So. Do you interview others or try to get others to interview you?

Either way, the queries are the same to find your prospects. Here are query ideas to get you started.

Media interview queries

[kw] intitle:expert interview or talk or discuss or answer
[kw] expert interview
[kw] intitle:”group interview”
[kw] intitle:”advice from”
[kw] intitle:”chat with”
[kw] intitle:”conversation with”
[kw] intitle:”discussion with”
[kw] intitle:”q and a with”
[kw] intitle:”tips from”
[kw] intitle:”q/a with”
[kw] intitle:”q&a with”
[kw] intitle:”question and answer with”
[kw] intitle:”questions and answers with”
[kw] intitle:”thoughts on”
[kw] intitle:”talks with”
[kw] intitle:”talk with”
[kw] intitle:”discusses”
[kw] “group interview”
[kw] intitle:”thoughts from”
[kw] intitle:experts interview or talk or discuss or answer
[kw] intitle:experts interview or talk or discuss or answer
[kw] intitle:expert interview or talk or discuss or answer

To speed up your research, auto-create these interview queries in our new link building query tool. Just add your keyword and select “Thought Leader” from the Asset Type dropdown menu.

Running queries and analyzing your interview prospects

The queries above show you people and sites that conduct interviews (targets for getting interviewed) and they show you people who submit to interviews (targets for interviewing).

If you want to get interviewed, use our guide to qualifying link prospects to identify the sites that will have the greatest impact on your rankings. For large digs I’d also recommend removing the “intitle:” command from the queries above, running each query and then analyze them using the SERPs dominator process. This will show you a far larger universe of prospective interviewers (hat tip to Dennis Hette.ma for this idea).

If you want to interview people in your industry, make note of people who consistently give interviews and gather all the URLs of all their interviews. Interview subjects are highly-likely to help promote your interview with them. Make note too of community metrics that illustrate their social reach such as Twitter follower count, how many times they’ve been listed on Twitter, their blog subscribers, etc.

By no means should your interview prospecting stop with queries though: your existing relationships are another great source for interview prospects.

To interview or be interviewed?

Interviewing others—especially group interviews—has the potential to earn many links but far fewer leads. Getting interviewed earns you one link but many leads. If you’re newer in a space, build your community and reputation by interviewing others. If you’ve been in the space longer this does not give you the “right” to be interviewed, but you will have a better chance of landing interviews through outreach.

Interviewing others, either solo or in a group, requires careful question preparation. If you land an interview with a prominent industry expert you must go back and review their previous interviews (it won’t do to ask questions they’ve already answered elsewhere, unless you use a different angle). In group interviews you must create engaging questions that help your guests demonstrate expertise and meet the information needs of your audience.

Getting interviewed requires far more finesse and relationship building. You’re asking others to “vouch” for you to their readership, plus do the actual work of interviewing you which may require becoming more knowledgeable about what you do. If you don’t do your homework in approaching potential interviewees you’ll come off looking arrogant and overreaching. But, the leads are worth the effort.

Further thoughts on interview execution

Preparation is everything, whether you’re interviewing by phone, email, audio podcast or on video. Treat every interview like a serious business engagement by conducting thorough background research. Know where your subject went to high school, his first job after college and be prepared to ask how these historical nuggets impacted his ascent to the top of the industry (unless those questions have already been asked in other interviews). But you’ll know this because you already sourced and took notes from all previous interviews by querying: ["person's name" interview].

On the other side of the microphone, in some cases you may get more interviews if you write and answer great questions for yourself and simply submit the interview as if it were a guest post. Researching previous interview questions with industry experts—and staying relentlessly, thoroughly helpful—will help you ask yourself some solid questions that make it easier for your interviewer to hit the publish button. Further, be aware that the person interviewing you might be interested in your capacity for pushing the interview in your community. It won’t hurt to let them know how you plan to help promote them!

Group interviews done well are exhaustively thorough. Here are two fantastic examples from the link building space: 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out and Link Value Factors. Your goal as a group interviewer is to dig out nuggets of actionable brilliance using questions and your decisions about organization and editing. It’s a lot of work, but if you have great interview subjects and incisive questions, the links will follow. Plus, promotion is “baked in,” as the interview subjects will mention the interview to their network.

Today I’m going to explore the systematic use of paid channels like AdWords and Facebook ads as channels for intervening in quickly moving public relations incidents. Ads can play an important role as powerful tools for supporting the usual tactics of social media and reputation monitoring/management campaigns. I’ll cite real-world transient PPC mashup scenarios for your own brainstorming.

What is a transient public relations event?

Positive and negative short-lived incidents come at businesses in waves, and often require a marketer’s fast attention. Sometimes they’re planned and other times not. Examples include:

• The New York Times features your brand on the front page Sunday morning.
• Your construction project will block a major city street and the public needs information.
• A brand’s rockstar sports-icon spokesperson gets busted for driving under the influence.
• A Mayo clinic researcher announces a breakthrough in the effort to cure breast cancer.
• You just opened a new manufacturing facility, gainfully employing dozens of local citizens with good jobs.
• Your CEO was just invited to a business lunch at the White House.
• The local university’s women’s hockey team just won the NCAA national championship.
• Any event, either abrupt or planned, that falls under the seven classic nodes of public relations.

Just like classic works of literature, these examples of transient public relations events have beginnings, middles and ends. When these pre-scheduled or accidental ephemeral happenings rear their pretty (or ugly) little heads, we must deal with them, maximizing potential benefits and/or minimizing real damage.

When it comes to transient PPC, we start by boiling things down to straight business objectives by asking the following questions about the episode at hand:

• How does the event affect the public’s perception, aligned with or contrary to our brand’s business objectives?
• Is rapid communication required to serve our customers, dispel misunderstandings, celebrate a victory, diffuse anger, communicate crucial information, stake out positioning to preempt an expected response or reap the benefits of something wonderful? In other words does the transient event warrant a response, to our advantage or defense?
• Would instant keyword domination in search engine results (SERPs) by PPC, in Bing, Yahoo and Google, give an edge in propagating our brand’s message? Is PPC appropriate in this instance and can it be executed tastefully to the brand’s advantage?
• If so, what is the appropriate keyword grid? Should the PPC net be cast further than direct brand name searches?
• Where should the traffic go? There are those who believe that PPC traffic should always point to a brand’s website landing page. Sometimes, though, the best path to branding efforts is to vector traffic to public social media profiles, independent publishers, federal agencies, news stories, press releases or other reputable third-party sites that offer independent opinions or validation.
• Would a Facebook ad be tactically useful and fitting? With over 300 million users, certain constituencies are readily accessible to the savvy marketer’s guile via Facebook advertisements.

Implementing a successful transient PPC campaign

Responsible run-and-gun PPC starts with an open mind and pre-planning. Scheduled events, like the corporate charity ball, product release or new vice presidential hire are theoretically easy. Break down traditional big brand barriers and encourage PR, marketing, advertising and event planning stakeholders to organize PPC support ahead of time.

PPC support of “events of the unplanned kind” can originate as part of the normal reputation-monitoring report and react grid. As a general rule, keywords that alert the online reputation management team about positive or negative situations are reasonable candidates for PPC targeting. It’s normal for brands to judge a suitable response to evolving situations.

Here are a few examples of transient events that could warrant a PR response. I’ll break each possible PPC campaign down by trigger event, keyword grid, goal, alternate goal, message, alternate message, destination URL geo-targeting and run length.

Example #1 – Trigger event (unplanned): Mid-authority blogger writes a complimentary article about a brand’s products and links to lead generation page.

• Keyword grid: Branded terms, category keywords.
• Goal: Send quiet traffic to reward blogs that support the brand. Garner good will in blog community. Delight bloggers who probably watch analytics and monitor their reputation.
• Alternate goal: Drive secondary traffic from blog post we’re supporting, back to our lead generation page.
• Message: “Introducing the [blogName] blog.”
• Alternate message: Use of the brand name.
• Geotargeting: National.
• Run length: One week, with a goal of diverting 30% of our normal direct brand searches to this blog.

Example #2 – Trigger event (planned): Brand’s parent company is hiring 45 new full time employees in a community of 65,000 and plans to build a new factory.

• Keyword grid: Branded terms, name of city, city services, HR recruitment searches for factory’s skill set.
• Goal: Brand quality of life and company commitment to community, visitors, locals and potential employees.
• Alternate goal: Raise awareness of brand/company to locals plugged in enough to seek out city services by internet search.
• Message: “[Brand], Proud to be a member of our community.”
• Alternate message: “We’re hiring.”
• Geotargeting: Statewide.
• Run length: One month – two weeks prior to factory opening and two weeks afterward.

Example #3 – Trigger event (unplanned): Brand product results in a child’s death and a product recall.

• Keyword grid: Branded terms, “child’s name,” [cause of death]
• Goal: Reassure the public, clarify what products are affected, and provide vital information for safety.
• Alternate goal: Links for SEO, with a plan for diffusing unflattering keywords from news and other high authority sites.
• Message: Disseminate straight-up information.
• Alternate message: “[Brand] cares and operates in the interest public’s safety first.”
• Geotargeting: Statewide.
• Run length: Indefinite as defined by daily SERPs testing, analytics, buzz, etc.

Example #4 – Trigger event (unplanned): The New York Times features your brand on its front page Sunday morning.

• Keyword grid: Branded terms, keywords customers use to vet the featured product (e.g “[product] review” and “[product] information.”
• Goal: Brand the product/company as worthy of such acclaim, to folks searching specifically for the brand.
• Alternate goal: Secondary traffic.
• Message: “Check out [brand] [product] in yesterday’s New York Times.”
• Alternate message: “[Brand] is notable, legitimate and mainstream.”
• Geotargeting: National.
• Run length: 1-3 weeks.

Paid search campaigns can be a valuable weapon for influencing perception with transient events, which traditionally are associated with public relations. Though not always appropriate, instant prominence via paid listings in SERPs can be a useful arrow in the marketing quiver. To be successful with such campaigns, it’s important to communicate clearly with other departments and pre-plan goals and tactics.

It’s a fascinating look into their “offensive” and “defensive” strategies concerning paid search.

Meanwhile earlier this month SEM agency, Did-It, issued the report “2008 Search Engines and Politics: A Study of Attitudes and Influence.” The study tries to measure the relationship between search behavior, political attitudes and likely voting behavior.

There are still a meaningful number of undecided voters and the Did-It study tries to correlate search and click behavior with potential for a voter change of opinion. Did-It found that the Internet was second only to cable TV as a medium chosen by voters to gain additional information about issues and candidates:

Among those using the Internet for research and information, 44 percent used search engines and more than 26 percent of voters using the Internet clicked on paid links:

Additional information about the study is presented here. You can also request a copy of the report directly from Did-It.

Regarding paid-search bidding and keyword strategies, the report concludes:

These results show that bidding on opposition-related keywords can have a slight effect, and that praising oneself could be more persuasive than denigrating the opposition in this case. It also shows that searchers who prefer to visit only sites that favor the candidate of their choice are not likely to change their opinions, and those who visit sites that oppose the other candidate are doing so for inoculation purposes and to reinforce beliefs they already hold.

Many were concerned with potentially negative results and cited fear of user-generated negativity as a primary factor limiting willingness to venture forth into social media channels. Some had horror stories to tell. Here are key takeaways which emerged from the session—valuable lessons for any search marketer thinking about using social media as a lever for reputation management.

Expect to make mistakes. First, any active social marketer can expect to make mistakes which cost sleep, cause angst, and alienate others—it’s the reality of the game. Subscribe to the theory that “nothing ventured is nothing gained” and forgive yourself in advance for inevitable screw-ups. Social media is just that: social. Humans tend to be unpredictable, especially in groups. Anyone who dives into social media without accepting that the results will be a mixed-bag-learning-curve risks being prematurely discouraged at inevitable rejection. Hell, several record companies said “no” to Elvis. Not everyone is going to love you.

Do not lose your cool (or, stupid is as stupid does). This can’t be stressed enough. No matter what the appropriate PR crises response turns out to be, there is seldom equity in hasty emotional comebacks. It rarely works to respond during the heat of anger, so get a grip. When rejected, it’s normal to feel hurt, anger, sadness, and even rage. Count to 350, wait until tomorrow, eat some comfort food, or find another way to chill out.

It’s true that some disasters require an immediate online response, but these instances are truly rare. There’s nearly always 5 minutes or 2 hours available to wait without impacting the ultimate outcome. Pay attention to emotional red flags and be the most mature party at the table.

Fight fire with water, not fire. When some social media twit unfairly flames your company (or you personally), it’s tempting to nuke them. Search marketers often have access to authority websites to get their retribution tactics indexed prominently in the organic SERPs. We know the forums to post to, blogs to comment in, and have a good understanding of what it might take to completely trash someone in revenge.

As human beings, we’re wired to defend the home turf by any means possible. That said, take a moment to distinguish the degree of response necessary. Fight the heat rising off the back your neck whilst your ears turn red and ask if a “high road” response will suffice in this situation.

Often we advise clients to actually thank the flamer for initiating what could become a productive dialog. There’s very little comeback for the provocateur if his or her rant is met with the response, “Thank you for the insight. We appreciate you raising your concern.” We’ve seen multiple cases where this tactic converts the provocateur to a friend. Online or off, this approach is a timeless technique for dealing with angry customers.

Don’t anger the natives. Preempt debacles by holistically participating wherever online networking takes you. Many—OK, most—passionate social community members either dislike or downright hate marketers. Their concerns are valid in many cases because average-to-bad SMO wanna-be media marketing moguls seriously abuse the privileges of membership. Be a responsible social media marketer.

Reckless or selfish SMOs dilute the neighborhood content stream, wrecking it for everybody. This common phenomenon particularly irks long term tagging and bookmarking site users. Be cognizant of the norms. Give exponentially more than you take. Respect the indigenous cultural and join in to preserve what’s best about the community. Give a hoot—don’t content pollute. Never spam.

Don’t bash the hornets’ nest (i.e., intentionally provoke). I should take my own advice about this one and will vouch for the fact that troll hunting makes for excellent sport. Don’t do it. One obvious method for avoiding a fight is not to start one. Taking the initiative to preemptively attack someone who hasn’t bothered you is an unfortunate tactic favored by losers.

Get input from others. It’s uncanny how approachable the “stars” in our business are to unknowns in need. My social media inaugural foray was to blithely attack Yahoo regarding early Panama geo-targeting application screw ups. It was very intense.

After quite a row in a SearchEngineWatch forum where Yahoo spin doctors were doing damage control at my expense, I actually approached Danny Sullivan, as I had heard him speak on this topic. He was completely unselfish and helpful in bringing the entire affair into perspective. I learned a thing or two about the mutually supportive qualities of our community.

These days, there are a number of highly qualified social media experts frequenting the halls of Sphinn. I have never met a competent SMO who was unavailable to a respectful approach seeking insight in a difficult situation. When you’re in over your head, get advice from a master.

Don’t try to save the world if the injustice does not really matter. Get over it. You’re not Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha, or Muhammad. It’s not your place to solve all the injustices on this green earth. Saving the planet is a time consuming endeavor and should only be partaken in the rarest of circumstances.

True, some causes call for a good fight. I admit it that my massive personal investment in fighting StumbleTrolls was a gut reaction to being a Jewish man publicly flamed with profane, murderous, and violent Nazi hate rhetoric. That fight was a once in a lifetime event where I put public reputation on the line for something I deeply believe in. That should be the criteria for using social media and SERPs for personal or cause-related warfare.

Cast your ego aside. A savvy lawyer gave me incredibly useful advice at my wedding. He said, “When my wife and I disagree, I tell her that she ‘might’ be right.” He pointed out that responding with a non-binding statement ceding to the other’s perspective really gives nothing away at all except respect. Success and peace is what matters, not who’s right.

When you are attacked in social media and every fiber in your body wants to throttle someone because they’re so totally wrong, check your ego and take a breath. It doesn’t matter if your side “wins” if the flamers have already burnt your reputation down. It’s rather difficult to unring a bell.

Pre-plan to deal with crisis & opportunity. Ideally, it’s best to have a contingency plan in place for when things hit the fan. We teach clients to create a designated PR council, of which we’re a member. Depending on the size of your organization, this could be as basic as running the situation by your spouse or as complex as assembling the board of directors. Regardless of what’s appropriate in your situation, think ahead and have your resources lined up and ready to go.

Out there on the street, there’s a palpable fear of user-generated media. Most marketers understand that at least some component of their marketing mix may indeed be somehow rooted in social media. A commitment to preemptive and responsive tactics to deal with negativity can be essential to overcoming apprehension.

Marty Weintraub is publisher of aimClear Blog and President of aimClear Search Marketing Agency.

Tracking the wild west web

Andy Beal recently launched Trackur, which starts at $88 a month, and aggregates data from a variety of sources.

If you wanted to go the el cheapo route, you can gather data from a variety of sources via RSS feeds. Services like Bloglines, Technorati, Google News, Google Blog Search, BlogPulse, and Icerocket all allow you to save custom RSS feeds aligned with your name, your brand name, or your URL.

You can subscribe to any/all of these RSS feeds in any feed reader like Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo!, My MSN, NewsGator, or Netvibes.

New to the concept RSS feed? Watch this video about RSS to learn more.

Google also owns a service called iGoogle, which allows you to display many RSS feeds on the same page at the same time. If you want to share a set of feeds with others in your company you can email that tab to a friend, or use Google Apps and can create a company page for your marketing department. I created one here and made it publicly available.

Stay alert to changes

Two other handy tricks for keeping up with your reputation are Google date-based search filters and Google Alerts. Google’s date-based filters are available from their advanced search page, and allow you to search for things like mentions of “Aaron Wall” OR “seobook” indexed by Google during the last 7 days.

Google Alerts allow you to track brand mentions in a specific vertical or the web as a whole, and get free email notifications as it happens or once a day. Some examples of how you can use Google Alerts:

• be the first person to get bad news and fix the issue before it spirals out of control

• ask people who mention you if they would be willing to link to you
• find people who are linking to competitors that should be linking to you (as mentioned by Eric Ward here)

By setting up alerts, tracking new search results, and monitoring discussions across blogs every day via RSS feeds, you can easily monitor what others are saying about your company, find brand evangelists, build links, and address any potential brand damage sooner rather than later.

Now you have a third choice. Andy Beal, who specializes in online reputation management, has launched a site called Trackur that enables you to set up monitoring across a variety of sites on a set of keywords at a much lower price than reputation management firms generally charge.

Trackur has three packages available:

• Standard: $88 per month for one search that updates twice a day.
• Pro: $188 per month for five searches that update every six hours.
• Enterprise: $388 per month for 15 searches that update every hour.

How does Trackur differ from the more expensive offerings? It’s reporting only, so any consulting or work on improving reputation management is at an extra cost.

How does it differ from searches you can set up yourself? On first glance, it doesn’t appear all that different. If you don’t want the hassle of setting up something manually and creating custom reports, it may be worthwhile. This product seems to be geared at companies who aren’t skilled in determining online reputation rather than at SEOs who likely have custom solutions set up already. For instance, in addition to easily setting up Google Alerts, you can set up a Twitter search using Terraminds and then subscribe to that searching via RSS.

Andy Beal said of Trackur’s value over using something like Google Alerts:

Trackur goes beyond just Google content. It tracks images, videos, Digg, del.icio.us, Twitter, as well as the usual news and blog stuff. Users can view their results using a cool AJAX enabled interface and get updates via email or RSS. You can save multiple searches, add filter keywords, save discovered items, and sort the results the way you want. Google Alerts, can’t do any of that!

The site doesn’t say exactly what sources it tracks, although it does include sites such as Digg and Delicious. It would be helpful to know the full set of sources, so that you could know what sources may be missing and may need checking in on separately. The report does show you where it pulls the information it finds, which is very useful in joining the conversation about your brand.

Let’s be real, though. While that’s a great objective, the B2B world is still struggling with basic blogging, let alone creating something that goes viral on some social media site. Last year, Forrester Research found that only 29 of the Fortune 500 firms sponsored business-oriented blogs.

B2B blogging brings up a bunch of questions. Who’s going to write for the blog? Do we have enough content to support it? Will we continue to support the blog after a couple months? How do we control the brand in that environment? Will we publish negative blog comments? Who’s responsible for the blog? Public relations? Marketing?

These are all reasonable questions, but too often they represent permanent paralysis. For goodness sake, figure it out. Make some decisions. Get started.

B2B blogging represents one of the best ways to establish thought leadership in a market niche. And that thought leadership can help drive positioning and sales.

Why B2B marketers should be blogging

You should use blogging to build corporate and personal credibility and to position your company as having few credible substitutes in the marketplace. I’ve written before that fear of making the wrong decision (risk) is a primary motivator in B2B purchase decisions. Thought leaders, however, tend to give people comfort. Thought leaders are perceived experts. Businesses want to hire experts. Experts get paid more, and they get recruited from further away. Why? Because in going with an expert, the perceived risk is lower.

When done right, blogging can give B2B thought leaders great visibility in the search engine results. That, together with their general reputations, often gets thought leaders considered by potential purchasers very early in the purchase process, often at the beginning.

Aside from establishing thought leadership, there are numerous other reasons why B2B companies should be blogging.

• While search engines like blogs, so does the media. The media wants to talk to thought leaders, and that interest can result in media coverage.

• Blogs gives potential purchasers a glimpse of what it may be like working with you (another risk reduction in their minds)
• Your blog can drive more traffic to your website, especially if you integrate the blog into your existing site
• Blogging is one of the best ways to consistently build links to a B2B site, which will not only drive traffic, but can also increase your rankings in the SERPs
• Blogging represents an opportunity to get found in the natural search results for a more diverse set of keywords related to your business

Should you search-optimize your blog?

I won’t go into the details of optimizing blogs; there are already several good articles on blog optimization, including two here at Search Engine Land: 25 Tips To Optimize Your Blog For Readers & Search Engines and Twelve SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make.

One of the matters not covered in either of these two articles is whether to incorporate your blog into the corporate website. There are advantages to either route. If you host your blog on a separate URL, you increase your chance of multiple search engine results, provided you have good, authoritative content.

Given that search engines like Google will typically display only two search results from a given site, hosting your corporate blog at a separate URL could double your exposure. For instance, for a given keyword your corporate site may have two pages that show up as rankings 2 & 3, while your corporate blog may have two pages that show up as rankings 6 & 7. If this were the case, you could have four out of the top ten search results. Hosting your blog at a sub-domain of your corporate domain can also yield the same results, since search engines generally see domains and sub-domains as separate URLs.

On the other hand, if you’re seeking to build links to the corporate website, you may want to incorporate your blog as a section (not sub-domain) of your existing corporate site. This way, links to your blog will also accrue to your overall site.

Be smart with your messaging

A blog is a brand asset. Don’t do anything from an SEO perspective that you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing on your corporate site, especially if your blog is integrated into your corporate site.

Finally, a blog isn’t a license to get flippant; your corporate reputation is too important. Don’t say things in a blog that you wouldn’t say to a client or prospect. While blogs are a great place to inject your opinions, a few wrong words can change a lot, just as it did in the clip below for David Shuster of NBC.

The most recent issue of BtoB Magazine has a good article on B2B Blogging that should remain accessible for a while. And if you want to read more about thought leadership, Britton Manasco has a great white paper (registration required) on the value of and trend toward thought leadership in the B2B realm.

This is a brilliant idea on many levels:

• It creates a local force of SEMs around the globe

• It generates buzz for search marketing and local search in particular
• It will create exposure for AdWords in local markets and a word-of-mouth “ripple effect”
• It will help expose college and business students to SEM
• It will create some great learning for Google in the reports that are generated (and more buzz when the winner(s) are announced)

Here’s how it works according Google: 1. Professors divide students into groups, who then receive free online advertising vouchers for Google AdWords worth $200. 2. The groups or professors recruit a small to medium sized business, under 100 employees, who have a website but don’t currently use AdWords. Each group works with the business to set up an account and structure an online marketing campaign. 3. During a 3 week competition window, the groups optimize and refine their campaigns. They will need to submit two competition reports – one before they begin and one after the campaign has ended. Entries are judged and winners chosen based on the success of their campaign and the quality of their reports. 4. To accommodate students all over the globe, students can compete over any three consecutive weeks between February 10th, 2008, and May 24th, 2008. 5. Global and regional winners will be announced in July 2008.

The evolution of organic measurement

Traditional search measurement involves simply monitoring rankings for improvement. Ranking improvements are still a nice indicator as long as you have selected the right keywords, but search analytics has evolved to include more sophisticated metrics. Depending on the type of site (i.e. content/ad-oriented, lead generation, or e-commerce), you will want to measure many other data points, including visitor demographics, visitor engagement, average click-depth, organic landing page bounce rate, organic (brand and non-brand) traffic, and organic (brand and non-brand) KPI conversions. Furthermore, in the rapidly-emerging social media sphere, you better be measuring the buzz that your company and brand have created (and hopefully have actively maintained) within the online community surrounding your brand, industry, and target market.

Three steps to launch SEO analytics in-house

Defining the metrics to be measured is one thing, but getting access to accurate and meaningful data provides a separate set of challenges. Outlined below are three steps that will help your in-house team put a leash on organic analytics data.

1. Align your resources. Refer back to the SEMNAR Discovery Brief and determine which departments and people are responsible for gathering web analytics data. Does the search team have buy-in from those people? Scenarios often exist where multiple agencies or internal departments handle web analytics or drain the resources of the analytics team. As such, a compelling argument for natural search analytics must be made to the right people. You may even need to ask an executive evangelist to apply pressure on the analytics team or expand the team’s size.

2. Assess maturity and audit accuracy. Once buy-in is established, find out how long analytics have been in place. Life will be a lot easier if analytics software has been installed and tracking properly for more than a year. Moreover, if analytics is not currently set up in an appropriate way, then an expert consultant should be brought in to straighten things out ASAP. As the saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.” There is nothing worse than making decisions based on faulty data.

3. Manage expectations. If analytics are not in place or were set up improperly, then you will need to start from scratch and look at monthly increases for the time being. If this is the case, expectations must be managed because the seasonality of search can create false impressions about the success or failure of SEO in the short-term. The executives receiving search marketing reports need to understand that the true lift created by SEO cannot be measured unless there is more than one year of data. And even then, SEO tactics can take 90 days or more to affect traffic and rankings. However, armed with tools like the Discovery Brief and Google Trends, you may be able to make assumptions about seasonality and estimate lift.

Making the case for buzz monitoring

When it comes to buzz monitoring, it often takes more than the Search Engine Marketing Needs Assessment Report (SEMNAR) to get the ball rolling. In many cases, companies have operated successfully on the web for years without giving a second thought to the online conversations that surround their company and industry. Why should they care now? You should make the case that if the company expects to create a powerful and sustainable presence in the search engines and on the web in general, resources will have to be dedicated to buzz monitoring and active online engagement.

As blogs, social news sites, and social networking sites continue to steal mindshare and search engine shelf-space from conventional web publishers, traditional opinion-makers and venues are losing their impact on web audiences. Their influence is being siphoned off by blogs and social sites in the form of the long tail. Most in-house public relations and marketing departments are failing to adapt and extend their tactics to meet the challenges of this new paradigm. Since these emerging mediums represent organic traffic and often affect search engine rankings, the search team is usually the best department to engage the online community and monitor the company’s influence on relevant conversations.

The argument here is not that the in-house search team should be solely responsible for creating buzz, but that the search department should be the command center for monitoring and disseminating information about online conversations which are company-related, industry-related, and keyword-related non-brand.

Aggregate and summarize

While the search team should use granular analyses of data to closely measure and tweak SEO and SMM tactics, the company executives can’t be bothered with such details. They need a high-level overview of trends and an executive summary of strategy recommendations. The best way to put things into perspective for executives is to compare SEO and SMM to other web-based and offline strategies. The objective is to show executives that the search department is affecting the company’s business goals in a positive way and providing a solid return on investment. If you can establish this in the mind of key decision-makers, then you will be able to expand the influence of the search department and push for more budget in the next quarter.

Paul J. Bruemmer has provided search engine marketing expertise and in-house consulting services to prominent American businesses since 1995. As Director of Search Marketing at Red Door Interactive, he is responsible for the strategic implementation of search engine marketing activities within Red Door’s Internet Presence Management (IPM) services. John Faris, who co-authored this article, is Senior Search Analyst at Red Door Interactive. He helps plan, implement, test, measure, and optimize traffic acquisition strategies and tactics for Red Door’s clients. The In House column appears periodically at Search Engine Land.

What does this mean for search marketing professionals?

• If you are involved in reputation management, you’ll want to make sure your clients aren’t diddling their Wikipedia pages. They shouldn’t whitewash criticism, nor should they decorate articles with public relations fluff. Ask them to write this into company policy, and have them appoint one person in the public relations department to deal with any Wikipedia problems using the methods described in The Right Way To Fix Inaccurate Wikipedia Articles.
• It might not be a bad idea to use the tool to see any rogue employees have done spin jobs unknown to management. Your clients’ official representatives could demonstrate good faith by using the article talk page to identify problem edits. That may help them avoid a potential backlash.
• Have your competitors been spinning articles? While it would be a conflict of interest for you to “de-spin” the articles yourself, you can certainly identify problems on the relevant talk pages. Say who you are, and ask neutral editors to fix the articles.

As social media becomes more advanced, the leading sites will develop better ways to monitor the integrity of user generated content. If you’re a career search marketing professional, you can’t afford to get caught astroturfing. While tricks may work for a while, sooner or later you’ll regret your cleverness.