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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
While attending the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle this year, I was very eager to sit in on the SEO Mega Session to see a panel of industry vets. True to form, this session was chock-full of useful insights, lots of ribbing, and more than a little eye rolling between the panel members. At some […]
Lately, I’ve heard a lot of folks chattering about the hot topics of the day. Google traffic is down after their update, mobile SEO is the future and now the flutter is about the apparent changes we’re seeing in the sitemap protocol. I suspect in house folks have a split view on these topics. On […]
Are you struggling to communicate your program’s successes and plans across your organization? Do you have a hard time getting people to pay attention to SEO in your company? Let’s take a look at a three step plan to improve your internal SEO communications. Newsletters I’m sure everyone has thought of this approach by now. Not […]
To many, I must seem like a curmudgeon who hates agencies. I often write about their failure to do this or that, or their overcharging for so little worthwhile output. Today, I’ll broaden the scope a bit and try to create a list of expectations you should have and that your agency should meet. Some […]
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the future of search. What will it look like? What will the changes ahead mean to me as an inhouse search marketer? Will my work be different? Will I need new skills? It’s almost a dead certain reality that any inhouse search marketer today will need to develop […]
There are not too many times when I advocate that an in-house SEO program should turn to outsourcing. Far too many times I have seen businesses hire agencies to perform SEO work, and it ends up being a case of the visually impaired leading the visually impaired. It’s rare, but some agencies and consultants truly […]
As part of your job managing in-house search marketing, you’ve no doubt created a training plan. At some point, you either have delivered training, or will need to. Whether it is natural search optimization, paid search management, social media, link building or any of the other disciplines that orbit around the world of search, training […]
Your resolution list might look different than this one, but that’s not the point. The point here is that you actually have an SEO resolution list. Either get cracking on those projects that stalled in 2009 and find your success by managing the work smartly, or use some of these ideas to jumpstart your 2010 […]
Is it just me, or do too many agencies claim to be able to perform organic search optimization for clients? I mean, really. An agency that charges someone for doing “SEO” as part of a site build should be able to understand how to populate meta descriptions, and what to populate them with. Right? Sitemaps […]
We’ve all been there. Heck, many of us are still there right now. We come to work every day, game to do whatever it takes to “move the needle”. You know the importance of your SEO work to your company’s bottom line, so your head is constantly down to get things done. This often means […]
The goal here today is not to cover every single point in an internal SEO plan, but to provide you a reasonable framework to work from. Using these points and fine tuning to your unique situation, will help you create a detailed plan which will be successful. Domain expertise No program will function without domain […]
It’s no secret that SEO is but one tactic which can be used to drive traffic to your site. Anyone who has managed SEO and paid search campaigns can easily point out the advantages of both. The trick, in larger companies, is to ensure they exist side by side. Too many times these core traffic […]
In a world where everything changes at break-neck speed, it seems like not a day goes by where I don’t utter some version of the same words and advice. After a recent chat with a couple of other in-house SEOs, it occurred to me… we sound like a broken record. Are we destined to repeat […]
Like some many things around us, SEO follows a certain organic (if you’ll pardon the pun) ebb and flow. Support for SEO programs hinges on often fickle politics, in some cases, and in all cases, it happens at the pace resources allow. In today’s globally depressed economy, how do you manage your program to ensure […]
It’s no secret everyone wants to see results these days. Times are tough, revenues down, expectations are up. It’s a fight to maintain market share, never mind grow it. And every day your inbox bubbles up requests for “SEO to drive more traffic, more page views, MORE REVENUE!” You want to help folks, you want […]
With most large organizations, a number of key stakeholders must offer their buy-in for an in-house SEO effort to be successful. With various groups all tasked with a variety of other objectives, how do you get everyone focused on the common goal of optimizing your organization’s organic search efforts? Make a sandwich, of course. Think […]
Although it’s rarely discussed, a huge part of an in-house search marketer’s job is setting priorities on work items. In an even broader sense, this role expands out to encompass staffing, budgeting, content planning, infrastructure management and more. But fundamentally, setting priorities is a crucial part of assuring your internal search marketing activities are successful. And […]
First off, I would like to start by reminding everyone to participate in the SEMPO.org 2009 in-house salary survey. Running for the second year, this benchmark survey provides direct industry feedback, from in-house professionals like you, on the realities of compensation in this profession. Agency side folks, don’t worry, will be launching the second annual […]
Paul O’Brien is an old-hand at the online marketing game, having honed his skills with brands such as Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. I recently had an opportunity to chat with Paul, and it’s always impressive to meet well-rounded, knowledgeable thought leaders like him. If you think you have heard Paul’s name before, it could be because […]
This month in our continuing series of interviews of inhouse SEMs, we speak with Kieran Hawe. Kieran practices our art as the Director, SEO / Search – Global Digital Media for MTV Networks, based in New York. He’s taken the time to offer up advice for readers not just on SEO and career aspirations, but […]
This month for our in house SEO interview series, we sat down to chat with Bill Scully, Director of eMarketing with Siemens Water Group. Bill’s varied back ground and hands-on history has enabled him to showcase clear successes for his company, which has translated to a solid career path for himself. Beyond that, Bill is […]
As a continuation of our series of interviews with in-house search engine marketers, this month we’ve engaged Marshall Simmonds. He heads up the search-related efforts at About.com and the New York Times. Marshall has a deep history working in this industry, and we wanted to ask him a few things, such as what his biggest […]
Rob Crigler is the Director of Interactive Marketing for Orkin (NYSE: ROL), overseeing online media, DRTV, web dev, Internet yellow pages, SEO, and SEM. Rob has over 20 years of marketing experience, and he has been working in the interactive space for so long that he can actually remember days of the Internet long before […]
Bill Macaitis is the SVP of Online Marketing for Fox Interactive Media (FIM), which runs a network of entertainment sites including MySpace, Fox Sports, IGN, Photobucket, AskMen, Rotten Tomatoes, American Idol, GameSpy, Scout, and Flektor. The FIM network reaches over 171 million monthly unique visitors. Bill has over 12 years of online marketing experience with […]
When you first started your in-house SEO program, it was likely a tough sell. You had to convince executives to green-light your idea, which many probably didn’t understand the first time around. They wanted projected ROI, and you tried to explain the difficulty of predicting that. Your boss wanted things rolled up to a higher […]
When you hear the phrase “in-house SEO expert” or “in-house SEO,” certain things immediately flash to mind. There’s the glamour bits built around the perceptions fostered from hearing of six-figure salaries, or direct involvement in big projects and depth of contact many in-house search marketers seem to have within the executive workings of their companies. […]
With many in-house SEM teams ramping up, and in-house efforts in general growing, I thought it might be useful to scope out the basics for an SEO-centric interview. It’s tough enough to find good talent these days, and those with experience are commanding higher and higher salaries, so many companies may be looking to those […]
As an in-house search marketer, you hold a unique position. You help manage all your company’s content with the goal to maximize the return on that content’s creation. You are the pointy end of the spear in the quest for low-cost traffic and conversions. Setting aside the growing salaries and the added costs of benefits […]
You’ve been tasked with building an in-house search marketing team, and now you’re wondering where to start. It’s a daunting task, to be sure. Do you start by rousting the programmers to get the content management system (CMS) into shape? Do you grab a credit card and start up a paid search campaign? Do you […]
So, you’ve decided that a career in search marketing IS for you. Sure, your friends, parents, and significant other have no idea what you’re talking about when you describe the profession, but there’s money to be made, and you want your share! But, where to begin? Wanting the job is one thing. Being qualified for […]
If you’re an in-house search marketer, you may have had the experience of awakening one morning and realizing that you have a legitimate career. Wow! Your high school guidance counselor never mentioned this gig, I’ll bet. Only a handful of years ago, in fact, this career path never existed. Most folks would have simply labeled […]
It’s one month before your deadline and you realize nothing is done. Specifically, you need to get others to buy into your plans to move things forward…and no one has responded to your e-mails. What to do?
If you are one of the growing numbers of in-house SEOs working on larger web sites, things can get a bit “scratch-your-head, where-do-I-start” difficult. If you’re managing tens of millions of pages, or even tens of thousands of pages, there’s no doubt you need to automate things. Even those working on smaller sites that produce […]
In a recent project document floated my way, everyone’s role was listed with many sections explained in extreme detail—programmers were given explicit instructions on expected functionality, designers were shown painstakingly built visual mockups… and the section for search said, “Duane to cover SEO.” Basically, “Oh Shaman of search, work your mystical powers to great effect […]
One of the biggest realizations that hit many in-house search marketers is the simple fact that they cannot do it all themselves. Despite the best of intentions and the strongest work ethics, the fact remains—you are but one person and there are only so many hours in a day. If you are fortunate enough to […]