In House Search Marketing focused on the daily tasks and challenges faced by in-house SEOs and search marketers, dealing with everything from budgetary issues to office politics. In-house search marketing isn’t just for big businesses and household brands anymore — small businesses, start-ups and developing brands often utilize in-house marketers to manage all aspects of search, social and PPC as a way to fully control their online marketing efforts and expenditures. Columnists shared advice based on the successes and failures experienced as in-house SEO & SEM practitioners– whether getting executive buy-in and bigger budgets, employing search agencies and vendors, or recruiting additional in-house expertise. This column no longer runs as a standalone column and has since been incorporated into the All Things SEO column.
Mar 2, 2011 at 9:35am ET by Kelly Gillease
In preparation for my upcoming appearance at SMX West as a PPC pro in the Paid Search Tune-up Clinic with the SMX Mechanics session, I’ve been thinking more about quick fixes for paid search marketing accounts.
Next time you are waiting to get your oil changed, login on your laptop and consider these three 5 minute quick fixes to tune up your paid search accounts.
Quick Fix #1: Test Some New Ad Copy
There’s always more ad text testing to do! Maybe the account has got winning ad text from a test long ago, but they’re getting stale, throw up a couple of ads to test something new. Or [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Feb 23, 2011 at 9:15am ET by Cameron Olthuis
First things first, let's start with a little background...If you would have told me a year ago that I'd be working as an in-house SEO, I would have laughed in your face and told you to go do something dirty to yourself.
Yet, here I am today, working as an in-house SEO, and I couldn't be more pleased with the decision to try something that I never thought I would do again: work for someone else.
A little under a year ago, as I was on my way home from a surf trip in Mexico and had just crossed the US border, an email came through my phone. It was from the former CEO of Ask.com, Jim Lanzon [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Feb 9, 2011 at 10:18am ET by Conrad Saam
I had lunch today with a young, ambitious entrepreneur. He’s fresh out of a prestigious tech university, has a fledgling company and visions of shaking up a big industry. He wanted to talk about search.
Him: "I’m pretty psyched, we just launched about 4 months ago and we’re already ranking number one for <insert obscure phrase>."
Me: "So, how much traffic is that generating?"
Him: "Well, none."
Me: "So how useful is that ranking?"
Him: "Well, if we can rank for that, I just need to get us ranking for terms that will get us traffic."
Me: "errr. . ."
I hate ranking r [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Feb 2, 2011 at 9:11am ET by Kelly Gillease
Got a new mobile app that needs marketing? I wish I could say there’s an app for that, but for in-house search engine marketing managers, marketing a new mobile app involves a lot of the same elbow grease and detailed, tactical campaign work as a search engine marketing campaign.
The App’s (Finally) Approved
After a lengthy wait, your company's iPhone, iPad or Android app is approved for download. Hurrah! Hopefully the development team built in great keywords to the app name and description to give the best advantage possible for being found in app store searches, so it's time to move on [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | In House Search Marketing | Search Marketing: Mobile
Jan 19, 2011 at 11:03am ET by Duane Forrester
Back in 2001 when I started my professional career in online marketing, SEO was still pretty new. Paid search had literally just materialized in the form of goto.com (anyone remember penny bids?!). Everything was still soft and new.
Negotiating ad buys was as simple as cutting the seller’s price in half. Paid search could be left on cruise control with an Amex plugged into the account for weeks on end. Flash ads were brand new and ad networks were just starting to take off. Social media was limited to discussion forums and blogs had only just begun to gain exposure.
Yet, for all of tha [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Jan 12, 2011 at 12:41pm ET by Conrad Saam
I can still remember when my when I first switched over to Google on the recommendation of my brother’s girlfriend. She’s literally a rocket scientist and carries a lot of intellectual weight with me; her endorsement was fairly simple – "it returns great results".
To understand what "great results" means, transport yourself back 10+ years ago and try to remember the search user experience – one dominated by short tailed queries and multiple paginated results until you could find what you were really looking for. We didn’t complain because it was free and much better than that old [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing | Stats: Relevancy
Jan 5, 2011 at 11:17am ET by Kelly Gillease
Every day in every way, you can become a better search engine marketer. Here are some resolutions to start 2011 off right!
Stop Making Poor Mobile Choices
There are still many search marketers out there who are running the same desktop search campaigns in mobile. Remember when you did that for content targeting five years ago and how well that turned out? Now is the time to make healthier search engine marketing choices. Run separate campaigns for desktop search and for mobile.
Mobile search and desktop search campaigns don’t have the same conversion rate, so you will definitely want to [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Dec 22, 2010 at 9:14am ET by Duane Forrester
It’s that time of year again, when an in-house SEO’s mind turns to spiked eggnog at the company party and tinsel around the cubicles. With 2011 looming large in our collective monitors, it feels like the right time to share some love.
Again this year SEMPO has run the Industry Salary Survey. Started a few years back, this survey is a great tool coming into the new year to help explain to your uplevel managers and Human Resources exactly what your skills are worth. In past years, the survey was split into In-House and Agency versions.
This year they have been combined into one survey, [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Dec 15, 2010 at 11:15am ET by Conrad Saam
The most important function of the primary SEO is ensuring departments across the organization are pulling together strategically. SEO can never be a siloed department – it has multiple inputs/outputs and needs to transcend organizational boundaries. Effectively coordinating multiple departments into a cohesive SEO plan is a managerial nightmare. SEO’s have to deal with differing levels of buy-in, technical understanding, departmental calendars, and stakeholders who may have little or no interest in SEO.
My recommendation? Start at the beginning, with an SEO onboarding training program [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Dec 8, 2010 at 12:00pm ET by Conrad Saam
Dear Santa,
I’ve been a very good SEO this year focusing on nice and skipping most of the naughty. I know the elves have been very busy building iPads and Kinects for the other SEOs, but please carefully consider my more selfless wish list below.
1. Widely Accepted Cost Accounting Metrics For SEO
Now I’m sure we are far from getting to GAAP level accounting for online marketing, but one of the recurring themes among SEOs and at conferences is the inability to get high level buy in. A universally adopted cost accounting metric for SEO would go far in removing frustration among SEOs [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Dec 1, 2010 at 12:26pm ET by Kelly Gillease
Now is the time of year for putting together wish lists for Santa, and it got me thinking about what I’d most like to get as an in-house search engine marketer. While the gifts search engines send advertisers are sometimes appreciated (does another USB drive mean I was naughty or nice?), I think all in-house SEM managers would love a present from the list that follows.
Dear Microsoft: Please Bring An adCenter Negative Matching Fix
If you haven’t noticed in the transition from Yahoo, Microsoft adCenter’s negative matching is subpar. There’s no exact negative matching (which Google sup [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Nov 24, 2010 at 9:38am ET by Duane Forrester
Getting buy in for your SEO work is critical. For in-house SEOs, there is usually at least a small measure of politics involved and a number of different levels of understanding during each phase of sign off. During all of your conversations, pitches and back-room deal making (ex. I’ll wash & wax your car for a month if you install the rel=canonical code for me), have you ever asked yourself if you’re having the right conversations with the right people? And, are those conversations being held at the right level?
Having the right people in the conversation is obvious and critical. A [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Nov 3, 2010 at 12:40pm ET by Kelly Gillease
About a year ago, (October 2009) Google inked a $15 million Twitter deal to include tweets in search and finally, the day has come where AdWords advertisers can take advantage of real time Twitter feed access in their Google display ads.
Google Twitter Ads
Twitter ads follow a standard Google display template for all supported display sizes (though I think 300x250 is clearly the most popular in terms of getting the most impressions served and rendering best.) Advertisers can customize a default message, their username (e.g., Twitter.com/ViatorTravel) and some color components. The latest twe [...]
Related Topics: Channel: SEM | How To: PPC | How To: Social Media Marketing | In House Search Marketing
Oct 27, 2010 at 1:11pm ET by Duane Forrester
Yes, this is going to be another social article. I reasoned there just aren’t enough of them online, and one more would complete the stack nicely. Rather than cover what it takes to build a social program for your business, I want to examine specific areas of your social media program. Last month, I noted one approach to creating an award winning social media program. This time, I’d like to look deeper into sentiment. After that, we’ll touch on managing expectations within your company and with customers.
Sentimental Me
Tracking, measuring and understanding user sentiment is one of the [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Oct 20, 2010 at 2:59pm ET by Conrad Saam
In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I’d write a guide for Creating an SEO Costume for October 31st just for fun. Most likely, you already have all of the elements in your closet. Like many industries, we share a common look, and the following is an admittedly broad brush stroke composite of SEO people I’ve come to know. I have described "SEO Costume – Male" here, which may suggest I think of this as a male dominated industry. Nothing could be further from the truth – some of the best people I’ve known in the industry are women; however, I’ve never really understood anything abo [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Oct 6, 2010 at 5:11pm ET by Kelly Gillease
If you’re an in-house online marketer like me, no doubt your inbox also seems to be coming increasingly inundated with solicitations to try the exciting world of retargeting or remarketing or remessaging solutions. In the seemingly endless sea of provider choices, are any of these types of retargeting worth the technical effort involved and how can marketers select the best partner?
Retargeting Basics
When considering any retargeting, it is important to have a good technical understanding of how the solution works. The success of retargeting for an organization may hinge on the robustness [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Sep 29, 2010 at 4:52pm ET by Duane Forrester
Recently I decided to delve deeper into social media than I ever have. Trying to wrap my head around the actual value behind social, in its many forms, I began actively posting on Twitter – like a madman. My goal was simple: get more followers. No clue what I’d do with them, but getting them was goal number one.
A few weeks later, I found a use for those new followers. I reached out for feedback on behalf of Bing around their recently-introduced and updated webmaster tools. Plenty of folks responded, the feedback was valuable and applied to future work. Value established, I took a keene [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Sep 22, 2010 at 2:29pm ET by Conrad Saam
For my inaugural post as a regular columnist for In House SEO, I’ve been trying to come up with a way to introduce myself and our company, Avvo, without making the post about myself and Avvo. Last week, the writing gods delivered in the form of a lawsuit filed against Avvo. The saying, "there’s no such thing as bad PR" is an old public relations maxim that holds very true when it comes to SEO. What follows is a discussion on how to turn public relations lemons into SEO lemonade. But first, a little background information . . .
Avvo is an online legal directory. We rate and profile 90% [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
Sep 8, 2010 at 9:00am ET by Kelly Gillease
If search engine marketers are only using AdWords Placement Performance reports to exclude sites, they’re seriously under-utilizing the information Google is giving them. Read on for additional ways to leverage the goldmine of data in placement reports.
The basics: add site exclusions & managed placements
The AdWords Placement Performance report is available in the Reporting tab in AdWords. The primary purpose of the report is to provide data on the performance of display network (aka content targeting) sites in Google’s AdSense network. AdWords advertisers can see impressions, c [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | How To: SEM | In House Search Marketing
Aug 25, 2010 at 11:20am ET by Aaron Bradley
Just when I thought I was in-house, I pulled myself out. After five years working continuously and exclusively as an in-house SEO, I have decided to cast my lot with the hoards of independent consultants and contractors out there. This decision has caused me to reflect on the relative benefits and drawbacks of life as an in-house search marketing professional.
Many pieces have been written on the relative merits of in-house versus contracted SEO support – indeed, entire conference sessions have been dedicated to the subject. These discussions, however, have tended to focus on what is best [...]
Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing
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