SEO Project

We're a month in to our accountant project. We're doing A-OK. Brad is getting some phone calls and with a nice high average customer value, all he needs is one new customer per month and he'll KILL his spend.

So let's take a quick snapshot of what we've done so far...

Last month was the month his site launched, so the activities were fairly predictable.

- Manual submission to the big three search engines
- Create an XML sitemap
- Set up Google Analytics
- Verify the site through Webmaster Tools
- Check that each of the major on-page elements were represented on each page and that the main keywords were present in each (title, description tag, keyword tag, H1 tag, body copy)

Through August, we began to get some backlinking going on. We went through a couple dozen credible directories and submitted for inclusion. Brad also updated his Linked In profile with his new site url.

Lastly, in August we launched a modest PPC campaign to test some responses. We're not only looking for conversions, but also for new keyword ideas, what hots and what's not - PPC, it's not just for clicks anymore.

Next month we'll look at some conversions and take a look at Brad's ROI. Since he's not paying for any of this SEO (but is buying his own clicks - I'm not THAT nice), his is all top side. But we can assign a value to the work that's being done. We're optimizing for a handful of local/regional terms - this would probably cost around $800/month for the SEO work. We'll use that as a benchmark for our SEO ROI. Stay tuned...

I have a new hobby site about Golf Information. I'll write up how that is progressing too from an SEO perspective. It's a pet project between my bro-in-law and me - he's a great golfer. I stink.

Local Ranking Test - Accounting Firm

Slacker! Okay, with 4 different blogs, a full time job as a search marketer, owner and director of a massage and skincare center, yes, sometimes I slack on one of my blogs. It has been 30 days since my last post, so I am in slackerville.

I've decided to make a bit a case study out of some recent SEO work. I have a good friend who owns an accounting firm. Brad has been running Intellisource, a business accounting firm in Virginia for the last decade or so and has really built up a nice clientele. To his credit, his business is thriving off of word of mouth alone. We met this past April to do my business taxes (for my Massage Center business). We started talking about search marketing. We decided that he should be pursuing it!

We're starting from scratch. Brad had his site designed from the ground up. Now the site is launched and there are several pages highlighting the accounting services that his firm provides.

Being charitable and friendly, I decided to do the old SEO thing for Brad and see what we can make out of it.

Today marks the first installment of our series - we'll follow the progress and see what we come up with. Since the starting point is zero, we'll keep an eye on traffic. I'll post periodically to let you know how we're doing!

I talked to about 60 people yesterday in Philadelpia. Most were marketing types, VP's or marketing leads. There were a handful of Web designers and a couple C level executives. Like always, I sprinkled in a few straw poll questions throughout the 4 hour sessions...

I asked how many were using analytics on their site.

Nobody raised their hand.

Chaulking up the result to post-consumption, triptophan-induced apathy, I prodded a bit and got a few people to raise their hands.

Then I asked, "Does anyone want to share their conversion rate with the group."

Nothing.

I explained... A conversion rate can be about anything - number of visitors vs. sales; vs. Newsletter signups; vs. phone calls; vs. Contact Us forms submitted.

Nothing.

The few folks who claimed to have analytics installed had no idea what they were looking at, much less how to interpret the data into actionable intelligence.

This afternoon, I had the priviledge of attending a Webinar on KPI's given by Avinash Kaushik. It was a very insightful two hours spent going over the how's, why's and when's to Web analytics. The central proposition Avinash made echoed his blog title, Occam's Razor.

Sir William of Ockham is the fourteenth-century philosopher who is attributed this lesson in profundity: The simplest solution is usually the correct one.

Lesson one in analytics: Establish KPI's (key performance indicators) that are simple.

Lesson two in analytics: Make sure your KPI's say something about your ability to reach your company goals.

Lesson three in analytics: Use them. If you're not, how can you possibly know if you're headed in the right direction?

There are some very expensive analytics packages out there. For most companies I talk to, Google Analytics is a superb choice. And it's FREE. It'll give you more marketing information than you'll ever know what to do with. You won't even need it all. Based on today's lessons (thanks Avinash) just select the metrics that really mean something for your organizational goals and focus on them. Over time, your goals and corresponding KPI's will change and that's okay.

The first step is just to use KPI's and analytics in the first place!

Get to it...