When it comes to Marketing, every decade has had its ‘hot’ careers.  During the 1980s, catalog marketing and direct mail houses were the place to be.  In the 1990s, web design firms and ad agencies were overloaded with job applicants.  And from 2000 to 2009, any career related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seemingly turned to gold the minute it was touched.  Predictably, as we move through 2010 yet another new marketing career has emerged: the Social Marketing Manager.

Unfortunately, as with all uber-trendy marketing careers that came before it, everyone is claiming some level of ‘expertise’ in social marketing . . . whether or not they actually get paid to do it.  And because of this, the level of mis-information about the social marketing career is at an all-time high.  But fortunately for me, I happen to  know a REAL full-time Social Marketing Manager—one who works for a highly visible, global organization with a good reputation and a great product.  Her name is Carrie Yutzy, and she works for LegalZoom.com (@LegalZoom on Twitter, if you’d like to follow them).  And the good news is, she has graciously agreed to shed a little light on what being a full-time Social Marketing Manager is really all about.

If you’re interested in becoming a Social Marketing Manager, or looking to hire a full-time social marketer at your organization, I hope this article helps you in some way.  And if it does, a Retweet or Facebook share (i.e. “blogger currency”) using the buttons above would be much appreciated.

So . . . Where Do Social Marketers Come From?

Like 80% of  marketing people on the planet, Carrie will be the first to admit her college degree did not completely line up with her existing role.  That said, her experience prior to social marketing has primarily been in areas where web initiatives and marketing initiatives inevitably collide—in the technical marketing trenches.  Prior to her current role at LegalZoom, Carrie spent most of her career ‘bridging the gap’ between techies and marketers, which turned out to be the perfect mix of skills for a Social Marketing role.  “My specialty was in strategizing ways to increase traffic and sales, then figuring out what technology or processes best supports those goals,” noted Carrie.  “So I learned about a lot of different areas—User Interface, User Experience, SEO, Content Development, Marketing, Copywriting, and so on.”  The Reality? Social marketers are not specialists.  They are technology-savvy web marketers with a strong background in communication.

What Traits Makes a Great Social Marketer?

When I asked Carrie to give me three mandatory traits of a great Social Marketing Manager, she actually provided four.  The first was a love of Marketing (versus the love of a marketing paycheck) and the second was the desire to be social.  The third, as Carrie astutely put it, is “the ability to adapt, learn, and take notes—because there’s always a way to do it better.” And the fourth? A great relationship with both spelling and grammar.  The Reality? Social marketing, like marketing in general, is about more than being creative, putting things on sale, and choosing colors that look good together.

What Does a Day in the Life of a Social Manager Look Like?

The first thing on Carrie’s list each morning is monitoring of LegalZoom’s social channels . . . or to put it another way, “what people have said to or about our company since last time I checked.”  What happens after that varies,  but can include developing editorial calendars , brainstorming blog and newsletter content, planning future campaigns, writing ad copy, preparing reports, tracking customer feedback, and agonizing over social campaign performance (and yes, most days it is agonizing).  When her day-to-day schedule provides a small window of quiet time, Carrie chooses to spend it thinking about LegalZoom’s overall social strategy, specifically “what we want out of it, how to get there, why things are or aren’t working, what value consumers are expecting from their connections with us, and how those connections drive sales.”  The Reality? Full-time social marketers are busy people who do more than just build followers, set up Facebook accounts, and Tweet all day in their pajamas.

What Types of Administrative Tasks Do Social Marketers Handle?

Like any other marketing job, there are a ton of administrative duties a Social Marketing Manager must attend to.  One of the most common administrative tasks is reporting, and Carrie generates a ton of them. “We watch the obvious numbers like Fans, Followers, Clicks, Comments, Traffic, and so on,” noted Carrie. “But I’m also constantly monitoring what people are saying about LegalZoom on the web, and get a unique look at how people feel about the brand—including what they think of the set decoration in our commercials.”  Each week Carrie also sends out a social media roundup, and includes some of the comments she find floating around the web—both good and bad.  Although there is no statistical significance to these comments (since most are one-off remarks) it helps upper management see customers on an individual level, and offers ideas of how LegalZoom can improve the experience and better serve them. The Reality? In the world of social marketing, data and analytics are everything.  And becoming a Social Marketing Manager does NOT preclude you from being your own administrative assistant.

What Are the Goals of a Social Marketer?

Although most companies are still trying to figure out what types of revenue goals to assign their social marketing departments, most professional social marketers acknowledge that driving revenue is only one part of the goal. “Corporate social marketing is also about asking the right questions to create valuable conversations and gain insight,” Carrie points out.  “It’s giving the brand a voice and a personality. It’s building trust. It’s constantly learning new stuff to stay on top of what’s going on in the field. And it’s being open to suggestion and criticism.  Every campaign has different objectives—some are revenue-based, and some are not.”  The Reality? Finding new customers and getting them to buy things is a small piece of the social marketing puzzle. Social marketing is also an exercise in branding, customer communication, and market research.

Wrapping it Up

Do we all agree that telling people we get paid to hang out on Facebook and Twitter would be cool?  Sure.  But the job of a Social Marketing Manager is about much more than reading news, chatting with friends, and uploading funny videos to YouTube.  “Social marketers get paid to promote and enhance the company brand,” Carrie points out. “We just use non-traditional channels to get there.”  And in the spirit of saving the best for last, I present Carrie’s most valuable piece of advice for aspiring social marketers: “People tend to forget that the social web is never turned off, which can be overwhelming for any marketer.  If you don’t truly enjoy it, and have fun doing it, you WILL be miserable.”

Well put, Carrie!

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• 5 Free Twitter Tools for the Busy Small Company Marketer
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• Twitter for Small Business: An Interview with Shannon Evans
• 9 Ways to Increase Your Small Company Website Traffic

When you spend as much time networking as I do, you meet some pretty interesting people—people with things like motivation, ideas, experience, and a strong desire to help others become better at what they do.  Shannon Evans (@shannonevans on Twitter) is one of those people: a development editor, literary coach, book reviewer, and author of the brand new small business best-seller, The Definitive Twitter Guide: Making Tweets Work for Your Business (available in paperback and Kindle formats from Amazon.com).

I recently had a chance to talk with Shannon about exactly how small companies can use Twitter, the world’s most popular micro-blogging website, to their advantage.  My notes from the interview are presented below.  Hopefully, the 14,000+ small company owners, managers and entrepreneurs who follow this blog can use Shannon’s insight and experience to make Twitter work for their companies, in the same way so many of Shannon’s readers already have.

Eric from TSCB: Released less than two months ago, your book is literally brand new.  What makes it different than other Twitter guides already in circulation?

Shannon: First, my book is full of step by step directions not only related to Twitter, but to small business marketing in general.  Also, the book is full of tips and tricks for using Twitter, and contains case studies from real business owners with small and mid-sized (or zero-sized) budgets using Twitter successfully for their business.

Eric from TSCB: With dozens of other social networking sites to choose from, why is Twitter the focus of this book?

Shannon: Most of the books on Twitter are not geared toward the small solo-preneur, consultant, or small business owner. These people are the ones who need to know quick, effective, and inexpensive methods to get their businesses in front of their audiences—FAST! Twitter is perfect for any business or organization to begin building relationships with their community and thus build their business presence within that community. Twitter requires minimal marketing training and no money to begin using and implementing with a business. The biggest cost is time; and with only 140 characters to worry about and an abundance of scheduling and monitoring tools, it is definitely manageable!

Eric from TSCB: Small companies are always understaffed and under-funded. How can smaller organizations and startups use Twitter to their advantage?

Shannon: Wow… that is a big question. There are so many things they can do! They can use it as a point of service, as a customer service or listening post, to engage with the community, as a coupon center, as an information feed, and so on. Small companies can also use Twitter to keep an eye on the competition—for example, if anyone is talking to the competition and the competition is not listening, a small company can swoop in and hopefully provide answers or support. There are so many things you can do with Twitter beyond marketing. The potential is limited only by the user’s imagination and communication skills!

Eric from TSCB: If you had to give just one piece of Twitter-related advice to a small company marketing person, what would it be?

Shannon: Open your ears and listen. 99% of communication is taking in information. There are so many cues you pick up from listening carefully and with intent.

Eric from TSCB: One of the most popular articles I ever wrote was about the Twitter tools I use to manage my account.  Are there any third-party apps you can’t live without?

Shannon: Oh . . . I love Twibes for creating lists and tracking them on and off Twitter.  I also love Qwitter, as well as the ultimate in analysis of follower tools: Tweepi. But when it comes to scheduling, I prefer the simplicity of Hootsuite.  TweetDeck has its merits as well, but can be too ‘busy’ for some.

Eric from TSCB: Over the last year, we’ve seen Twitter add numerous features—some have failed, and some have proven to be quite useful. Are there any you believe are particularly ‘business-friendly?’

Shannon: Hash Tags, Mentions, and Keyword Search would be the three I list first. Hashtags are useful because you can create conversations and track them among multiple followers. Mentions (@shannonevans) are great because you can keep an eye out for anyone talking about you or two you if they use the at symbol. And if they are not using the @symbol to reference you or your company, you can still find people who are talking about you or your brand just by using the standard Twitter Search feature. Keyword Search is great because you can search for people to follow, and cultivate follow backs by examining their keywords in their bio or in their local. Within Twitter, there is so much information that small companies can mine both cheaply and efficiently using some very simple features.

Eric from TSCB: It seems like these days, everyone has a book in their head—but no one has the time or the resources to finish it. How did you keep yourself motivated?

Shannon: Ahhhh . . . easy! I live in Seattle, it rains a lot, and they have the best coffee in the world!  But truthfully, writing is addictive for me. I wrote my first book and before I was finished, the next three were already rumbling around in my brain. Yes, I have the writing bug bad!

Eric from TSCB: I sincerely hope that in 10 years, Twitter is still around in some form or another. Am I being too optimistic?

Shannon: Regardless of the longevity of Twitter itself, the concept of mirco-blogging is here to stay. We all want to talk to each other—random strangers seek contact, experts relay facts and share important information, and customers reach out to touch the people behind the goods, services and products they purchase. There is no going back now!

Eric from TSCB: Without giving away too many secrets, how are you using Twitter to market your book?

Shannon: I am talking to people every day on Twitter. I share info, I listen to the frustrations of new users, I talk to bloggers, and so on. I ask for book reviews, I ask for more case studies from businesses using Twitter, and I engage with other readers and Twitter enthusiasts.  It’s been a lot of fun!

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• 5 Free Twitter Tools for the Busy Small Company Marketer
• An Interview with Buzzom CEO Bhupendra Khanal (Part 2)
• Social Marketing Automation: Interview with the CEO of Buzzom
• What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?
• 9 Ways to Increase Your Small Company Website Traffic

Regardless of industry, website traffic is almost always a leading indicator of small company success.  More often than not, website traffic directly correlates with sales—meaning slow months on the website can translate to slow months at the cash register.  And while large companies view 100 visitors per week as nothing more than a rounding error, at smaller firms these web hits could mean the difference between drawing a paycheck and moonlighting as a restaurant server.

With the above in mind, this article will focus on nine primarily ‘non-technical’ ways for small companies to increase web traffic—ways that any small company owner or manager can implement, regardless of background or technical ability.  If you would like to add your own to the list, please feel free to use the comment field at the bottom of this page.  Otherwise, enjoy!

Traffic Tip #1: Write Your Pages with Web Searchers in Mind

If the goal of traditional writing is to communicate an idea or theme, the goal of writing for the web is to communicate an idea or theme using specific sets of keywords and key phrases.  Before developing content for each of your web pages, identify not only what the page is about, but also the words and phrases people will use to search for it.  Then, logically and contextually use the identified words and phrases within the body copy, being careful not to OVER use them and risk a search engine penalty.

Traffic Tip #2: Form a Purpose-Driven Social Networking Group

As businesses continue to implement social networking strategies, marketers are finally realizing the goal of social networking should not be to drive revenue, but to develop a  community that will EVENTUALLY drive revenue.  Are you an IT consultant? Start a group for people struggling with ERP implementations.  Do you own a mail order wine store?  Start a group for people who collect rare vintages.  Helping people without expectation of profit is a great way to not only build credibility, but drive web traffic in the future—when members of your social group are finally ready to make a purchase.

Traffic Tip #3: Provide and Market Educational Content

In the day-to-day scramble to keep small businesses afloat, it is easy to let making money dominate your marketing strategy.  But developing and promoting educational articles, white papers and free templates is still great way to increase interest in a small company website.  In terms of general website traffic, “free knowledge” marketing campaigns regularly drive up to 7 times more traffic than sales-related campaigns.  And because most people like to share, educational content has a high likelihood of being passed along to other people . . . who will visit your site down the road.

Traffic Tip #4: Start a Blog, Because It’s Not Too Late (Really)

As a blogger rapidly approaching the end of his second full year, I will be the first to admit the most opportune time to start a blog was probably a year before I did it.  That said, the benefits of hosting a company-related blog are still significant, and the sheer volume of tools available these days means it’s never been easier to get started. At the risk of repeating a bunch of things I already wrote, I will simply direct you to one of my other articles, The Importance of Blogs for Small Company Web Traffic.

Traffic Tip #5: Find Sites that Will Link Back to You

Search engines like Google, Bing and YaHoo understand that high-value websites have lots of outbound AND inbound channels. Translation? Websites that lack inbound links will rarely show up high in searches.  Making sure your website is listed in industry directories and on industry portals is a good first step, and finding sites to repost your free educational content (see #3 above) can help as well.  Also, don’t be afraid to ask for link exchanges with related, non-competitive websites and blogs in your industry.  The first linkbacks will be the hardest ones to get, but if you work hard and get creative, good things will happen.

Traffic Tip #6: Become a Regular Contributor to the Industry Rags

At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, I will say this: people with deadlines are always busy.  And nowhere is this concept more applicable to your situation than with the editors, writers and reporters who support your industry.   Making yourself readily available to trade publications—most of which are published electronically—can gain your company timely exposure whenever a last-minute quote, opinion or sound bite is needed. And if your company appears consistently, organizations and publications outside the trade will begin to see your company as an ‘expert’ in the field, which can lead to more exposure on a much larger scale.  Example: Earlier this week Harvard Business Services recommended my blog as a small business resource to its readers. This recommendation TRIPLED my web traffic for the week. And yes, I said TRIPLED.

Traffic Tip #7: Ask People for Their Input

If there is one thing in this world more frequently given than birthday presents, it is advice.  Offering focus group participation, free product samples and beta testing opportunities is a GREAT way to interest people in your company and your website.  And when your initiative is over, your company will be left not only with improved products and services, but with a group of dedicated and highly motivated people who regularly check your website for updates and information.

Traffic Tip #8: Use Social Bookmarks on Your Most Valuable Website Content

No matter what kind of website you operate, there are always a few pages that focus on educating customers without the obligatory sales pitch—articles, white papers, free tips, company histories, and so on. If these pages truly provide value, why not ask visitors to recommend them to others?   Social bookmarks drive millions of visitors to websites every single day, and the four most popular bookmarks (Retweet, Facebook Share, Stumble and Digg) take minutes to install.  For more information on Social Bookmarking, be sure to spend a few minutes reading one of our most popular articles of all-time, Social Bookmarking Dos and Don’ts.

Traffic Tip #9: Encourage People to Tell Others About Your Company

Nearly six years ago when I met the entrepreneur I work for today, one of the first marketing-related statements she made to me was ” If you want someone to pass on your marketing, why don’t you just ask them?”  At the time I had a good laugh to myself at the naivety of her comment.   But as embarrassed as I am to admit it now, she was right.  Simply asking people (in writing or verbally) to tell others about your company actually works. In fact, I have personally seen an increase in campaign response of between 15 and 50 percent, simply by putting the words “Please pass along to a friend!” in emails, newsletters, catalogs and print advertisements.  And of course, an increase in general marketing responses means more clicks to your website.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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• Top 10 Small Business Articles of the Year
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As I have mentioned several times in previous posts, there are few things in business more challenging, more stressful, and more frustrating than being asked to market your company’s products and services on a shoestring budget.  Those of us who have carved a career out of small company (and small budget) marketing know the secret to success lies not in the  methods we choose, but rather in the effective and creative use of our time.  For the small company marketer, the phrase “work smarter, not faster” is not just a cheesy motivational poster—it’s also a pen, a coffee mug, a desk calendar, and a horribly ill-fitting trade show shirt.

With the above in mind, the emergence of social marketing sites like Twitter has opened up an entire realm of new and low-cost marketing channels—channels that (in most cases) cost the small company marketer nothing but their time.  Although Twitter is perfectly capable of burning hours of otherwise productive marketing effort, a handful of creative developers have put together some great tools to minimize the time we as marketers spend in our chairs each day.  And I am happy to say I could not survive without any of them.

Twitter Tool #1: The “Follow Everyone in a Twitter List” Button (by TweepML)

After performing this function by hand for months when Twitter first released its “Lists” feature, our good friends at TweepML finally gave marketers the opportunity to follow every person in a Twitter List with a single click.  Sound easy?  It is.  The process is frighteningly simple: you paste the name of a Twitter list you wish to follow into a form field (TSCB/smallbiz-tweeters, for example) hit the “Follow” button (wait a few minutes for the list to appear), login with your Twitter account, tell TweepML to follow them for you, then grab some lunch.  When you come back, each individual in the targeted Twitter List (up to 500 people) will be in your “Following” group—and hopefully many will have chosen to follow you back as well.

Tool #2: The Friend Flusher (by Buzzom)

For those who have been struggling with Twitter Karma’s painfully slow and often unreliable “Whack Your Followers” feature, there is a new tool in town: the Buzzom Friend Flusher.  In fact, unfollowing people on Twitter who refuse to follow you back has never been easier: simply visit the Buzzom home page, click the “Login with Twitter” badge (center-right, near the top) then hit the “Flush” button in the top left-hand corner after logging in.  Within seconds, Buzzom will return a list of people you follow who haven’t returned the favor, and you get to choose whether to keep or “flush” each one individually.

Tool #3: The 6-Day Free Trial (by SocialOomph)

Those of you who haven’t tried SocialOomph have surely heard about it for good reason: it’s one of the most feature-rich social marketing tools there is.  But did you know SocialOomph offers small company marketers free use of their Professional Edition for almost a week? In addition to a highly configurable Friend Finder and bulk Tweet uploads, SocialOomph specifically caters to overworked marketers with features like drip feeds, URL shortening, parameter tracking, full blog integration, and clickthru analytics. Registering for the Free Trial requires no credit card—and if you set up your Friend Finder right away, your six days of free use will also include 300 new, highly qualified Friends.

Tool #4: The Automatic #FollowFriday Generator (by The Twitter Tag Project)

If I had to rank automated Twitter tools based on how much time they save me each week, Twitter Tag’s automated #FollowFriday generator would be right at the top. By definition, a big part of any social marketing program includes showing appreciation to people who support you.  And there is no better way to say “Thanks” on Twitter than by offering a #FollowFriday recommendation.  The system takes seconds to use: you simply enter your Twitter user name into a field, and the system returns about 20 properly formatted #FollowFriday shout-outs to your 200 most active followers—minus duplicates, of course.  Once the Tweets are generated you can either click a button on the Twitter Tag website to send them immediately, or copy and paste them into a scheduled Tweet-sending system like SocialOomph.  Did I mention I LOVE this tool?

Twitter Tool #5: The Time-Waster, Spammer and Bot Finder (by TwitCleaner)

For those of you who truly believe your company only follows the best, brightest, and most valuable Tweeters in the industry, I have a challenge for you: run TwitCleaner on your account.  I dare you.  TwitCleaner is specifically designed to find and unfollow various Twitter undesirables, and I can say first-hand it does a remarkable job finding all of the bots, spammers, quote-of-the-dayers, serial Retweeters and dead accounts hiding among your follower base.  If your company Twitter account follows less than 1,000 people (as most do) TwitCleaner even throws in the cleaning itself for free.  But regardless of account size, the comprehensive TwitCleaner Report—automatically sent to you via Twitter Direct Message—is always run at no charge.

Do you use a free automated Twitter tool or applet you would like to promote?  Please feel free to comment on this post. Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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• An Interview with Buzzom CEO Bhupendra Khanal (Part 2)
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Below is Part 2 of a recent interview with Bhupendra Khanal, the architect behind Buzzom—a leading social marketing and Twitter account management tool.  Mr. Khanal offered to share his time with Eric Rudolf, a career Internet Marketing professional and owner of THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.

Please follow this link to access Part 1 of this Interview.

THE INTERVIEW: QUESTIONS 6 THRU 10

Eric: For marketing analytics “nerds” like me, the graphical reporting functions offered in your Buzzom Premium Subscription are really what make your system an attractive option for me.  What prompted you to put so much time and effort into the analytics side of your system?

Bhupendra: Like you, I am also a “numbers” person, as well as a Marketing Analyst. I served Fair Isaac (now FICO) as a Consultant for Marketing Analytics early in my career, and have deep roots playing with numbers, charts and figures. Also, my colleague Sweta is a statistician and an analytics reporting specialist.

The point is, we both believe strongly in Analytics and proper reporting, and have built the Buzzom system for people like us.  But you have not seen the best from us yet. To date, we have implemented only about 10% of the analytics functionality that we believe needs to be offered in Buzzom. You will see some wonderful work going ahead!

Eric: It seems like every time I log in, Twitter is trying to offer users another new feature or function.  Is there any overlap between these features and what Buzzom offers? And if so, do you see the developers at Twitter as direct competitors?

Bhupendra: Twitter is definitely a competitor. They are constantly pushing to make sure their ecosystem flourishes, and this works in our favor.  However, they also work very hard to make sure people stay on their site . . . which is obviously not as good for us.  This is a race we are both running, but there is a paradox: sometimes, we help each other out!

Most people don’t realize this, but the concept of “Lists” was first introduced in Buzzom Desktop. At the time we allowed people to create groups to follow, without actually following the people within the group. But eventually, this feature was copied by TweetDeck, and ultimately by Twitter.

If Twitter eventually emulates one of our features, we have two choices: Buzzom can either develop a new feature (i.e. innovate), or introduce a feature for competing social network (i.e. hit back).  It’s actually a great deal of fun to compete with such a big player, and it is definitely not new for us.  In terms of direct competitors, Buzzom competes with Twitter, TweetDeck and Hootsuite.  Our URL shortener competes with Bit.ly, Google (goo.gl), and Facebook (fb.me).  Innovation and hard work keeps us moving, and our aim is to make it hard for the developers at Twitter to catch us.

Eric: From a marketing perspective, how does Buzzom plan to win the battle against other social networking tools that make outrageous claims like “get 10,000 followers per week” and “make $5,000 per month on Twitter?”

Bhupendra: I see Buzzom competing with Hootsuite, Objective Marketer, SocialOomph, TweetDeck, Seismic, and so on.  But we do not compete, nor do we attempt to compete, with tools that sell followers for money.

Buzzom does not promote spam of any kind, and we are completely against this kind of aggressive, “mass follow” behaviour.  Our clients and Twitter’s public timeline need to be healthy, and all follows should be meaningful and targeted.  Buzzom is a highly specialized tool that focuses on being three things: clean, useful and productive.

Eric: Are there any upcoming features or functions you would like to give our readers a sneak preview of?

Bhupendra: We plan to release a large number of features targeted at normal users—both marketers and non-marketers who are more along the lines of “pure” Twitter users. Our goal is to make Twitter a fun place, and we will eventually be using our expertise in building social games to bring some really exciting features.  But your readers will need to wait a few more weeks to find out what those features are!  And as I mentioned previously, Buzzom Premium Edition will regularly be enhanced with improved reporting and analytics, as well as multi-account support.

Eric: What is the best way for people to get a feel for what Buzzom offers?

Bhupendra: If your readers register for Buzzom Premium for just one month, I am positive they won’t go anywhere else.  For professional marketers, our feature set simply cannot be beat—and Buzzom’s account and tweet tracking is among the best in the market.  And there are, of course, a LOT more features to choose from.  The fact is, Buzzom Premium is a complete Twitter solution for business-related users, at a fraction of the cost of other systems.

Retweets of this article using the button at the beginning of the post are very much appreciated, and any questions regarding this interview may be directed to eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com.  Also, no part of this article may be reproduced, reposted or republished for any reason, with written permission from Eric Rudolf at THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.  To request written permission, please email Eric directly.

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Below is Part I of a two-part interview with Bhupendra Khanal, Founder and CEO of InRev—developers of Buzzom.  Buzzom is one of the fastest-growing Twitter Account Management tools in the industry, and was recently featured in PC World’s list of Top 5 Twitter Ranking applications, as well as in a recent article in Forbes Magazine.  Although he runs a company in one of the most dynamic industries in the world, Bhupendra was kind enough to share his time with Eric Rudolf, a career Internet Marketing professional and owner of THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.

Retweets of this article using the button above are very much appreciated, and any questions regarding this interview may be directed to eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com.

THE INTERVIEW: QUESTIONS 1 THRU 5

Eric: Many of my readers are looking for inspiration and guidance as they manage their own small companies.  How did Buzzom grow from just an idea, to one of more popular social marketing tools in use today? Was it hard work, luck, or a little bit of both?

Bhupendra: Actually, it was a mix of several factors. Of course hard work and luck were necessary, but our main strengths as a company are continuous innovation and an iterative building process.  I think it is also important to note that Buzzom was first to introduce several new concepts to the Twitter world—including Twitter Lists, Cross-Following functionality, and a search-based “Grow Your Followers” feature.

Also, at Buzzom we never worry about competition copying our idea. We simply release new features every 2 to 3 weeks, test them in the marketplace, then built on them.

Eric: With all of the changes occurring in the Social Networking industry, managing a company “right in the middle of it all” must get chaotic at times.  How do you keep up with this market and its constantly changing demands?

Bhupendra: Social Media is all about listening, and at Buzzom we listen with an open mind.  This allows us to always be on top of the market when it comes to changing demands.  Our employees are power users in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut, StumbleUpon and Digg.  And, we are always on the lookout for new networks as well.

Buzzom originally started as a Twitter Account Manager, and is now a complete suite with both corporate and general versions. Feed Management in Buzzom also allows posting to Facebook, and we are exploring the integration with other social media and bookmarking sites.

Eric: Of the dozens of features your software offers, which ones do you believe distinguish your system from other social automation tools on the market?

Bhupendra: Buzzom is an analytics-powered system, which allows us to optimize a number of our features.  For example, our “Grow Your Followers” feature provides users with people who are statistically likely to follow back, using a proprietary business rules engine.  If I have to name one feature, I believe our Feed Management is absolutely market-leading.  No other system offers the ability to cover more than one time zone, and we also provide better tracking than any of our competitors by using the personalized URL tracking of NXY, our URL shortener.

Eric: As a small company blogger, I interact with people every day who still manage their corporate social networking efforts by hand. Why do you believe there is still resistance among marketers to leverage automated social networking tools?

Bhupendra: As surprising as this may sound, I believe it is ALWAYS best to manage your social networking by hand, if you can.  I don’t suggest anyone to use a tool for something they can do themselves.  But that said, there are certain human limitations which we obviously can’t ignore, and time is one of them.  I like to compare the use of Buzzom for Twitter to using a bicycle—you can always run if you have to, but sometimes it’s just smarter and more efficient to use a bike.

Eric: Which Buzzom features do you believe could make the most significant positive impact in a small company’s social marketing efforts?

Bhupendra: Definitely People Search.  People Search is a function small companies can use to find others who are talking about their brand.  Unlike Twitter Search that simply feeds you the tweets that mention a defined keyword, Buzzom’s People Search actually provides the entire list of people who have mentioned the word.  Our system also allows you to filter the People Search by Bio, Name and Location using content matching.

And our proprietary Intelligent Match Table allows us to generate search results that other systems can’t, using data that isn’t necessarily there—for example, determining from the bio or location what state or country someone belongs to (San Diego would mean California, US).  We have put a huge amount of internal effort into People Search, and into our Buzzom Premium application as a whole, and I am happy to say that our users love it.

Retweets of this article using the button at the beginning of the post are very much appreciated.  Also, no part of this article may be reproduced, reposted or republished for any reason, with written permission from Eric Rudolf at THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG.  To request written permission, please email Eric directly.  To Read Part 2 of this Interview, Please Follow this Link.

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• 5 Free Twitter Tools for the Busy Small Company Marketer
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Given the current state of the economy, the days of being able to afford professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) help are gone.  As website traffic struggles with the economic downturn, small companies need the services of market-leading firms like Bruce Clay, SEO Inc. and HighRankings.com now more than ever.  Unfortunately, we have no hope of affording their five-figure start up fees, much less the $4,000 per month it costs to actually get these overpriced and often arrogant firms to do something productive.

But the good news is, there are plenty of things small companies can do to make a positive impact on both search engine rankings and organic search engine traffic.  And the best part is, most of these things are easy to accomplish and absolutely free.

This posting is Part4 in a multi-part series called Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites.  Each post covers 3 SEO tips small companies can implement on their own and with very few resources.  Part 1 covered the concepts of using keyword themes to create web content, utilizing text-based navigation elements, and maximizing title tags.  Part 2 of this series discussed minimizing the use of Flash and graphics, using Meta Description tags, and submitting a search engine sitemap.  Part 3 reviewed adding a blog, actively looking for linkbacks, and starting a business-related social networking presence.  Part 4 is presented below.

SEO Tip #10: Use Social Bookmarks on Educational Content

No matter what kind of website you operate, there are always a few pages that focus on educating customers without the obligatory sales pitch—industry articles, white papers, free tips, company histories, and so on. If these pages truly provide value, why not ask visitors to recommend your educational content to others with a small social networking block like the one below?   Not only do social bookmarks drive millions (if not tens of millions) of visitors to websites every single day, but they also increase your number of backlinks AND in some cases provide additional search engine listings.

In terms of getting started with social bookmarking, the strategy is simple:  figure out which social bookmarks your site visitors will use, and offer them.  Checking out websites and blogs of companies in your industry can provide much of this information, but those of you who are short on time (or lazy) should know that most small companies will at LEAST include a Retweet button on educational content, as well as support for Diggs, Stumbles and Facebook mentions.  Above and beyond that, your choices are literally unlimited—so choose wisely.  For more information on Social Bookmarking, be sure to spend a few minutes reading one of our most popular articles of all-time, Social Bookmarking Dos and Don’ts.

SEO Tip #11: Sign Up for a (Free) Google Webmaster Tools Account

Because all entrepreneurs are good at finding free or low-cost tools to help grow their businesses, it surprises me whenever a small company owner tells me he or she doesn’t have a free Google Webmaster Tools Account.  Sure, this tool (like many others) is capable of providing website owners with too much information.  But on the flip side, you don’t actually have to look at it all—and the stuff you REALLY need is nicely presented on the same dashboard interface.  On a single screen, the uber-geeks at Google will allow site owners to view most popular search terms, number of links back to their site (and where they come from), the top 5 most important key terms within their content, which pages are officially indexed by Google, and any dead links the site might have.  Logging into Google Webmaster Tools for five minutes per day, three times per week is a great way for even the most inexperienced site owner to quickly and easily spot any changes—positive or negative—in SEO performance.

SEO Tip #12: Protect the SEO Results You’ve Already Earned

At some point around the age of 5, I noticed my dad had a bedtime routine.  Every night he would turn off the TV, grab a quick snack, then walk to the back of the house and wiggle the doorknob.  I remember asking him about this routine, and his reply was “Never go to sleep until you know the back door is locked.”  Although these words were meaningless to me back then, their value was brought to light earlier this past year, when I literally lost every bit of SEO work I had ever done.  Over the course of about a month I was banned from search engines, kicked out of multiple social networking programs, and lost my best performing links . . . all because I stopped checking the back door.

In my mad rush to build a high-traffic website, I got sloppy and let my computer become infected with a virus—a virus which eventually made its way onto the server where my website was hosted.  For about six weeks, visitors to my website were redirected to any number of shady and semi-legal offshore websites (gambling, porn, pyramid schemes, whatever), which caused my site to be banned from enough places where it eventually ceased to exist.  During the recovery process I became a member of a website security blog, and received a great 2-part recommendation from one of its primary contributors: 1) spend a few bucks on a two REALLY good virus checkers, and 2) run them BOTH in Safe Mode once per week on the computer you use to manage your website.  Today, I use Malware Bytes and SuperAntiSpyware every Friday night, and thankfully have been able to recapture at least some of my former SEO glory.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• Universal Search: Still Relevant for Small Companies?
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• Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part I
• What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?

As recently as ten years ago, Marketing Departments were widely viewed as little more than service bureaus for most organizations.  In the eyes of many businesses, marketing existed only to perform low-level tasks like generate marketing collateral, assemble presentations, and coordinate trade shows.  I know this not because I read about it, or because someone told me, but because I was there.  During the mid to late 1990s, I watched as companies large and small maintained under-staffed (and under-skilled) Marketing departments.  I listened to people tell me how easy my job was.  I talked to sales people who were getting things like cell phones and support staff and car allowances, while I was stuck in a cube and forced to use the oldest computer in the building.

Then the Internet happened.

And literally overnight, the view of Marketing’s role in a growing organization changed.  Small, innovative companies leapfrogged market leaders by realizing that building brand awareness, generating interest, making sales, and developing loyalty could be done without meeting customers face-to-face.  Hiring plans were modified to include investments in high-level marketing personnel who could build skilled and agile marketing teams.  Marketing processes were changed to leverage the latest technologies and perform functions sales people were once responsible for—reaching potential customers, sorting through them, and identifying those who are ready to purchase.  And I finally got an office, complete with a door and the most expensive computer in the building.

But although life is good for many of us, even in 2009 it seems there are a number of companies who haven’t caught up yet.  Many of you reading this article work for or manage organizations who still do not give Marketing—specifically, Internet marketing—credit for being able to do anything but send mass email and publish web pages.  If your company is having trouble getting its Internet marketing efforts off the ground, here are five steps you can take to start moving in the right direction:

Step 1: Admit That Marketing is No Longer Overhead. First and foremost, supporting a successful Internet marketing effort requires a company-wide change in attitude.  Until you begin to view the dollars spent in this area as investments and not overhead, your Internet marketing department will always be set up for failure.  Internet Marketers need to be reassured that they won’t be let go (and that their budgets won’t be scaled back) the minute business slows down.  Plus, a good Internet marketer has the ability to make a living with or without you.  So if you don’t make sure they feel like a valuable part of the organization, they’ll just leave.

Step 2: Hire a High-Level Marketing Resource First, not a Rookie. Instead of building a marketing team from the bottom up, find an experienced management-level Internet marketer first.  Companies often become enamored with marketing people who have experience in a specific industry, or who are specialists in certain types of marketing.  But in this case, your search should focus on people who are familiar with a broad range of Internet marketing initiatives, and have a track record of experimenting with new methods and technologies.

Step 3: Allow Your Internet Marketers the Freedom to Experiment. Because marketing technologies and audiences change so rapidly, it is critical that your marketing personnel have the freedom to try new things, and the reassurance to know that an occasional failure is OK—as long as a solid business case was made up front.  Not every Internet marketing campaign is going to be a hit.  But on the flip side, there are millions of dollars to be made by companies who can figure out creative ways to reach a previously untapped market.  Allowing your Internet marketing team some room to roam once in awhile will pay back your company ten times over.

Step 4: Invest in Ongoing Training and and Networking. To ensure your company is utilizing the latest in Internet marketing technology and techniques, it is critical that you support the department’s thirst for knowledge.  In the Internet marketing world, knowledge is often tightly held; passed from person to person like a Mayan legend.  Part of running an Internet marketing department is to support the transfer of this knowledge through conferences, workshops, and professional memberships in networking organizations.

Step 5: Dare to Dream. To run a successful Internet marketing department, you have to understand the rules of the game have changed.  Given the databases, techniques and technologies that Internet marketers have access to today, almost any type of marketing campaign you can envision is now a possibility.  Once your Internet marketing team is in place, don’t be afraid to challenge them by thinking big.

Conclusion

Visionary company owners and managers understand that embracing the value of Internet marketing can allow a company to reach unreachable audiences, generate a steady stream of interest, and compete with companies much larger in size.  But in order to accomplish these things, you must be prepared both mentally and financially to not only assemble an Internet marketing effort, but support it successfully for the long-term.  The fact is, there have been more marketing-related innovations in the past six weeks than there have been sales-related innovations in the past six decades.  Gaining a customer has grown far beyond phone calls and personal appearances, into a comprehensive strategy that includes multiple customer touches in dozens of different forms.

Companies from two-person shops to Fortune 500 members are driving more revenue (and significantly more margin) by shifting their outbound focus to targeted, quick-response Internet-based marketing methods like social networking, PPC, blogging, direct email, organic and paid search, e-newsletters, podcasting, webinars, portals and downloads.  And the Internet Marketers who hang out at websites like Sphinn and Search Engine Land are leading the way—pushing search, marketing and Internet technology to places your brain won’t allow you to go.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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In mid-2007, Google gave SEO experts and Internet marketers an entire year’s worth of job security when it announced the first steps toward a Universal Search model.  Shortly thereafter, similar announcements were made by MSN and YaHoo; and for the remainder of 2007 and much of 2008, the topic of Universal Search was featured at every marketing conference and written about by every blogger on the planet.  But then—like O.J. Simpson to David Hasselhoff—social media swept in and stole Universal Search’s moment in the sun, and topics like blog monetization, social bookmarking and Twitter have dominated the marketing landscape ever since.

[ Aside ]In 1994, Hasselhoff was scheduled to perform a televised concert from Atlantic City to jump-start his U.S. singing career. On that same night, the infamous O.J. Simpson police chase was televised live across the country. Hasselhoff has not attempted a TV concert since.

So whatever became of Universal Search?  With all of the other new and easy-to-use traffic generating technologies, should Universal Search still be on a small company’s marketing radar?  The answer to this question is a definitive “Yes,” for one important reason:

Over 90% of organic search engine traffic comes from the first page of results.

The point here is, any marketing program that allows your small company to appear on the first page of search engine results is a wonderful use of your time, regardless of how many other more “trendy” marketing channels may exist.  As a refresher for those of you who need it (I probably should have done this earlier) Universal Search is basically the integration by search engines of elements other than web pages in overall search results.  These “other elements” can include videos, images, blogs, news, book and shopping listings.

If you click on the screen shot thumbnail to the right (which I found at SubHub.com) you will see how Universal Search elements are presented during a search for the phrase “Paris Hilton.”  In addition to the standard list of 10 web pages, this particular search generated multiple listings for News, Images, Videos and Blogs about Paris Hilton—a total of TWELVE additional (and free) opportunities for exposure on the first page of results.

So how do you get there?  As a small company with limited resources, are there some relatively low-cost steps you can take to leverage the value of Universal Search?  Of course.  And here they are:

Step #1: Walk Before You Run. Prior to putting a ton of effort into Universal Search, make sure your website is optimized for organic (regular) rankings.  Maximize your title tags, work on your meta descriptions, and submit an XML sitemap to any engine that  will take one.  For more information on these specific tasks, check out Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part I and Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Website: Part II.

Step #2: Channel Surf. Because Universal Search will take information from all of a search engine’s “channels,” check each one to see what kind of exposure your site has (if any) within that specific channel.  In Google, the channels you want to focus on are Images, Video, News, Blogs and Shopping (FYI—”Blogs” is actually underneath the “News” channel).  Channels for other engines can usually be found above or near the search field.

Step 3: Take Inventory. Before your site can actually benefit from Universal Search, you need to make a comprehensive list of your company’s digital assets.  Do you have files, images, videos and news releases that aren’t showing up in universal search results?  If so, chances are these items are not tagged correctly.  Find and review the Webmaster guidelines for each search engine your small company is targeting, and make sure you are follow proper tagging rules.

Step 4: Do the Easy Stuff. In addition to tagging Universal Search items like images, videos, news releases and blogs, there are a few other clever ways to earn free space on the first page of search results.  Does your small company have a regional customer base?  Update your local business listing.  Also, figure out a way to get your company or one of its products (or possibly a key employee) a Wikipedia reference.  And of course, if your company can justify one, start a blog.  All of these are easy, and all can be done for free.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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• What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?

Being a full-time blogger comes with a lot of baggage.  Actively maintaining two websites, six email accounts and memberships to a dozen social networking sites is definitely fun, but certainly more work than I ever imagined it would be.  Although these tools are great for keeping in touch with readers and fellow bloggers, they also come with a catch: I receive more than my share of incoming junk messages.  Not surprisingly, most of these messages are related to Internet marketing, and claims of easy money and immediate wealth.  Some are mildly annoying, some are ridiculous, and some are unethical.  But whatever category they land in, there are five Internet marketing claims which are outright lies, and amateur Internet marketers need to be protected from them.

“I Made $5,000 per Week on a Social Networking Site!”

There is a reason so many people are convinced there is money to be made in social networking: because Internet con artists still claim to be able to generate six figures per year on sites like LinkedIn and FaceBook.  Sure, social networking sites have a number of great business uses like distributing news, coordinating user groups and augmenting your internal database.  But actually generating a few dollars worth of direct revenue from them—much less thousands of dollars per week—is not only unlikely, it is impossible.  Unless, of course, you own a social networking site.

“You Can Make a Great Living Working Out of Your Own Home!”

Here’s a question: if you make such a great living working at home, why do you spend 12 hours per day trying to talk other people into doing your job?  Because your home-based ‘business’ is actually a recruitment-focused pyramid scheme.  If you are considering responding to one of these work at home solicitations, be sure to read 9 Signs You’re Involved in a Pyramid Scheme first.

“I Can Show You How to Get 2,000 Twitter Followers Per Day!”

I don’t mean to ruin the mystique surrounding Twitter, but if someone dedicates an entire day to it, acquiring 2,000 followers in 24 hours isn’t exactly the equivalent of splitting the atom.  Even if you have only 15 minutes to spare, there are plenty of free or low-cost automated Twitter applets that can dig through the Twitter database and figure out which members are most likely to follow you back.  The only real thing ‘professional’ Twitter builders plan on showing you is a form to enter your credit card information.

“I Made 400% Net Profit in the Last 60 Days In Affiliate Marketing!”

Affiliate marketers are a lot like poker players.  Although two-thirds will claim they are making a living doing what they do, the  reality is less than 3 out of 100 are getting paid minimum wage for their time, much less making any sort of ‘living’ at their craft.  And if an Affiliate Marketer did figure out a system for pulling in massive amounts of cash, why would they offer to tell you about it?

Anything Related to Making ‘Big Money’ with Pay-per-Click

As I mention in a previous post, When Pay-per-Click (PPC) is a Bad Idea, PPC is the only marketing method where companies can be absolutely guaranteed to pay MORE than market value for each and every click.  In addition, Pay-per-Click advertising has been around too long for anyone to find an exploitable hole or unique strategy that would allow excessive revenue generation.  PPC should be no more than 10% of any company’s marketing budget, for a very good reason: there is very little value to be had anymore.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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Given the current state of the economy, the days of being able to afford professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) help are gone.  As website traffic struggles with the economic downturn, small companies need the services of market-leading firms like Bruce Clay, SEO Inc. and HighRankings.com now more than ever.  Unfortunately, we have no hope of affording their five-figure start up fees, much less the $4,000 per month it costs to actually get these overpriced and often arrogant firms to do something productive.

But the good news is, there are plenty of things small companies can do to make a positive impact on both search engine rankings and organic search engine traffic.  And the best part of all is, most of these things are both easy to accomplish and absolutely free.

This posting is Part III in a multi-part series (I’m estimating 4 parts total) on Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites.  In each posting I will cover 3 to 4 SEO tips that small companies can implement on their own and with very few resources.  Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part I covered the concepts of Using Keyword Themes to Create Web Content, Utilizing Text-Based Navigation Elements, and Maximizing Your Title Tags.  Part II of this series covered Minimizing the Use of Flash and Graphics, Using Meta Description Tags, and Submitting a Search Engine Sitemap.  In Part III I will discuss topics related to Blogging, Linkbacks, and Social Networking.

SEO Tip #7: Start a Blog

Back in January I posted a very well-received article on the importance of blogs for small company web traffic.  This post basically stated that making a site-relevant blog entry every three or four days will eventually make your small company website rich with content and keywords, which is something search engines love.  The post also discussed using a blog as an ‘editorial column’ to say things about your products and competitors that might not otherwise be well-received on your main site.  At the risk of repeating the entire article, I will simply redirect you to it: The Importance of Blogs for Small Company Web Traffic.

SEO Tip #8: Find Sites that Will Link Back to You

If Search Engine Optimization were a quest for religious artifacts, getting websites to link back to yours is the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail.  Regardless of how much content you provide or how great your website looks, search engine rankings will be less than disappointing until other websites start linking back to you.  Developers at Google, MSN and YaHoo understand a high ranking website should have lots of outbound AND inbound channels.  Is a cell phone list of 1,000 friends REALLY any good if none of them will call you back?  Of course not.  And neither is a website lacking inbound links.

So how do you fix this problem?  Every industry has at least one directory to get listed in, and one industry portal that will take an article or press release.  Also, you might consider offering a discount on your product or service to a demographic sub-group (moms, Java developers, construction workers, cycling enthusiasts, etc.) and find some related websites to post your offer for free.  And finally, if your site has a blog, you need to start submitting it to blog directories TODAY—here is comprehensive list of blog directories published by TopRankBlog.com.  Take it from someone who has walked in your shoes: the first linkbacks will be the hardest ones to get.  But if you work hard and get creative, good things will happen.

SEO Tip #9: Form a Business-Related Social Networking Group

One of the most common social networking mistakes I see is when otherwise intelligent people try to use their social networking accounts (FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) to promote a business.  Here’s a tip: unless your 10-year old daughter is selling Girl Scout Cookies, friends and relatives do NOT want to buy things from you.  As an alternative to alienating the people who love you, try setting up a separate group related to your business.  If you own a bike shop, start a group for local cycling enthusiasts.  If you operate a mail-order wine store, start a group for fans of rare vintages.  There is no small business model in the world that can support itself selling exclusively to friends and relatives of the owner.  Take a chance, and start a group that doesn’t include them.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

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Back in early November I wrote a short post titled When Pay-per-Click (PPC) is a Bad Idea.  As of this morning, about five months later, this article is still the most popular page on my site.  One of two things is likely the cause: 1) many small companies are considering investing in Pay-per-Click and having doubts, or 2) many small companies are already investing in PPC, and second-guessing their decisions.  This followup post will hopefully address both situations.  Just so you know, the small company I currently work for falls into category #2.  Here is why.

This past week I sat down with three members of the marketing team to review our Pay-per-Click stats.  Our PPC approach has always been pretty straightforward—for the past few years we have been running eight different PPC ad sets per month, for eight different products.  The budget for each ad set is $500 per month, for a total monthly Pay-per-Click spend of $4,000 (8 PPC ad sets x $500 per month = $4,000).  Although we have always been able to monitor both Clicks and Spend, at the beginning of 2009 we added the ability to track actual purchases (Revenue) made from PPC ads.  This was our first meeting since revenue tracking was made available, and prior to the meeting we had no reason to believe our Pay-per-Click ads weren’t working.  Following is a summary of our findings for Q1:

• One ad set was running at break even ($1,400 in revenue from $1,500 spent); and
• Combined revenue for the other seven ad sets was approximately $400 TOTAL.

To put it another way, as a company in Q1 we wasted just over $10,000 on Pay-per-Click ads that weren’t resulting in sales.  At this point, the decision was simple: we left the one PPC ad in place (the one that was breaking even) and redirected the remaining $3,500 per month into other marketing efforts.

After months of analyzing and researching this issue—along with the painful and expensive lesson outlined above—I am more confident than ever that Pay-per-Click advertising is simply not a good idea for small companies.  Not only is it mandatory to have the technology and the know-how to measure each dollar of revenue generated (not an easy task for a small company), but as I mentioned in my November post, Pay-per-Click is not a good value.  The fact is, the entire pricing model is based on competitive bidding, which means PPC is the one marketing method where companies can be absolutely guaranteed to pay market value for each and every click.  And once you factor in competitors, tire kickers, college kids working on research papers and people who click on things because they have nothing else to do, companies actually pay slightly LESS than market value for PPC traffic.  Small companies need to spend their time looking for opportunities to generate the most traffic at the LEAST cost, not market rates.

And finally, if the information above doesn’t convince you that Pay-per-Click dollars are wasted dollars, check this out: it’s a Heatmap of the Google Home Page from EyeTools.net.  Note the “F-shaped” hot zone at the top left-hand corner.  Unless you’re willing to pay a premium to have your PPC ads show up above the first search listing (the hottest zone on the Google Home Page) there is a good chance most people aren’t actually seeing them.  Which means any ‘branding’ benefit you might be getting from having Pay-per-Click ads displayed in the sidebar are probably fictional as well.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?
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• An Interview with Buzzom CEO Bhupendra Khanal (Part 2)

Given the current state of the economy, the days of being able to afford professional, full-scale Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are little more than a distant memory.  As your website traffic struggles with the economic downturn, small companies like yours need the services of market-leading firms like Bruce Clay, SEO Inc. and HighRankings.com now more than ever.  Unfortunately, you have no hope of affording their five-figure start up fees, much less the $4,000 per month it costs to actually get these overpriced (and often arrogant) firms to do something productive.

Note: Regarding the ‘arrogant’ comment . . . it is not uncommon for leading SEO firms to riddle their websites with statements like “Do not contact us unless you are ready to spend at least $25,000″ and “We only respond to SERIOUS inquiries from LARGE companies.”  I don’t think use of the word ‘arrogant’ is unfair in these cases.  For a great list of ways to recognize a bad SEO firm, check out Eric Enge’s blog posting “11 Ways to Recognize a Bad SEO Firm.”

But the good news is, there are plenty of things small companies can do to make a positive impact on both search engine rankings and organic search engine traffic.  And the best part of all is, most of these things are both easy to accomplish and absolutely free.

This posting is Part II in what will be a multi-part series (I’m estimating 4 parts total) on Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites.  In each of these postings I will cover 3 to 4 SEO tips—let’s call them ’secrets’—that small companies can implement on their own and with very few resources.  Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part I covered the concepts of Using Keyword Themes to Create Web Content, Utilizing Text-Based Navigation Elements, and Maximizing Your Title Tags.  Part II will cover three more areas: 1) Minimizing the Use of Flash and Graphics, 2) Using Meta Description Tags, and 3) Submitting a Search Engine Sitemap.

SEO Tip #4: Minimize the Use of Flash and Graphics

One of my favorite one-hit wonder marketing campaigns of all-time is Amp Energy Drink’s “Walk of Shame” commercial, which I first caught on SpikeTV in early 2008.  After seeing what turned out to be the one and only commercial in the series, I jumped on my computer and tried to learn more.  But no matter what search engine I used  or what keywords I entered, I was not successful in finding Amp’s official website for the campaign until I caught the commercial a second time and wrote down the URL.  And today, almost one year later, it is still nearly impossible to find a combination of search terms that will make this site come up on the first page of results.  Why?  Because none of the words on Amp’s website for this campaign can actually be indexed by a search engine.  Every word on this site is either part of a graphical image, or trapped inside a Flash Video file.

So, is the lesson here that the person who designed this site lost his or her job?  Possibly.  But the takeaway for you as a small company owner or manager is this: avoid the temptation to ‘hide’ searchable keywords and phrases within graphic images and super-slick flash applications.  Instead, use text elements (HTML) wherever possible, and do your best to accomplish the desired effects with intelligent font and color choices.  And if you’re planning on outsourcing your website design, lean toward working with an online marketing firm instead of a graphic design house.  A marketing firm will (hopefully) understand the search engine-related implications of over-designing your website.

SEO Tip #5: Use the Meta Description Tags

Here’s a question for you: after performing a search on Google or MSN and receiving a page of results, what is the main thing that would cause you to NOT click on a listing?  Believe it or not, it probably isn’t the title—it’s the description.  Or in Website Designer terms, the Meta Description.  The Meta Description is an invisible tag ‘behind’ each of your website pages that determines how a search engine will describe your site to a searcher.  If you go to Google right now and type “Home Depot website” into the search field, the description of Home Depot’s listing within the general search results (not the paid results) is “World’s largest home improvement retailer, operating more than 1500 stores across North America.”  Did this simply show up by accident? Of course not.  Someone in the Marketing Department at The Home Depot entered the description into an invisible Meta Description tag.

Referring to the example above, why did The Home Depot choose to carefully write this description and include it as a tag on their home page?  Because if a website page does not have a defined description, the search engine will write one for it—and do a poor job in the process.  Have you ever noticed how many website descriptions are displayed by search engines as chopped up phrases like “Home   About Us   Contact Us   Terms of Use   Mailing List“?  In these cases, Google or MSN simply grabbed the text from a navigation element and used it as the web site’s description.  If you don’t want a Google or MSN robot making marketing decisions for your company, you have no choice but to use the Meta Description tag for every page on your website.

SEO Tip #6: Submit a Search Engine Sitemap

Instead of letting Google and MSN try to crawl your site on their own, wouldn’t it be great if you could tell their indexing robots where to look AND what to look at?  The good news is, you CAN do this—by submitting a Sitemap.  A Sitemap is essentially a map in XML format that is uploaded to your site’s root directory, and tells indexing robots a) which pages to look at when they visit, b) how often these pages change, and c) what the relative priority is for each page on your website.  There are dozens of websites that will help you create this sitemap for free, but my personal favorite for beginners is XML-Sitemaps.com.   As long as your website is under 500 pages, this site will create your sitemap free of charge, and there is no limit to how many times you can use it.  For those of you using WordPress as both a blog and a main website, there are also a number of free sitemap plug ins you can download from The WordPress Plugin Directory.

And just so you know, there are a few caveats to submitting a sitemap.  Most experts agree that sitemaps should be submitted no more than one time per month, and only if your site has actually changed (new pages, additional blog postings, URL name changes, etc.).  Also, file transfer access to your web site’s root directory is required.  If you need additional help or instruction on gaining access to your website’s root directory, feel free to reply to this post.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• Inexpensive SEO for Small Company Websites: Part 4
• Universal Search: Still Relevant for Small Companies?
• Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part III
• Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part I
• What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?

Given the current state of the economy, the days of being able to afford professional, full-scale Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are little more than a distant memory.  As corporate website traffic struggles with the economic downturn, companies need the services of market-leading firms like Bruce Clay, SEO Inc. and HighRankings.com now more than ever.  Unfortunately, we have no hope of affording their five-figure start up fees, much less the $4,000 per month it costs to actually get these overpriced (and often arrogant) firms to do something productive.

[ Note: Regarding the 'arrogant' comment . . . it is not uncommon for leading SEO firms to riddle their websites with statements like "Do not contact us unless you are ready to spend at least $25,000" and "We only respond to SERIOUS inquiries from LARGE companies."  I don't think use of the word 'arrogant' is unfair in these cases. ]

But the good news is, there are plenty of things small companies can do to make a positive impact on both search engine rankings and organic search engine traffic.  And the best part of all is, most of these things are both easy to accomplish and absolutely free.

This posting is Part I in what will be a multi-part series (I’m estimating 4 parts total) on Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites.  In each of these postings I will cover 3 to 4 SEO tips—let’s call them ’secrets’—that small companies can implement on their own and with very few resources.  Part I will cover three basics: 1) Using Keyword Themes to Create Web Content, 2) Utilizing Text-Based Navigation Elements, and 3) Maximizing Your Title Tags.

SEO Tip #1: Using Keyword Themes to Create Web Content

Most people don’t realize that writing for the web is a skill all its own, markedly different than any sort of writing ever taught in school.  If the goal of traditional writing is to communicate an idea or theme, the goal of writing for the web is to communicate an idea or theme using specific sets of keywords and key phrases.  Before developing content for a web page, it is important to identify not only what the page is about (the Theme of the page) but also the words and phrases people will use to search for it.  Then, be sure to logically and contextually use the identified words and phrases within the body copy, being careful not to OVER use them—a practice that search engines can and will penalize you for.

SEO Tip #2: Utilizing Text-Based Navigation Elements

Although super-cool rollover and fly-out effects made for awesome website designs in the early 2000s, the fact is they make for horrible search engine rankings today.  Navigation elements like graphics, buttons and animated menus are by nature rich in site content and keywords.  Unfortunately, search engines can’t index them.  With a few exceptions, it is safe to say that most keywords or phrases used in graphics, buttons or animated menus are invisible to Google, YaHoo and MSN.  If you want credit for having these keywords and phrases as part of your Keyword Theme (described above), it is in your best interest to figure out an attractive and clever way to present them . . . in text format.

SEO Tip #3: Maximizing Your Title Tags

If you spend a few moments today visiting your favorite small to medium-sized websites, I guarantee you will find at least one site with nothing more than a Company Name in the Title Tag (here is an example from a graphic design firm I work with . . . the contents of the Title Tag appear in the bar at the top of your browser).  This is a huge mistake many small companies make, not only because the Title Tag is used by search engines to index your site, but because the contents of your Title Tag are actually displayed by default in a search listing. Title tags need to be both descriptive and keyword-rich.  If you need an example of a good title tag, check out what Amazon.com is using—Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs and more.  Truly a thing of beauty.

This concludes Part I of the Inexpensive SEO Strategies series.  In Part II, which I hope to complete and post within a week or so, I will cover Using Meta Keyword and Meta Description Tags, Implementing Linking Campaigns, and Submitting Site Maps.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• Inexpensive SEO for Small Company Websites: Part 4
• Universal Search: Still Relevant for Small Companies?
• Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part III
• Inexpensive SEO Strategies for Small Company Websites: Part II
• What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?