t really matter if they’re related to your business – and if they happen to link to hundreds of other unrelated gambling and porn sites, well that’s super – bigger network for you

20. Don’t worry about including an html sitemap, also totally over-rated

21. Definitely make use of proxy spamming – heck spam away

22. Don’t bother with web analytics, another dire waste of time

23. Definitely sell links – great income sideline

24. Thinking ‘my site is built therefore they will come’ is bang-on

I’m completely happy to stake my little SEO buttocks on the line when I say with utter certainty that employing these tactics will ensure the disappearance of a site from the SERPs PDQ. And if our dear SEO haters don’t know what SERPs is, it’s probably just as well. Then again, my advice as an SEO is a waste of time, so perhaps they should just go ahead and knock themselves out… literally, and in more ways than one.

Note; The fact that I am not at SES San Jose has in no-way made me feel bitter, twisted or generally irritable.

Nonetheless, please feel free to follow my usually sunny-side up pro-SEO views on Twitter…

…

Note 2; Do you think pro-SEO will become one of the rallying cries of the next election? *sigh* Well, I have my virtual sandbox soapbox in the meanwhile…

…

Note 3; [to the SEO haters] My buttocks may not be that small, but they’re better than your SEO…

………

AND back to the sandbox for me

(Un)Related Post

• SEO – A Rose by Any Other Name

It’s not a case of the chicken-before-the-egg or vice versa. They are two completely different disciplines, though each can benefit from the other much as SEO and paid search can benefit from other online and offline advertising.

Let’s look at each of these terms in isolation:

SMM:

abbreviation for:

social media marketing

definition a’la SEMI:

An internet marketing practice involving the participation of a company/brand/identity on social media* sites to pursue marketing & brand objectives online via social bookmarking*, media* and professional networking sites.

*Bookmarking sites traditionally allow you to bookmark and share sites, while social media sites offer bookmarking capabilities along with advanced voting ‘rights’ to ‘thumbs-up’ or ‘thumbs-down’ a post.

achieved via:

1. Finding relevant social sites around your online offering. For example;

·    Sphinn is pretty much utilized and targeted by search marketing bloggers and professionals involved in SEM;

·    Care2 is for businesses making a serious attempt to ‘go green’;

·    NetParty for younger SMM practitioners to connect online & organize real meets to network in the flesh;

·    Autospies focuses on everything auto related;

·    NowPublic focuses on citizen journalism;

·    Twitter is a ‘mini-blog’ site allowing users to post short messages on new products, posts & ideas.

2. Determine if the sites you see as ‘relevant’ actually have a following of people that will make engagement worth your while.

It’s easy to get fixated on the ‘popularity’ element of these sites, but if you don’t find and interact with your target market, it’s ultimately a waste of time.

·    Look for brand evangelists or competitor evangelists on the sites. Read what they have to say. Follow the commentary for a while. Determine if you can get mileage out of being involved, or if it is too contentious, too combative, too irrelevant, too targeted, too whatever. You need to plan your SMM strategy with clear objectives, just as with any other media. Just because it’s free to join, does not mean that your time is free. And building and maintaining your presence on the social sites does take time. A lot of it.

3. Create a realistic, robust, ‘cool’ profile and engage the community

·    Develop your social persona as a brand evangelist with a personality

·    Keep the same handle on all sites for recognition

·    Use your logo as your avatar, or your picture – how ‘big’ or ‘recognised’ are you at the start? You can always change your avatar. Start with easy identification one-way or the other. Be as ‘personable’ as you can if you are a new entrant with little to no social brand recognition.

·    Be fair

·    Never be judgmental or rude

·    Never ignore negative commentary

·    Always acknowledge positive feedback

·    Deal with detractors as soon as possible either via your persona, or by directing them to an ‘answering’ official blog post on the brand site as soon as negative comments arise

·    Empower your brand evangelists by giving them new story heads-up early, by giving them acknowledgement on your official site, and by following their social media profiles and commenting as warranted

·    Consider promoting test market products not only through geographic areas, but also through your social media network. If you’ve built your persona up right, they’ll be fair and impartial in an effort to assist you in your R&D

·    Offer contests & competitions around your brand embracing online media – the best humorous amateur video promoting a specific product or service gets a free ‘whatever’ and a month’s free publicity when you include it in your newsletter and on your News page; a bit like ‘iReport’ on HNN

·    Drive media to your social profiles via other online and offline media

·    Use your social profiles to link to your feed, blog, site, microsites, videos, mobile sites etc

·    Offer (limited) printable, redeemable-on-site ‘coupons’ to community members

·    Keep engaging to build your reputation, your recognition, and your authority

SEM

abbreviation for:

search engine marketing

definition a’la SEMI:

SEM involves the use of search engine optimization (SEO), paid search, and web analytics.

·    The objective of SEO is to rank a site in the organic listings for a sample (defined population) of the universe of relevant terms;

·    the objective of paid search is to list the site in the sponsored results across the engines for the universe of performing terms;

·    the objective of web analytics is to monitor the efficacy in terms of return on investment, profit and exposure for either or both of these practices.

SEO and Paid Search complement each other to a significant extent. Neither is cheap, and neither is easy. It’s not a case of rocket science, it’s a case of experience in an increasingly competitive and combative environment as web site numbers climb into the multi-billion numbers, and paid search advertisers reach into their comparative stratosphere.

achieved via:

·    effective keyword research

·    integration of SEO with IA, copy, web design, development, and analytics

·    relevant, aggressive targeted and relevant backlinking campaigns for SEO (where SMM plays part of it’s related and enormously important role)

·    tactical refinement of both SEO and paid search (more immediately) via web analytics data from all sites including referral sites, some based on SMM personas

·    web analytics reporting on conversions, profit and exposure via both impressions (on placement), CTR and messaging of paid search ads

·    integrated analytics reporting where provided for to monitor effect of other online campaigns and offline campaigns on paid and SEO listed pages

·    overall increase in exposure and recognition of brand online in the search engines including listings and exposure due to SMM efforts

Conclusions 1 & 2:

1. The only time SMM can be seen to be boosting SEM strategy without dedicated spend on a paid search campaign to persona pages which may, or may not (in most cases), be worth your investment is when SMM profile pages, blog posts or reviews start moving into viably ‘visible’ pages of the engines (from a CTR pov), and begin to generate traffic of their own. This is when SEM would step in, as warranted, to boost that exposure, assuming it was worth the additional investment.

2. The only time SEM can be seen to boost SMM is when the SEO or paid search efforts are actively targeting prfiles.

My by-line for these two disciplines is this:

‘united-but-unique; related but mutually exclusive’.

My disclaimer is this:

This is for folks new to SMM. If you are a fundi and find fault, please say so in the comments, but please link to a relevant respond page on your site to substantiate your answer for the newbies. Thanks – (it’s all about the readers – and if you’re new – Welcome! – L)

The SEM Canada Conference has been postponed until October of next year for the following reasons:

1. We are in final talks with a new corporate sponsor who will enable us to really make the SEM Canada series world-class. Details will be forthcoming within the next 6-8 weeks

2. We did not think anyone would necessarily want to come to a rescheduled conference in winter at -40’C – so that rules out everything until Spring

3. In Spring we hit the SES (Search Engine Strategies) New York & Toronto, and SMX (Search Marketing Expo) Advanced and other conferences, and we are not planning on competing for market share

4. In summer everyone is on holiday, or already going to SES San Jose

5.  …hence October 2009… It will come around a lot faster than you think. It feels like yesterday that I was at last year’s SES San Jose, and it’s nearly a year… I’m sayin’

By no means are we giving up on SEM in Canada, or on hosting a fantastic conference in Calgary!… But a few things have recently come up that are simply far too good for us to ignore. Basically, we would be total idiots if we did. We’ll have more news within the next 2 months for everyone.

I’m going to close this post with a copy of an article of mine that was published in the summer print issue of the fantastic search magazine ‘Search Marketing Standard’. If you don’t subscribe, I highly recommend you do.

SEARCH MARKETING IN CANADA: A STATE OF CONFUSION

Search marketing in Canada is not exactly booming. SEMPO Canada says that Canadian businesses simply “do not get search marketing”.

They conducted a survey in January asking Canadian search based businesses to provide their input in an attempt to understand why this is so. Three days before the survey closed, only 60 companies Canada-wide had responded.

This is very disillusioning as there are thousands of SEO/SEM companies throughout Canada, and even more agencies who offer search marketing as part of their service offering. Google alone returns over 170 results for the highly targeted search on ‘allinurl:seo company Toronto’.

The question is: Why the lack of interest?

STATISTICS: Canada’s Online Population

To further confound search marketers in Canada there’s the fact that 72% of Canadians are online compared to 71% in the US.

While I realize that 71% of the US equates to 10x as many people, there are two clear opportunities this data provides for companies doing business north of the border:

1. There are 24 million people online in Canada. This online population is a significant market when you consider that Toronto, the most populated Canadian city, has in comparison only 5 million people. The opportunities for increasing national market share, exposure, and sales/leads are real and viable.

2. 88% of Canadian households have high-speed internet access. This is currently the ninth highest level of broadband penetration by country in the world. People with broadband connectivity are usually internet savvy; they are more likely to bank online, research online, search online, and purchase online.

STATISTICS: Behavior of Canada’s Online Population and Insights

If we consider comScore’s February data on ‘Top Ranking Canadian Sites’ we can gain some interesting insights into the state of search from the consumer’s perspective:

• In February, 94% of online Canadians interacted with Google and Microsoft sites, while 67% visited Yahoo! sites. Canadians are searching online.

• Ebay, Amazon, and Yellow Pages all received visits from 33% of the online population or more. 33% of online Canadians visited electronics goods websites, 27% downloaded e-cards, 20% visited a gift/flower web sites. Canadians are looking to buy and are buying online.

PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that online ad-spend* will grow faster in Canada than anywhere else in the world over the next 5 years for two primary reasons:

1. high broadband penetration

2. lower online market saturation

*[It is important to note that while online ad spend figures traditionally include paid search data, they do not include spend on SEO].

Insights: The data consistently reiterates the massive opportunities within the Canadian online marketplace, and yet businesses in-country remain very slow to consider search engine marketing as a viable opportunity.

*EDIT* NEW DATA:

• Only 8 % of private sector companies in Canada sell goods or services online

• That 8% sold S58billion worth of goods and services online last year – that’s up 25% on 2006

Canada Remains Unconvinced. Why?

My opinion is that it simply boils down to a lack of commercial education. To further explore this point I’ll look briefly at both the US and the UK, and follow with a more targeted look at Canada:

• SEO is booming in the UK (61 million people on an island 3x smaller than Newfoundland, and smaller than the state of Michigan). Why? Competition is enormously fierce. Word of mouth and knowledge spread along with the need to be on the cusp of new technology and marketing, whatever that may mean, is of paramount importance to the success of businesses.

The UK has numerous advertising, marketing, search based, technology and other conferences throughout the year and it’s no big deal to get to one as nothing is more than a days drive away (depending on traffic congestion). It is also relatively cost effective, and not terribly time consuming, to nip over the channel for a day or two to attend the Madrid SMX show, or the Paris SES show, or numerous other European and Asian search marketing conferences.

• The US is the home of the search marketing conference. Between SMX, SES and Pubcon there are 12+ dedicated search marketing conferences alone in the US, to say nothing of the other marketing conferences that mention SEM regularly in their session lineups.

People know people, people meet people, the conferences are spread all around the US and the search community is growing constantly. Conference attendance and knowledge are increasing as both businesses and service agencies learn more from the experts. As a result these businesses and agencies (on behalf of their clients) are consistently and increasingly implementing search strategies effectively. They are seeing increases in exposure, conversion rates and ROI. The cycle continues to gain momentum, and search marketing continues to grow in stature and acceptance as a viable opportunity for channeling hard earned advertising dollars.

We’ve looked at the UK and the US; let’s take a peek at Canada:

• It is nearly 4 million square miles in size (42x the size of the UK and 460,000 square miles larger than the US).
• It has the equivalent of 10% of the population of the US, and 20% of the population of the UK.
• It has in the past had only one major search conference per annum – SES Toronto.

How Does This Data Affect Canadian Businesses?

If they are even aware of search marketing (which is less likely than either of the other two countries due to immense dilution over space and time) they have traditionally had only one significant educational seminar in one city in a massive country each year.

There does not appear to be any national push in the agency or marketing world towards gaining knowledge about SEM. As such, businesses have not yet felt the need to explore the field more thoroughly on their own behalf. It is a fact that many of the larger more competitive and thus benchmarking businesses are tied to agencies. While numerous agencies offer SEM services, they do not push them to the fore as the fires of interest on the client side have not yet been lit.

What Does It All Mean For Canadian SEM (SEO and Paid Search) Agencies and Providers?

Educate your clients. Join SEMPO and other search based driving forces to understand the state of the search marketing interest in Canada. Find out about all applicable search marketing conferences and go. Take your clients, blog about your attendance and learning’s, push SEM into to the forefront of online marketing

What is the Forecast for SEM in Canada?

It will gain momentum, and it is important that Canadian search providers start pushing their services before US based businesses take over the market landscape. There is no longer a financial disadvantage to outsourcing to the US, and US search agencies are already taking up market share.

I’ll end with a reference to an article by Gord Hotchkiss in June of last year entitled ‘Canada, It’s Time To Clue Into Search!’. This is not a new issue, it remains an issue, and the opportunity will be exploited. I can only hope that it will be Canadian businesses and providers who take up the slack and benefit.

The new ‘improved’ SEM Canada Conference in ‘09 will hopefully go a long way to addressing this issue in-country.

Other articles in the Search Marketing Standard 2008 Summer Print Issue include:

• Industry Analysis Articles including; ‘Convergence of Search and the Rise of the Marketing Technologist’
• SEO Articles including; ‘Top Secret: Tactics for Online Competitor Analysis’
• PPC Articles including; ‘Buying Brand: Why Trademarks Matter’
• Interview: ‘Marketing on Facebook – and Interview with Rodney Rumford’
• International: ‘Global Search: Rich Opportunity or Risky Proposition’
• Jobs, Usability issues and more!
• Find out more and subscribe!

This post is a bit of ramble but it does contain my picks on:

• Most amusing event
• Most embarrassing comment
• Best session (of course this is not in any way biased)
• COOLEST people I met!

Most Amusing Pick
I realize this is not related to the conference directly, but I was in Toronto, and it was at the end of the Epiar/Yahoo! SES after party…

As we (Epiar) sponsored the after party with Yahoo! it was, on one hand, probably a good thing that we all stayed well into the early hours. On the other hand, by the time we got around to grabbing a taxi from outside the Ultra Supper Club, one of our Epiar party was three-sheets to the wind. That’s not to be unexpected you say? No, I suppose not. But there are a few points worth mentioning:

• Said person is one of the nicest people I know, he is also very calm and collected… usually
• Said person appears to have a slightly more ‘instant’ aggressive-response-gene that is triggered only by one or six drinks too many
• No one told us that garbage collectors in Toronto are part of the mafia… yes that is a salient point.

We were only about a 4 minute drive from my hotel (I was at the Intercontinental with Lyndsay Walker from WestJet. See Comment Pick below.) About 90 seconds into the journey (yes I realize ‘journey’ is something of an exaggeration – but this teensy trip is one I will never forget), when the taxi inadvertently – and with absolutely no malicious intent – blocked a garbage truck from maneuvering out of an alley way. Unfortunately the taxi driver was half asleep, didn’t care, or was simply functioning a few sandwiches short of a picnic. In any event, he just sat there. The garbage truck couldn’t move, and we didn’t move.

Considering that the garbage truck was massive and looked like one of those huge mutant bugs from Starship Troopers (but yellow), our teensy cab must have appeared positively snackish.

To compound it all, the garbage truck was manned by two similarly large specimens of the human variety, while our mini version was manned by one small taxi driver, one small woman with a somewhat petrified expression, and two other males, only one of which could be seen. The male in view was our slightly inebriated colleague in the passenger seat. It appears that he may have been a *smidge* too quick to ‘flick the bird’ at the truckers in response to their rude and angry sound-off at the taxi driver from inside their monstrosity.

The finger thing was all they needed to decide to add a little muscle to the equation. They both lumbered out of the truck. The ‘lumbering’ denotes size, but they sure as heck didn’t lumber slowly. Big dudes move surprisingly fast I notice.

Needless to say they made a bee-line (no pun intended) right towards the aforementioned finger flicker. When we had climbed into the taxi, I had innocently placed myself directly behind the passenger seat, and in a brief moment of panic watching the swift approach of the angry garbage people I made a concerted effort to get away from the approaching menace by scrambling across the back seat and nearly ended up on my fellow backseat passengers lap. Being the cool, calm, collected person he is, he advised the taxi driver that now would be a smashingly good time to start driving away – backwards, forwards, sideways… the direction was not of paramount importance – the away bit was.

Unfortunately the two agro truckers got to the window first and I was treated to the delightful experience of being mooned by a Toronto garbage collector. I can honestly say I would not recommend it if it is in any way possible to avoid. The mooning was accompanied by a lot of far more advanced (and seemingly choreographed) finger flicking, and possibly the vilest stream of invective I have ever heard in real life.

Fortunately, the other two sandwiches arrived, or some instinctive self-preservation instinct kicked in, and the taxi started to move. The driver did not seem terribly phased at all. He nonchalantly waved his hand as we screeched off in the wrong direction and said, ‘You do know that the garbage men in this city are part of the mafia, no?’

Incidentally, dreaming of hairy garbage man bums is also not advised.

Comment Pick
Lyndsay and I went to the Epiar/Yahoo! party relatively early. She was super accommodating as I had to get there to help with some set-up. Anyway, we were chatting to folks as they started to trickle in around 6:45.

Lyndsay knew a few folks from a Toronto company, Alan K’necht and his colleague Joe Dolson came over, and we slowly ended up with a great group of people.

For some reason the conversation came around to where we were staying. Lyndsay said that she and I were sharing a suite at the Intercontinental. Someone then said it must be great to be sharing with a friend and that we must be having an amazing time together. At this Lyndsay smiled at me and innocently announced; “Oh yes, but we haven’t slept together yet.”

The amount of crap we got from that comment alone cannot be imagined.

(Some) Super Cool SEO Folks I met

I will start this with a caveat; I have not gone through all my business cards, so I am mentioning the people I ended up spending quite a bit of time with. Some of the people I have never met or corresponded with before, some I have ‘known’ for ages, but simply never met face-to-face.

Jim Hedger – a personality on his own. It would be great to have more Jim’s around. He’s funny, super-intelligent, an exceptional writer and marketer, and just an all around extraordinary person I am now fortunate enough to call a friend.

Alan K’necht – Another superb personality. Interesting, intuitive, compassionate and also a highly intelligent individual. Alan left us early, but he had good reason – wife and kids at home. Love that.

Richard Zwicky – unfortunately I did not get much time with Richard, but I had been so looking forward to meeting him. His is a handsome, suave, intelligent man who knows his stuff inside and out, and I am so glad to have met him finally.

Glenn Convey – Richard and Alan facilitated this. Glenn is an incredibly interesting man. He retired at 40 and bought a sail-boat/yacht and cruised the Caribbean and Pacific for 6 years. He decided to return to work a few years ago and heads up Metamend, which is well worth checking out if you haven’t yet. Metamend spawned Enquisite. Richard Zwicky is involved in both. Glenn has a fabulous sense of humor, and it was a pleasure to meet him.

David Szetela – David is one of the most down-to-earth, compassionate, and interested and interesting people I have ever met. He gave me some fantastic tips, and while our conversation was mostly on a personal level, he is a true gentleman as well as an expert in his field. I wish him the very best with his approaching wedding, and hope to stay in touch , as I do with all of the folks I have mentioned.

Matt McGowan – Matt sent me a comp pass after Jim hedger’s article. I had heard a lot of great stuff about Matt. It’s all true. He is surely one of the stalwarts of the industry. He made time for me to chat about SEM Canada to give me some thoughts even when he was run off his feet. He party’s hard, and works twice as hard. He is passionate, intelligent and one savvy business dude. He tempers that with a fabulous sense of humor and an easily approachable manner. I am honored to have him as a solid on my SEM family friend’s hit list.

(I met loads of incredible people at SES, but these are a few I really spent a lot of time with, and I wanted to do a public shout out.)

Session Pick
My pick of the sessions was ‘My SEM Toolkit’. Ian McAnerin has some cool general insights, Julien Raby approached it from a totally different angle looking at automating reporting, and Ken Jurina wowed the room with a fantastic array of all free tools. I highly recommend taking a peek at his presentation. Moderated by Amanda Watlington, this was a panel that really gave attendees concrete take-aways.

Final Thoughts
SES Toronto was a blast. I am so sorry to have missed some folks who couldn’t make it; Martin Bowling, the SEOmoz crew, and Todd Friesen to name a few. I hope to connect with you guys soon, as well as my new favorite SEO people.

Gotta Love SES!!!!

Trends From an Investors Perspective

• Microsoft bid for Yahoo!, then withdrew the offer and Yahoo!’s shares dropped nearly 20%
• Google and Yahoo! are still skirting around a search advertising partnership
• Ask withdrew from main stream search to focus on women searchers
• Google’s search share has increased slightly
• Yahoo! search share has remained stagnant in aggregate
• Microsoft’s share has fallen

What to do from an Investors Perspective

Yahoo! (Nasdaq) is not dead by a long shot. While the 2 year trend has been a decline, there is much positive speculation about the future of company and thus the stock.

Google’s share price saw a sharp decline in the first quarter (roughly 45%), but has increased approximately 43% on March values in the last 6-7 weeks. Google’s not going anywhere, and I’m not convinced the share price will experience a similar drop in the near future.

Microsoft’s general trend over the last 2 years has been strongly positive. The share value decrease from February to May 5th can be almost entirely attributed to the Yahoo! bid. Prior to that, many technology shares were hit by poor estimates, the oil price and general instability in the market – all of which fuelled concerns of a general recession.

Off on a mini-tangent, it may be worth looking a little more closely at Apple shares…

[DISCLAIMER – I am not suggesting that anyone who reads this blog pay the slightest bit of notice to my investor ramblings. I have no idea what is going to happen with any of these shares. I thought it might be nice for our readers to see what’s been going on in summary in one place all nice and easy like . If you choose to buy or sell any of the shares I have mentioned, please do so at your own risk. Neither I, nor this blog, take any responsibility for your actions - or the results and consequences of those actions in any way - should you choose to buy or sell any of the shares discussed above.]

Trends From a Marketers Perspective

If we look at trends from the perspective of consumer behavior we see:

• Continued growth in the use of image and video search
• An astronomical increase in the influence of social media marketing in the form of consumer feedback and reviews
• Impact on the traditional F-shaped heat maps generated by eye-tracking studies due to Google’s Universal search results as ‘eyes’ are drawn to image and video search results
• Increased local awareness and power due to the inclusion of the OneBox ten-pack
• Increased SERP interaction due to the roll-out of more Sitelinks and ‘Search Within a Site’ search box features

User interaction is facilitated by these features and the probability is that the trend in click-throughs will skew towards increased searcher interaction with more ‘visible’, usable, graphic listings – assuming the relevancy factor is retained.

If we look at paid search changes in Google alone we see that:

• Google has also recently revised its display URL protocol in AdWords, and
• Google has been experimenting with the inclusion of video results in the paid search listings.

What to do from a Marketer’s Perspective

• Marketers should seriously consider budgeting for continued SEO initiatives, particularly regarding internet market research on consumer search behavior.
• Assigning marketing dollars to image and video production and optimization is imperative as is integrating with relevant social communities.
• Brands need to aggressively begin to empower brand proponents and embrace reputation management (RM) tools. RM has only recently gained the recognition it should have attained years ago.
• With the astronomical growth in both social influence and social media marketing, and the impact of reviews and consumer feedback on online purchase decisions, the need for brand transparency is becoming ever more important.
• Consequently, the need to facilitate consumer feedback and interaction is key to future success in the search and ecommerce space.

Future trends…

If you know – please let me know…

• Laura can be found here and on Twitter.
• Come to the SEMCanada Conference September 2008!