SEO…It’s All I Need, Right?

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Search Engine OptimizationIf you are only using a website with search engine optimization or SEO to get business, you may as well close up shop!

You wouldn’t plant seeds in a garden and hope that they’ll grow. You know that you have to work on your garden to keep it healthy, which doesn’t mean only watering, you must fertilize, pull weeds and protect it from insects. Think of SEO in light of your garden—it is one tool in an entire bag of marketing tools that you’ll need to grow and sustain your business.

SEO is a complex evolving algorithm surrounding user behavior and content. For example Google uses over 200 ranking signals and the different types of algorithms range from 50 to 200.  Every day SEO experts wrangle to increase their clients’ search engine results page (SERP) rankings while Google algorithms continue to evolve organically and deliberately so that it almost seems as if the  giant search engine seems to be in charge of its own growth.

If that last paragraph seemed like geek gobbledygook, here is what you really need to know. No matter who is developing your SEO for you or how current and competent that expert is no amount SEO will guarantee that users will choose you over any of your competitors.

Let’s go back to that garden of yours. You’ve become a very competent gardener and you decide that you want to start a business doing landscape gardening. You set up a website and hire an expert who optimizes your website. Now you sit back and the calls start rolling in, right? You already know that the answer is no. Why is that?  Let’s try a Google search. I’ve decided that I need a new landscape in my back yard. I type ‘Albuquerque landscapers’ in the Google search, here’s what happens:

  1. Right away, I don’t see your listing, even if you are at the top of the SERP rankings. Instead, when the page pops up, wo to three (relevant) ads and a local map with an accompanying list of “Places” that may include as many as 10 locations head the page. Under all of that, I’d finally find the local landscapers’ website listings. Today, even top website listings often land “under the fold” which means you have to scroll to get to them. How do you compete with this?
  2.  Now that I’ve found the list, what makes me decide to choose your link over others? You have room for a few words in your description, how do you make yourself stand out?
  3. I decide to click your link and head over to your site. Here is where I am going to decide whether or not to call you. What do you have on your site and how will it influence how I feel about your ability to give me what I’m looking for?
  4. AND, I am not going to stop at one site, I’m going to look at every site that catches my attention. I’m going to call the few that continue to hold my attention once I click through and I’m going to do comparisons. How do you compete—how are you different/better?
  5. Finally, suppose that I do call and hire you. This goes without saying, if am not happy with your product or service, no amount of SEO will bring me back.

What do you do? Is it even worth the time and money to worry about optimization? Yes, as long as it’s part of a complete marketing strategy and make sure to do what you say you’re going to do.

Incidentally, there is a new listing on Google and it’s above the right side ads; Google’s working very hard to increase its own social networking site, Google+.   “People and Pages on Google+” is a list that includes anyone who has used related keywords on their G+ account or business page. I found two listings on the results page for the Albuquerque landscapers search term. Interestingly, both were landscape photographers.

Come back again for more on this subject as I answer the questions I raised and help you understand exactly how to create a complete marketing strategy.

Until next time!

Why YOU Should Bet on PR

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Caroline Limpert authored an article on Inc.com called “Why I’m Betting on PR” as a late Christmas gift – it ran on Dec. 26.  It was a pretty short piece, and I could have added a lot of arguments of my own, but it makes the point.  Young companies and companies with small marketing budgets will get the most bang for the buck with PR dollars.  Regis McKenna, the visionary marketing guru who helped shape Silicon Valley in the ‘70s got it, and far-sighted entrepreneurs and small business owners understand its power as well.

PR is not “free”, but it does give you more power and reach than many other forms of marketing.  Even in an era when “personalized” messages are all the rage, providing relevant information judged to be of value by 3rd party information sources (magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc.) is one of the most effective ways of building and reinforcing your brand.

Give PR a try.  All you have to lose is your anonymity.

Marketing 101

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Marketing 101 seems like a good introductory title to a blog about effective marketing for startups and emerging companies.  With more than 30 years’ experience in launching and promoting technology companies and other B2B enterprises, I have seen a lot of companies succeed, and a lot of companies fail.

A company’s success requires a lot more than a good marketing program.  It needs passion, adequate funding, technical savvy, and leadership (see my article on the Heart of a Startup).  If a company doesn’t have the vision, management team, product, sales, personnel, and financial and delivery operations in place, there is nothing that marketing can do to save a company.  In fact, in my early days with leading PR agencies such as Regis McKenna Inc. and Hill & Knowlton, we had a saying that “good marketing is the best way to kill a bad product”.

Defining marketing

According to the AMA, marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”.  This definition encompasses much more than simply outbound (and now inbound) communication with customers and prospects.  I found a definition using a Google search which said marketing was “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising”, which is closer to the narrow definition to which many people subscribe.

What are the first steps in marketing?

If you agree with the second definition above, you might think that the first steps in marketing are to get a website and some brochures ready and send out a news release.  Not.

Overarching Vision

True marketing starts much earlier, when a company starts defining who it is, what it plans to offer, why it will do it better than anyone else, and how it is going to execute.  To effectively launch a company and a product, it is important to have a cohesive strategy. A strategic marketing plan will take into account overall organization goals, corporate and product positioning, financial goals, community relations and other issues.  The marketing message must be congruent with how the company is presenting itself to employees, vendors, investors, and users.  For example, if a company says it cares for customer service and does not have trained representatives in place to take calls when it starts shipping product, it won’t take long for customers and prospects to mistrust the company.  If a company claims that its products are the fastest, most reliable or easiest to use and these claims are refuted by early adopters, it will soon lose momentum.  And if the CEO and the CTO have different responses when asked about the company’s vision, mission and objectives, the company will be perceived as not yet ready for prime time.  Getting a strategic plan in place can take from 3 to 6 months depending on the stage at which the company is operating.

IMPORTANT:  It is not necessarily expensive to get a strategic plan in place, but it does take time.  Rushing a plan is more expensive than allowing for an appropriate amount of time to develop the plan.

Adequate Funding

Another common mistake among young (and sometimes more established) companies is lack of consistent budgeting.  It takes time to create and sustain a market presence, and inconsistent application of marketing programs can sometimes be worse than no marketing at all.  We recently worked with a company with outstanding potential and were working on a year plan.  Unfortunately, the company decided to pull back on its budget abruptly, halfway through the year.  With no warning, some of the activities underway we cancelled midstream—resulting in expense with no return for the company.  Had we understood the financial constraints earlier in the year, we would have recommended a different set of activities.

On a par with outright cancelling of a program is inconsistent application—stops and starts.  As in activities such as dieting and muscle building—and relationship building, building up a head of steam, followed by inactivity and then trying to start over yields less than optimum results.

Consistent Messaging

How much better to go out with a consistent message and a funded marketing program that will allow the company to demonstrate a single-minded focus and build a reputation in the market?  At Breakthru, we specialize in helping young companies look larger than they are.  This is not deception, it is simply helping them to present themselves in a way that allows them to demonstrate that they are an organized and sophisticated organization, worth of the trust of their audiences.

Marketing 101 Summary

Plan before you leap!  Make sure that your agency is on board in time to provide strategic planning based on a reasonable budget, rather than simply looking for quick tactical solutions.  It is less expensive—and more productive in the long run.