SEO Leapfrogging @1918 Meetup

Running the race is fun, winning the race is more fun.

Friends of Phil's are #1 and #2 for live crawfish sales. Big gap in retail sales, not a big gap in marketing and position. What do you do when you need to jump over the other crayfish guy? LA Crawfish and Cajuncrawfish.com

"One big bowl of soup," the perfect description for Internet marketing now.



1. Create a baseline analysis.
Check SERP (search engine result pages), check Facebook, Twitter.
Check competitors adword targets.
Check backlinks Open Site Explorer (free)
SEOMoz also has a tool set.
Check site page spread.

Find low hanging fruit to start.Some easy, some easy turn out to be long and winding roads.

What is working for you right now?

Martin and I used to work at an ecommerce site and playing off of what is working always was easier than rehabilitating lousy stuff.

Find competitive weak spots. If competition isn't social go there. If page spread is a weakness, create more pages. If Facebook LIKES is weak develop a Facebook LIKE campaign. Look for weakness and then act on it. If your competitor fixes the hole move on to another probe.

"Little bit search, but a bigger part now is probably social. Truth is social and search are the same thing now anyway," Phil.

Do what your competition isn't doing.

Crawfish lends itself to cool social media. Crawfish equals party. We brainstormed over Google docs. We developed the party idea. Let's have videos of people having parties. Best party gets free crawfish. Also, let's get UGC and video around crawfish and parties.

Cajun Crawfish (our peps) can't beat LA Crawfish on price so have to develop another strategy.

Cajun Crawfish Business Objectives
30% more online sales revenue.
PPC ads delivering $25 acquisition costs into the file
$25 was at limit of profitability so wanted to spend less, but once on the file you own them (unlikely to buy from another untrusted crawfish provider, so lifetime value is long and good).

Not bidding on crawfish as a keyword.
With Cajun absent crawfish becomes a cheap buy for LA, so sometimes you buy PPC in defense, to lock up the cash that could beat you senseless somewhere else.

Can bid on a keyword that is someone else brand name now, but can still get ads kicked out though unlikely here since Louisiana is generic.

Use Twitter to keep track of keyword mentions. Search.Twitter.com = great place to pick up leads. Should be reaching out to #****crawfish. But this strategy takes time. The thing that is hard to explain to people is "free" tools aren't free in terms of TIME.

Can plug in Klout scores. So K scores can become a way to cut out lower, less connected people. Great way to organize one-to-one outreach.

Video Strategy
YouTube #2 biggest search engine. Serving 2B videos daily. Crawfish, there are only 14,000 videos coming up for crawfish. ? Advertising in the video? Depends.

If in video ads is done without too much pressure that works. But other than helpful stuff, more real advertising loses YouTube audience.

Transcriptions - write for the web and Google is fine with making it keyword friendly instead of an exact transcription.

Important to have other crawfish content such as reaction shots of people trying for the first time. Get a lot of views because viral. Then also create tip, secrets, and top 5 or 10 ideas kinds of content. We wanted to have 50 or so videos associated with Cajun Crawfish such as the CEO signing the Elivis song, with almost 200,000 views (the leading crawfish video).

Next month Gregory Ng on using video to create a six figure income.

Badging Links
Garret French (on Twitter) idea. Create a trust badge that people want on their site. Phil showed the US News and World Report badge for Best Law Firms. Create a trust mark that people call you because they want it so much. Garret Frenh is now from Local Citation used to be at Otolo.

Essential Take Aways

• Have a clear authority strategy (Google wants authority)
• Keep goals in mind
• Work your plan regularly
• Time - have to work social everyday
• Help More

Time thing is hardest when it is social. Social takes time and resources. 3hrs for a 2 minute video may or may not be worth.

Schema.org in the page's code so recipe page can have star ratings. Star ratings in Google comes from use of the schema.org layer work.

Can be jarring if you pitch me a special after pulling me off search.twitter.com. Better to help first and worry about money first.

Questions
Do I have to spend money to SEO Leapfrong competition? Probably ues.

Would you be better off doing "real" SEO? Hard to answer because normal businesses must look at everything. Yes you need better meta, better copy, but you can try Twitter, FourSquare and Pinterest to see where traction happens.

New Google Panda rolled out today and better at cutting through crap such as article submissions.

Twitter.com/search now instead of search.twitter.com and I like that because can include the Klout scores. Phil 

****

On Being An Ass

There are times when I'm an ass, a pedantic, know it all ass who uses words like pedantic. Yes, I misspelled pedantic too much like I've been misspelling words since back in Mrs. Hill's second grade class at Harry C. Withers elementary school in Dallas.

I never set out to be an ass.

I get excited and want to share and go from nice guy you want to have a beer with to a pedantic ass. This is happening more lately, more since the Big C came around. I have two theories on how the Big C impacts my being an ass:

• The Big C scared me pretty good, I start each day pretty revved up just to be here so add anything I'm excited about like Internet marketing on top and enthusiasm + revved up = ass
• It is possible to share too much, but sharing is what you want to do and in big ways when each day seems all kinds of precious

My desire to do the right thing doesn't change net result, net result is I can be (or feel or seem like) an ass. Confidence takes a pretty massive hit sitting in a chemo chair. It is a scary chair. Life's finite journey hits home pretty fast with 24 karat gold drugs dripping into veins once a month. After getting the gold you feel like someone kicked you in the stomach for a few days, then your sleep schedule goes all crazy. Finally both stomach and sleep are aligned and it is time to head back in for another round of mortality.

The thing is these are my trials, challenges and burdens.

Sharing my stuff takes weight off, but sharing with anyone other than other cancer patients, their families or my family and I head directly toward "ass" very, very fast. Again, not my intention, but net net that is where we end up. It is almost impossible to share how complete the Big C owns your life. You look for any quiet respite from a constant, angry storm. The problem is seeking the wrong shelter in the wrong time and in the wrong ways moves me into the "ass" space again.

Someone I know, love and trust described me as a bull in a china shop today and that is NOT the first time I've heard such feedback. There used to be more grace, more empathy and patience in me, in my actions. The irony of life is I was much more selfish then (youth), but seem more selfish now (not so young) when my only real desire is to help and share. Irony is a pain in the ass :).

 Little is sure now. Even who and what I am is in flux. My personal code is intact and strong. My code is about altruism, giving freely and with care and selflessness. Those are my life's core ideas now. Writing that I realize it sounds pompous, but it doesn't come from anything other than the need to feel connected and real, to feel like me again.

There is a problem. I'm badge heavy. I keep thinking the who I used to be will come walking back, sit down for an easy merge. Can you ever find your old self? Probably not, so finding peace with being an ass every now and then seems crucial to NOT ruining TIME.

Time, I've learned the hard way, is the only thing we can't manufacture or redo. I would have pulled the redo cord several times recently. Pulling the redo cord and still being an ass would be much to Ground Hog Day. I MUST be capable of not being an ass (good intentioned or not). Young, dumb and healthy I didn't worry so much about being an ass. Maybe, and this is probably the case, I was just as much of an ass then but cared less. Now being an ass is crushing robbing me of my most prized possession - time.

I'm determined to NOT be an ass.

The first thing that flashed in to my mind when a nice man in a white coat reminded me life isn't an infinite journey now six years ago was friends and family. The second almost simultaneous thought was an unfulfilled dream of riding a bicycle across America. I achieved the second (the ride) but am messing up the first (life).

Hope friends reading this will help by being patient, tugging their ear ever so slightly if I'm being an ass and smack me if I walk right by the ear tug. I love anyone willing to read this far as you are surely friend or family, apologize for being an ass and appreciate your infinite willingness to help.

Thanks for the ear tug.

Marty

Martin's Cure Cancer Interview On My Carolina Today

Met the great My Carolina Today team at NBC17 yesterday and spent a few minutes talking about #MartinsRide and curing cancer.

Great, professional, caring team and Sharon and Valonda were kind and generous. Thanks to NBC17, My Carolina Today, Sharon and Valonda for helping us get the word out about our pennies to cure cancer campaign ($.03 for every #MartinsRide mention until Friday 2.24.12). Remember, together we cure cancer in our lifetime. Yesterday (aired today) My Carolina Today cured cancer. You guys ROCK. THANKS. Martin Founder Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer Page where you can watch the interview on NBC17 site: Martin's My Carolina Today Interview

Brief History of Content Marketing

Cool infographic from Joe Pulizzi's Content Marketing World. Wanted to be involved, but price was too high. Will still go as was impressed last year and believe CMW is one of the better content and Internet marketing conferences. Martin
Like this infographic? Get more content marketing information from the Content Marketing Institute.

NewsJacking Real Time Web Prezi

Prezi for tomorrow nights Atlantic BT Meetup. RSVP Here and Join our Raleigh Internet Meetup Here. Looking for our Virtual Meetup link? Check our NewsJacking Cures Cancer page or our @NJCuresCancer Twitter feed. Use #MartinsRide to post questions or LIKE Atlantic BT on Facebook. 

Pictures of NEWSJACKER Tees are on Atlantic BT's Facebook page too.

NewsJacking The Real Time Web on Prezi

VOTE Martin's Cure Cancer Tie

VOTE FOR Jimmy V Foundation Tie For Martin's NBC17 Interview
Will be interviewed on Tuesday by NBC17 My Carolina Today. Will be discussing Martin's Ride and our #MartinsRide social media marketing campaign to raise $.03 per mention until 2.24.12. Two Jimmy V ties are neck and neck (lol). Coach K tie in the lead with You Can Do it coming up fast. I've voted, but will wear whatever Jimmy V tie wins to discuss how Newsjacking Cures Cancer with NBC17 (will air on Wednesday)

NewsJacking Cures Caner 

(VOTE here, use our auto-tweet feature and tune into our 2.21.12 Real Time Meetup streaming live to the web here too)

#MartinsRide earns $.03 to cure cancer until 2.24.12 (please RETWEET, use our auto-retweet tool)

Follow NJCuresCancer on Twitter

Thanks and remember together we cure cancer in our lifetime.

Marty

We The Web Kids Manifesto

We the Web Kids Manifesto

This is such an important read for marketers. Often we fall into traps. We think of our customers as groups or segments instead of people. There is the baby boomer segment, the Generation Y and the Generation Next. We segment and create personas. These are all important and useful tasks, but listening to our customers, made so much easier now,is the most important thing we do (bar none). Every now and again you find something that defines a group so clearly it changes how marketers approach, speak with and treat their audience. We The Web Kids Manifesto is one of those moments.

What Is A Customer Review?

Why Social Is Not A Surprise To Ecommerce
REVIEWS I said one day slamming my open palm on a table. Granted my memory is more exciting than the creeping recognition of Internet marketing with realization usually rolling in like dense fog. As Director of Ecommerce reviews made the difference; the difference between sales and not, tribe and not, community and not, conversion and not, beating last year’s numbers or not, and so employment and not.

Reviews were so important we created a “Buzz Team” of uber-reviewers. Our Buzz Team trained on keyword writing, became hall monitors policing junk out of our system and teaching newbies how to write great reviews for spiders and people (read my Recent Ecommerce Copy writing Secrets post).

What is a customer review? 
A customer review is any action that provides feedback to a website. Site heuristics such as time on site, pages viewed and bounce rate are forms of reviews. Conversion rates, and every site has them, are proxies for reviews. Customer service requests are mini reviews, reviews happening in real time. Reviews can happen on your site using your review tool, in comments in your blog, on forums (yours or others), on review sites (hope not), on social media marketing networks and email. 

Your job, if you run a B2C ecommerce site (applies to B2B too) is curate reviews across an ever expanding sea of sites, content platforms and social media. Think hard about using an Online Reputation Management (ORM) tool such as Radian6 or social search from Topsy. ORM isn't free, but its uses such as semantic analysis, can tune your PPC campaigns with keywords directly from the mouths of people having conversations about your company, brand or product. Internet marketers just have to be smart enough to NOT FIGHT what you learn no matter how contrary it is to you marketing beliefs. I start with a handful of "marketing beliefs" and then let web analtyics and metrics take me where they take me.

“Most reviews are positive,” I remember hearing from a Bazaar Voice senior manager at a conference. Who would know better? Bazaar Voice was held and managed a large repository of reviews across key brands and verticals. I was worried about a product we’d received bad reviews on, a very profitable homegrown product that we knew was on its last legs. We held our breath and pushed forward.

Bazaar Voice was right. Most of our reviews were positive. There were a few negative reviews (read Turning Negative Reviews Into Money). After receiving a negative review we moved to appreciate the feedback, refund money and add comments to our growing list of “its too old” complaints. Does this interaction sound familiar? Sound social?

Facebook, done consistently and well, is just such an honest environment. Just like on our site Facebook is a place where fans have your back. If review went too far or got too out of line someone, a customer or a Buzz Team member, would respond with a strong and specific disagreement. You can’t seed this kind of open, honest interaction. When customers spring to your defense or sell for you then the magic 1% are in the house.

1:10:89 Rule states 1% of your traffic will contribute something, 10% will vote on content created by the 1% and 89% ride for free. Each group is important and should be treated as such, the the magic 1% contributing the most magical gold in Internet marketing - User Generated Content (UGC). You may think harshly about the 89% of free loaders. Don’t. Every play needs an audience and the Internet is audience participation, something that normally makes me cringe on Broadway, but at some point enough people will appreciate your efforts in a meaningful commercial way, in a way that will keep the wolf at bay. Ecommerce conversions will come from the 1:10 and 89 groups.

Every Director of Ecommerce knows reviews and testimonials are what sells product. 

“Why,” another naive question I asked of Bazaar Voice, “would anyone write the 251st review.” My patient Bazaar Voice representative answered my question with a question. “Martin you are a brand guy right," I'd shared my P&G and M&M/Mars past, "Why do you think someone would write a review when there is nothing new to say?”

Faith Popcorn’s, “People don’t BUY brands they JOIN them,” came immediately to mind. “To form a tribe,” I said softly at first. “To form a tribe,” my wise Bazaar friend echoed. Tribe formation is nothing if not Facebook and Twitter-like and as social as we get these "death of disco" days :). We join Facebook or a brand's email newsletter or write the 251st review to compare, share and learn. We join to be social, engaged and alive.

The best ecommerce sites are prescient. Ecommerce Directors knew about social before Facebook and Twitter existed because, if you wanted to sell anything online social has always been the key. Now we have better, more completely scaled tools, but I still slam my open palm on a table dramatically exclaiming, "SOCIAL". My story and sticking to it.

Martin Smith
Former Director E-Commerce
Current Director Marketing
Atlantic BT

Content Curation Contest IS ON!

Enter Content Curation Contest Atlantic BT

February 7 Update 
Jon Jordan, Atlantic BT founder and our sponsor, congratulated me today on having 27 entries so far!! Jon is a big supporter of content curators as I outlined here:

Content Curation Contest Press Release


February 10th Content Curation Contest Update
Wow, great curators are sharing their curation philosophy, links to examples of their curation and helping alert others to Atlantic BT's Content Curation Contest. Think on this idea of sharing when sharing could decrease chances of winning and you understand the spirit of content curation. Generous is the word to describe people who work hard to help others understand a rapidly changing world without worry for how much they will be paid or their Klout score (couldn't help but check mine up due to G+ and friends throwing +K my way THANKS GUYS).

Curation isn't about material rewards. Curation is about helping first. There is a big Mobile First movement about in programming circles and the equivalent for marketers may be "help first". Helping is authentic, real and appreciated. How helping plays in social media may be gold, but the only way to mine this gold is to understand values and ethics (Read fellow P&Ger Jim Stengel's book GROW for more on values based business). This is NOT to say it wouldn't be cool to win an iPad 2 or a Kindle Fire from being a Top 10 Curator of 2011.

Calling All Content Curators
Apologies for so many false starts on our Atlantic BT / ScentTrail Content Curation Contest. I have a flock of dog ate my homework excuses (sick as a dog for several weeks and CRUSHED at work), We pushed the page announcing our Content Curation Contest live today (YES!). We want to identify 2011's Top 10 Content Curators.

Are you A Top Curator?
I had this crazy idea working with Scoop.it's uber-talented founders Marc and Guillaume. I love Scoop.it and the special people spending way too much time helping others understand our crazy Moore's Law Google Enabled Mobile Coming Soon to Video Tsunami Web Powered By SocialSearch and Enough Caffeine to Fuel an Innovative Army world.

iPad 2, Kindle Fire and The Real Prize
We are going to pat 10 Top Curators on the back with a TOP CURATOR badge and special page on Atlantic BT's site and mentions in the press and on ScentTrail. Our owner Jon Jordan threw in an iPad and a Kindle FIRE too so that is generous and cool, but most of the amazing curators I've met at Scoop.it, Hunch.com, Twitter, Facebook and fellow bloggers aren't in it for fame or money. Most curators seem driven to do the impossible - figure out what this crazy web thing is doing and share any conclusions with others, compare notes and support each other. There are two phases to the contest APPLICATION and then VOTING. Application ends in a few weeks (February 26th), so please share your curation philosophy and where you do what you do. We will select a gaggle, think that is the technical term, of great curators for the VOTING phase and end up with the top 10 Curators of 2011.

Enter Raleigh Web Developer's Atlantic BT's Content Curation Contest


Great Applications So Far & MartinThanks to everyone who has applied for our Curation Contest so far. We've received some GREAT applications and are very excited to see the breadth and mastery of such a new Internet marketing skill. An email over the weekend asked about my curation background and passion. Here are links to examples of my curation starting with my passionate conversion a little over a year ago when I wrote Curation The Next Web Revolution on ScentTrail followed by:

Curation Next Web Revolution II (on Technorati)

Curation Revolution on Scoop.it

I also curate content into

ScentTrail on Twitter


Mobriff on Hunch.com

I also curate content into my cancer foundation starting with:

Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer

Story of Cancer

Cure Cancer Store on Twitter and Facebook (please LIKE CCS on Facebook)

and my Internet Marketing Relativity Meetup

somewhat on

Martin Marty Smith on LinkedIn and Facebook Quora and my About.me pages