Coverage of SES New York Day 2

(Note: We have already blogged about Avinash Kaushik's keynote speech here.)

Link building methods and risks, Jim Boykin, We Build Pages

The session talked about different ways of building links, based on years of experience. We Build Links don't buy links anymore, but Boykin still went through both buying links and getting them for free.

Buying links
For a short tail performance, buying links can still be very effective, but you are running a risk of penalties from the search engines.

Not buying links
For long tail search phrases, not buying links works even better than buying them. To get free links, you need to distribute content that people want to use (no surprises there…). But how do you get links from the right sites?

1) Create relevant content, like an article.

2) Search for the phrases you are targeting.

3) Look at the top 2 or 3 ranking pages for that phrase. Where do they get their links from?

4) Ask those 2 or 3 pages to publish your content and link back to you OR ask the same sites that are linking to those 2 or 3 pages to publish your content.

5) Use automated tools to give you topics, where to publish your content, and who to contact. Doing this manually, can be a lot of work that yields nothing in return.

Get trusted links. PageRank doesn't count anymore, but if you get links from pages with high trust rank (like .gov, .edu etc), all the links will get about the same amount of weight from Google.

When you get a link from a trusted site to e.g. an article you wrote, be sure to link from that article on your own site to the page you really want to target. Don't forget that internal linking also adds a lot of value.

To summarize:

- Get good links from trusted sites

- Link internally from the page they are linking to, to your own "real" target page

- Remember to optimize the "real" target pages for the right long or short tail keywords

Internal linking

Boykin recommends all website owners to use different anchor text in internal links, by either linking from a set of different keywords in the copy, or by mixing up the footer links a little bit, with different sets of footer links for different parts of the site.

Reciprocal linking

When it comes to reciprocal linking, remember that who you link to also tells the search engines a lot about your site. Boykin therefore recommend all websites to have at least one dedicated link page that links out to relevant sites.

Selling search to C-level executives

Bill Hunt, Backazimuth

The biggest problem with selling search to the C-suite is that you don't communicate in their language.

Top 10 questions executives like to ask:

1. What is SEM and why should I care?
2. How does this help me meet my objectives?
3. Where do we stand today?
4. What is our competition doing?
5. What do you propose we do? Be simple and show examples.
6. Why should I fund this over another project? Explain why this is better than other projects.
7. How much will it cost?
8. How long will it take? Do not refer to your search services / products as a campaign, you can do that for PPC, but not for SEO and social media.
9. What are the risks?
10. What is the business value of this project?

Missed opportunity matrix: create a simple worksheet to demonstrate the delta between the number of searches for a phrase and the traffic you are currently getting. What is the cost of not being visible?

Use pilot programs to sell large programs. Pilot outcomes: get more engagements for less €€€

Show them the revenue opportunity.

Describe the management system, they want to know how.

Summarize ROI benefits

- Expand central team

- Investment in tools and systems

- Link building program

Fionn Downhill, Elixir Interactive

Problems selling search to C-level executives. Figuring out the need and communicate the solution.

You offer a changed marketing solution that threatens traditional marketing theory and practice.

You don’t speak the language of traditional marketers

- Start listening, what’s important; sales or branding?

- One size does not fit all

- Address the fairs and pin points

- Study their business closely, become more specific than generic

- Study competitors

- Test budgets

- Forget systems until you find the need and commonalities

- Make sure you know how to connect search with traditional marketing

Align and integrate with traditional marketing.

Stop using them and us language.

We need to learn more about traditional marketing – THEY have the budgets

How?

The industry needs to work more closely with the colleges and universities. It needs more instructors who understand both disciplines. We need to teach integration and create holistic measures of marketing results. We have to recognize challenges of the traditional marketers and work to find solutions.

Paul Wilson, iProspect

Relating search to the 4 Ps when communicating with marketers (CMOs)

CORE ELEMENTS to getting Buy-in

- Timing

- Budget process

- Targeted message

Targeting your message to sell up the ladder for search:

Two types of C-level executives:

Ms. ROI: Focused on analytics, and revenue

Mr. Creative: Focused on brand and image in the marketplace

For Ms. ROI:

Show her numbers: 102 million missed impressions in the marketplace – per month

Data supporting Missed Opportunities.

The competition’s eating our lunch.

For Mr Creative:

Show him the big picture

SEM and other online campaigns: how they drive search

He will be involved in offline media as well, show him how he can capture offline offers online.

- Start by analyzing your audience

- Develop the messages targeted to that audience

- Provide real examples

- Leverage marketplace data and tools

Advanced B2B Search Marketing - Trends and insights from Google

B2B problem for search marketers: Often long buying cycle and offline purchases.

Marc McMaster, Senior Planner Business Markets, Google Inc:

Online Research Changes the Game

People do research online before making the purchase.

Buyers tend to do more research before the purchase than before.

- Since the recession, 62% of business buyers say they spend more time researching products and services online.

- 25% are more likely to change vendors than before the downturn.

These new behaviours result in a surge in searches.

Searchers have become more sophisticated, they use more words in the search query. Means they are ready to buy, if they search for it they should find it.

Patricia Hursh - SmartSearch Marketing

Online activity by buying phase:

- Awareness

- Research (lot of activity)

- Negotiation

- Purchase

The B2B buyers use search engines very early in the process. For high priced products this is even more important to be aware of.

What B2B buyers are looking for:

- Product info

- Features

- Pricing

Pricing is the number one thing the B2B buyer is looking for.

Buyers needs:

Simplify forms, make fields optional, vs lots of required fields. This will make more people actually submit the form. Consider volume of leads collected vs quality of leads.

Scot Brinker (Ioninteractive) on Landing page optimization for B2Bs

B2C vs. B2B

The consultative salesperson in B2B has been disrupted by the web.

The Landing:

Search, the site, and the gap between.

3 goals for B2B landing pages:

- Build brand

- Build trust

- Build relationship

What’s good for IT is not necessarily good for marketing.

Make landing pages that are truly consultative.

Guide, consult, build, trust.

Tony Wright: Common cries of the B2B marketer

No one is searching for my stuff.

- Look beyond search to opportunities on Twitter, Facebook, trade social sites

- Demand generation is not the same as branding

- Demand generation creates awareness of a category

- Branding establishes leadership and preference in a category

- Coopetition is not a bad thing (coopetition: working with your competition)

Marketing doesn't talk to sales department

B2B businesses can't work in siloed vacuums

Our online reviews suck, even though we have tons of satisfied customers

- Reviews are becoming the most important selling tool in B2B

- Negative reviews should be dealt with immediately

- Create a positive review program, incentive sales people if necessary

- Make sure you are monitoring your reviews

That's about it from us on day 2, or at least what we could put together. Hope you got something out of it!