The Basics of Link Campaigning

I read a great blog comment-turned-blog post on SEOmoz.com. It was actually written by a colleague of mine who goes by the handle “Crash” over at SEOmoz. I have actually begun implementing her strategy for my company since I am an in-house SEO who is still learning the ropes. Thanks to Melanie for this writeup and congrats on getting the upgrade to an SEOmoz Blog post! Linkity link!

In-House Search Engine Marketing Survey

I am a member of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) and sit on the In-House SEM committee. The committee recently put together a survey specifically for in-house SEMs to help guage where they stand in the SEM world. The committee is co-chaired by Duane Forrester. He spearheaded the survey effort and the posted the link on Sphinn.com. You can view the posting here, and if you are registered with Sphinn and think the post/survey is worthy, Sphinn it wouldja? Thanx!

A follow up to Google Content Network Post …

Good point Shariq / Tomncp! I think I misworded my headline and question. The questions I was trying to ask was “Is Google’s Content Network costing you money?” And in our case, it was. 95 percent of our clicks were coming from the Content Network, which displayed our ads on sties completely unrelated to our business or products. Those clicks were costing us money. Contrary to my original question (which I edited), the Content Network was actually HELPING our CTR, but it was artificially inflating it with zero ROI.

SEOMoz’s White Board Friday Series

If you are in the Search Marketing field and have not discovered SEOMoz, you must add it to your Blog Reader, RSS Feed, etc. One of my favorite features of the site is the “White Board Friday” YouTube video cast. You can check out one of the more recent episodes below. For more blog and videos, visit SEOMoz.org.

This White Board Friday video talks about the state of the SEM industry and proposes to viewers to ask themselves three important questions.

Google Adwords Content Network … Is it costing you money?

Welcome back, everyone! I apologize for the lack of posts during the past month, but I was on vacation the first two weeks of September and the end of August was very busy (mostly in preparation for my two week get-a-away). However, I am back at work, well rested and ready to fight the good SEM fight!

I got a great e-mail from Melanie Nathan up in Edmonton, Alberta. She has graciously agreed to write an article for our humble (but growing) In-House SEO blog. Melanie works as an in-house SEM for a company called Statusfirm.

Anyhow … moving on to the topic at hand: Google Adwords’ Content Network … Is it costing you money? Earlier this summer, I took over my company’s only Google Adwords account. It was my first foray into the PPC arena. I had a theoretical understanding, having attended conferences and read the blogs, but this was the first opportunity to get my hands dirty.

After learning how to navigate the site, I felt pretty comfortable with setting up competing ad campaigns and lo and behold, we have increased our CTR with the ad variations. And we continue to change them up, constantly looking for a better performing ad.

We are also diligent about our keyword research and our max bids. Unfortunately, many of the keywords we want to bid on are highly competitive and ultimately we were forced to use other keywords until we can get a bigger Adwords budget.

So, how can we maximize our PPC spending? Well, we took a look at our CTR and found that we were doing pretty good when our ads appeared on the Google Content Network. But, when we dug a little deeper and actually looked at the Web sites on which our ads were appearing, we discovered that virtually none of them were related to our business or products. And Google’s content network accounted for about 95 percent of our impressions … we were flushing money down the PPC toilet.

The solution? We removed our ads from Google’s Content Network and are focusing our efforts solely on the keyword search platform. We warned the directors that our CTR may decrease with the lack of impressions, but after only a few days, we were pleasantly surprised to see that our CTR actually increased! Of course, at the same time we removed our ads from the Content Network, we changed the URL destination of the ads and added new keywords. Regardless, the changes we made had an immediate impact.

The point, Gary … get to the point. In our case, we found that our ads were not performing well on the Content Network. If you have an Adwords account, make sure you examine the sites on which your ads are appearing and make sure they are relevant. In our case, we have a product with the acronym OVA, which apparently is very common in some Japanese anime; so our ads were showing up on dozens of anime fan sites and blogs and we were actually getting pretty good CTR rates … can you guess why? Hmmmm, I’m thinking of a phrase that begin with “click” and ends with “fraud.”

That is our lesson for today. Remember, this blog is for real SEMs of all experience levels who are in the trenches every day. We are here to share our experiences and hopefully learn from each other’s successes and failures.

You can learn more about me (why you would want to, I don’t know) by visiting my SEOMoz profile at http://www.seomoz.org/users/view/44253. You can e-mail me at gary.cope@gmail.com, or IM me at garyjamescope (AIM and Yahoo).

If you would like to submit an article for the In-House SEM blog, fire away! This is your blog too … however, as supreme ruler of this blog, I have the power to decline and/or edit any articles that are submitted. Don’t worry; I’ll be gentle. Capiche?

Attention In-House SEMs! You are not alone…

I met Duane Forrester at SES NYC in April 2007. Duane was very approachable and freely shared his knowledge with me at the SEMPO booth. As a result, my company footed the bill to join SEMPO and I later submitted my name for consideration for SEMPO’s in-house SEM committee. A few weeks later, Duane, the chairman of the committee, called me for a quick interview. First, he made sure I wasn’t actually from an agency and once he confirmed that I was indeed a one man SEM army with my company, he welcomed me to the committee with open arms and filled me in on the committee’s purpose and even answered a few nagging SEO questions that had been bugging me.

The point I’m trying to make (hang with me) is that just because you may be the only person in your company that even knows what SEM is doesn’t mean you are alone. There are others out there, like myself, who feel your pain and know what it is like to do go it alone. But you don’t have to anymore! Duane recently wrote a great article for Search Engine Land titled “Networking: The In-House Search Marketers Most Powerful Tool” and I highly recommend that you give it a read. It talks about the importance of networking. After you read it, come back to this blog and give me a call at (540) 769-8447, or e-mail me at gary.cope@gmail.com and start your networking!

I’m budgeting for two SEM conferences in 2008: Search Engine Strategies in New York City and Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara. Make sure you get to at least a couple of these types of conferences every year.

Welcome to the In-House SEO Blog

Hello fellow In-House SEMs! My name is Gary Cope and I am the in-house search engine marketing professional for Luna Innovations in Roanoke, VA. I am also a member of SEMPO’s In-House SEM Committee. Now, let me throw out a couple of disclaimers before you get started with this site.

First, if you visit Luna Innovations, please realize that I have spent the last several months redesigning the company’s Web site and building in SEO and clean CSS code in the process. I expect the new site will launch in sometime in September, but at this point, I have done all I can. Right now I’m waiting for the powers-that-be to give their final blessing and then it’s GO TIME! I’ll keep you posted when the site launches.

I am also working on considerable keyword research for the main site and the company’s three other sites. I am an army of one, which I suspect is the case for many of you.

Secondly, I am not Aaron Wall or Danny Sullivan, nor do I claim to know as much about SEO and SEM as they do. My path to an SEM career is one that would make your head spin. In short I’m a former sports journalist, turned corporate communications specialist, turned Web designer, turned Web developer, turned search engine marketer. It’s a long story. E-mail me and I’ll tell you about it if you enjoy tearing your hair out from sheer boredom.

When Luna Innovations hired me in 2006, they did so with the idea that I would redesign their Web site and then maintain it along with their three other sites. No problem. I was a relative newcomer to the Web development world, but obviously I was doing something right because they liked my work and gave me the job. (It should be noted that Web development wasn’t my only responsibility. I do other stuff, too!)

So after the development process began, I started getting questions about SEO. S-E-What? I replied? Thus began my journey into the world of search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Now, more than a year later, I feel I can speak intelligently and authoritatively on the subjects of SEO, SEM, PPC and CSS. In fact, I am even a member of SEMPO’s In-House SEM committee. Scary, huh?

I attended the Search Engine Strategies 2007 Conference in New York City earlier this year and met some swell SEM folks. I discovered SEMPO and later joined the aforementioned In-House committee. Much of what I have learned about all the acronyms I’ve mentioned so far came from blogs and conferences and bugging the crap out of people smarter than me. Luckily, the “rock stars” of SEM, like Duane Forrester, who is the chairman of the In-House SEM committe, are people just like you and me and are more than happy to chat with you.

For that matter, if you are an in-house SEM at your company and would like to talk shop or bounce some ideas of a fellow SEM, by all means, give me a call at (540) 769-8447 and I will be more than happy to talk. You can also e-mail me at gary.cope@gmail.com.

Together, we can fight the good in-house SEM fight!