The SEM Olympiad.

Agility, flexibility, tenacity, endurance.

Sound like the characteristics of an Olympic athlete? Perhaps. But moreover, these days they are the prerequisites for companies trying to gain visibility, traffic and the almighty conversion from the ever-moving target that is marketing on the Internet

Yet with the bureaucracy, decision by committee and analysis paralysis that often plague big companies, it begs the question Do smaller companies have a distinct advantage over larger companies when it comes to marketing online?

While bigger companies have the apparent advantage of increased resources both in manpower and dollars, so too is a much longer decision making process, implementation protocol and interdepartmental agenda coordination (consider Marketing and IT departments to say the very least), not to mention the budgeting process itself.

By comparison a smaller company may be a one-man band of sales, marketing, IT, accounting and customer service with far fewer dollars to spend in marketing. They may however be closer to their market and quicker to market with the ability to cut and move with the trends, all the while gaining top rankings on the search engines at a much faster rate than their big box competitors.

After all, search engine marketing is the great advertising equalizer of the 21st Century; everyone is as big as everyone else on a search engine results page. And while a big company may be mired in timelines and Gant charts, a smaller company may be on its third generation strategy with second tier platforms.

In the end (or the beginning, depending on your vantage point) whether a company is big or small, has deep pockets or shallow ones, those winning SEM gold are as nimble as they are disciplined and as tenacious as they are steadfast in the pursuit for standing atop the search engine rankings.

The difference you can make regardless of company size, is to partner with an SEM who has a strategic marketing foundation coupled with the technical expertise to leverage your online visibility, catapult your traffic and maximize your conversions. To learn more visit www.gdmi.net.

Is your SEM campaign getting results or just exercise?

In many ways online marketers have become obsessed with the process of search engine marketing. Whether it’s building keyword rich content or links or article submissions or press releases, or micro sites (the list goes on and on) the ultimate search for the holy grail (a.k.a high rankings) may appear to be what determines a successful search engine marketing campaign. But the much ado about the processes involved in achieving high rankings can too often lead marketers to lose sight of what actually matters, namely the results.

Most online advertisers know that branding, visibility, impressions and the like will lead the horse to water but only real marketers understand that to get the horse to ‘drink’ is a different story.

Search engine optimization campaigns (and often paid search campaigns) focus all activity around gaining visibility and traffic but the best SEM campaign cannot make up for a website that lacks meaningful messaging, compelling calls to action, or an easy way for the visitor to make contact with the advertiser.

Like any traditional marketing activity, the most successful online campaigns focus on the entire communication cycle from branding to messaging to engaging with the customer. Generating visibility and traffic is only one part of the equation, albeit an essential one. Only those campaigns which address what takes place once a visitor opens the door to a website will be truly successful.

Unfortunately for advertisers most SEMs heavily focus their attention on the first half of the equation, driving traffic. But those SEMs who are marketing centric understand that without the true holy grail of the conversion the rest is just exercise.

To learn more about conversion campaigns from a truly marketing centric SEM, visit Global Directive Marketing Initiatives.

‘Local Search’ a new twist on a not so new concept.

Reports on the ever increasing usage of the Internet and specifically search engines by consumers for ‘local information’ make it sound like looking for a source of supply for goods or services in one’s backyard is something new. Clearly we’d rather find an auto repair shop across town rather than across the country. The revelation is not necessarily in the consumer behavior but rather the options which we as marketers have now to attract new buyers who are conducting a ‘Local Search’.

Traditional yellow pages publishers have recognized this by taking their century old product and putting it online in the form of Internet Yellow Pages. In most cases, you still need to select from a predetermined category (Physicians, Auto Dealers, Restaurants, etc.) as compared to determining your own category in the form of a keyword search as in the case of one such IYP.

Paid search strategies can be much more cost effective and productive when geo targeted (Akron auto repair shop) whether or not an advertiser is local or national. Why? Because matching marketing strategies to consumers’ evolving behavior on the Internet continues to garner the most successful results.

Accordingly the Local Search evolution (not quite a revolution) is also giving rise to newly created solutions for advertisers (large or small) to make certain their businesses accurately appear in the Local Search Results sections of the search engines and directories. Local results appearing as the first natural results make it an extremely desirable location to appear from a marketing perspective.

A small electronics dealer with a local business who might otherwise be unable to compete with the dollars and online presence of a national chain may still be included at the top of the search engines’ results by appearing within the Local Results page. Figuring out how to get there however may not be as easy as it seems, or is it?

As with any media come the proliferation of value added products and services, (can you say XM Radio, TiVo, and Search Engine Optimization firms?). As such as an industry we have created new programs which can automatically distribute a local business’ information across to the data providers of the search engines, therefore including the business within the Local Search Results and helping them compete locally within their own market. One such local search service, even provides a business with a single page web page so even if you don’t have a website, you can still appear on the Internet and compete with the big dogs.

Platforms such as Local Search and services such as www.MyLocalProfile.com, which help companies big and small to compete will continue to help to even the playing field that is the Internet as a marketing platform. More importantly they will continue to increase the quality of the information which consumers will find when searching for a “Bathroom remodeling contractor in Greenwich, CT’.

To learn more about how you can get your business in the search engines’ “Local Search” results visit MyLocalProfile.

The more things change….

Virtually every aspect of communication has been impacted by the digital revolution of the past decade. The methods, means and speeds with which we communicate in many regards have been distilled, scrubbed, or emoticommed.

We are now reduced to texting, IMing, web conferencing, podcasting and making calls over the Internet, not to mention the passé method of emailing. Social networking was something you once did at a cocktail party, now it’s a chat room on steroids.

So one would think with all these new avenues for communication, our messages would be clearer and we in fact would better understand one another. Is it just me or is there more confusion than ever? Have we in fact created more misunderstandings, more re-work for ourselves and in fact less meaningful communication?

The message still is the medium. If you want to be understood, don’t hide behind your DSL, or your Outlook, or your Treo or even your phone…. Get in front of someone, look them in the eye, listen and be heard….you may be surprised at what can happen.

Riding (or creating!) the SEM Wave

With search now a mainstream marketing consideration, SEOs and SEMs are popping up all over the place. From the one-man-band to full agencies, many are working to capitalize on the potential business this new form of marketing has delivered. Yet to truly leverage the business that exists, one cannot ignore the meaning of ‘marketing’ in ‘search engine marketing’.

Sure there are plenty of talented coders who can attend to the basics of meta, title and description tags, sitemaps and site architecture – essential components of SEO. Yet building an SEM company requires a multifaceted and skilled team of marketing professionals. In fact, the talent pool required reaches beyond the technical implications for real success in the search engine marketing field.

For many advertisers, search is still either brand new to them (they don’t know what it is) or fairly new (they have an understanding of the basics), and for even those who have attempted some form of it on their own; it is vital that the SEM is not only technically oriented but is also expert at communicating the value it can bring to an advertiser.

For those of us marketers who have been in the communication business, we fully recognize the need to have team members devoted to client communication as well as interpretation of what search is and can do for them…in their terms. From skilled business development managers to client-obsessed project managers, advertisers large or small will have a considerable advantage when their campaign is in the hands of a team of search engine marketing professionals with whom to consult and discuss their needs.

Then there is the matter of the technical experts on the team – the developers, optimizers and software engineers - they are not created equally to be sure. When building a team, the best case scenario is one where your technology team is in tuned not only with what is going on inside the industry, but also with the market at large, its demands and needs: experts who stay close to the market so that the software solutions created and the strategies executed, remain meaningful and pertinent to the clients’ goals.

Orchestrating a team of this caliber requires a delicate balance between fostering relationships, developing meaningful SEM products and solutions and keeping an ear to the industry, all while moving and motivating a diverse team in the same direction.

At the end of the day, search and internet marketing as a whole, remains a service business. For those of us who are dedicated to delivering quality results and increased sales traffic to its clients, riding the wave means keeping an eye on the ‘M’ in search engine marketing.
To access an unparalleled resource of communication, technology and marketing experts, visit us at www.gdmi.net.

Doreen Domask is the SVP of Internet Marketing Services at GDMI (Global Directive Marketing Initiatives.) Behind her leadership GDMI is becoming a recognized leader in Internet and search marketing.

About Doreen:

• 15+ Years of Marketing Experience
• University of Arizona Graduate