This week I was preparing my slide deck for a webinar I’m presenting on Tuesday for my friends over at Lurn. The webinar is titled “Ten Best Practices for Writing Headlines, Descriptions and Meta Data That Get Traffic”. The preparation for this webinar reminded me of wrapping paper and my ultimate love for Christmas. Yes you read that correctly, in my mind I think of titles and meta as wrapping paper.

Here is why. Line up two presents of equal size and cost. One is wrapped in a brown paper bag (earth day was this week so let’s recycle) and the other is wrapped in beautiful shiny paper with perfect corners and exquisite ribbon to match. Which one do you want to open? Unless you have mental issues, you’re going for the one I wrapped. That would be the pretty one. Blog entries and website pages are the same. Visitors and search engines lunge at the page or post that is wrapped perfectly. This means well-written content that is accompanied by a fabulous title, concise meta description, and relevant keywords (if you are targeting search engines other than Google). These three elements are the teasers that make you want more. Just like the perfectly wrapped present.

Unfortunately, blogger and “wanna be” webmasters are a dime a dozen these days and everyone thinks they are the next great publisher of content on the Internet. They are not. I am thankful the folks over at Lurn feel the same as I do and they are trying desperately to education these up and coming Internet moguls with some good old fashion SEO expertise. Once you get past Lurn’s glitzy landing pages, you’ll see they have great content on SEO and Internet marketing. So much so that I wish they’d been around seven years ago when I entered into the world of SEO and website design. This isn’t a push for Lurn, it is an education. I 100% believe they provide great content for the SEO newbie. Below is a list of best practices I’ll be discussing Tuesday. Lurn believes in these just as I do, which is why I believe in Lurn.

Ten Best Practices for Writing Headlines, Descriptions and Meta Data That Get Traffic

1. Write an eye-catching, well-written headline
2. Use your headline, descriptions, and tags to gain traction
3. Use your keywords in the title
4. Build keywords into your alt tags
5. Include headlines and descriptions that will resonate with those readers
6. Include information you want your visitors to see when they see your link in search engines
7. Watch your character limit
8. Don’t overdo it
9. Utilize the H1 tag so it helps both the reader and the search engine
10. Pick the right header for the job

So my SEO friends, I will leave you with this thought. When crafting your next blog entry or web page, ask yourself this – is your wrapping job good enough to give to your mother (aka Google)? If you aren’t pleased to attach your name to it, rewrap it and make sure the presentation is as good as the page content itself.

As I read through the pages I’m awestruck by the explanation given for the qualities associated with the searcher’s experience. The authors boil this down to a simple illustration called the User Experience Honeycomb.

The User Experience Honeycomb Includes

• Useful
• Usable
• Desirable
• Findable
• Accessible
• Credible
• Valuable

While many readers might not deem this concept worthy of much pondering, I do. If you understand search and website design, you know the user experience is paramount in any Internet marketing effort. Explaining this to prospects and client’s is sometimes difficult for me, because not everyone grasps the subject. Some individuals are so burdened by their daily work requirements, they have a difficult time digging into the theories behind a quality search experience. Search is a science and an art that goes much deeper than just the front page of Google.

Many times one of the first things a prospect asks about is reaching page one of Google. Unfortunately, most think this is a short-term event that is triggered by voodoo and magic. They think there is a quick fix to reaching page one and converting each visitor to a lead or a sale. It isn’t that simple. Search has come a long way, but it still requires work. And more importantly, solid content that embodies the honeycomb concept mentioned above. If you provide useful content that visitors will find usable and they can easily locate, you will be rewarded.

Reaching page one or increasing your Internet sale volume requires work and real effort. If you are afraid of either, stick with your pay-per-click campaign or physical storefront and just call it a day.

I have a client who recently told me he doubled his sales funnel since his new website went live a few months ago. Why some may not believe that claim, it is true. I watch his Google Analytics account closely and I can tell many people are finding what they are seeking on his website. They are staying and they are converting.

Together we built a new website and launched an Internet marketing campaign that was built around the honeycomb theory. He produced solid content that people in his industry would find useful, usable, and valuable. In doing so, he increased his already high credibility factor. I took his strong content and made it findable and accessible. Together we became a powerful force and his company is reaping the rewards.

The client believed in the long haul of Internet marketing. He received benefits quickly and I’m sure has obtained a great deal of his project ROI. He did so because he is smart and he believes in the value of hard work. He also believed in the honeycomb theory. When I would talk about usability, he would listen. When I would say we should have “x”, he would deliver it quicker than I expected. He would also think about the project on his own and make valuable requests that would benefit the overall process and his ultimate success. He was an invested party and an active participant that believed in the honeycomb theory.

As I continue to read through my new book, I already applaud the authors for simplifying what many of us website designers and SEO consultants find so difficult. After so many years of working with organic SEO and website design, I find it fairly common sense. Well, I’m a geek and I am not normal. For others, they need an understandable concept and thus far, that authors of Search Patterns are providing just that to their readers.

If you would like more on the subject, I encourage you to purchase the book. Search Patterns is available through O’Reilly Media.

After college I found a temporary position at a barcode and data collection distribution and before I knew it, I was a full-time employee running their operations.  Why?  Because I fell in love with the ERP system they installed three months before my arrival.  That and the fact that I was one of the few employees who “got” new their ERP system.  I didn’t just get it, I embraced it with my entire being.  For the next three years I worked 60-80 workweeks and spent much of my time on the applicable.  And while it wasn’t perfect, it helped me manage a national distributor with multiple branches and distribution centers.  Again, I was in love with my job and my ERP software.  To this day I miss the chaos and the challenge of fixing every operational woe with my ERP system.

Flash forward fifteen years and I’ve moved from my first college job through working ten years for an ERP developer and now I run my own Internet marketing company.  The trouble is my love for marketing and ERP rarely seem to connect as much as I would like.    While a VP of marketing at an ERP developer, I myself struggled with managing marketing via my ERP system.  While I lived off my personalized dashboards and workbenches, I used a lot of offline processes to help manage what my beloved ERP software could not.  Don’t get me wrong; I knew exactly where each lead came from, where it was at in our sales process, and how long the sales cycle should take before new business was closed.  I had lead generation and tracking, but I lacked the ability to proactively manage marketing.  Within my ERP software, everything I did for marketing felt reactive, which is not at all, what marketing is supposed to be.

Honestly, I don’t think I’m alone.  While I doubt there are many marketing people reading this blog entry, I know they would concur with me if they did.   And I don’t believe ERP developers have reached the concept of automating marketing enough to work hard at developing strong marketing content for their user community.  They are side tracked with fuel surcharges, customer service needs, and compliance issues.  And really, who listens to marketing people anyway?  We are overhead plain and simple.

Today I received a feed from Web Strategy by Jeremiah.  He was covering CRM software (aka ERP software) and the newer functionality for social media management.  Yes, social media, the new darling of topics on the Internet.  Social media reminds me so much of ERP software, because just like a complicated ERP system, few people get it.  They think you can throw up a Facebook page or Twitter account and call it good.  Not so fast.  Just like an integrated ERP system, your social media accounts are fully integrated with your overall marketing campaign and search engine optimization.  There are rules to follow and there are reasons why you do what you do on Twitter versus Facebook.  Honestly, I think you either get it or you don’t.  I always felt the same about ERP software.  You need to look past your little piece of the ERP pie and you need to look into the entire pie or organization to see how your data input alters another department, process, or users.  Social media is the same.  Your tweet on Twitter will alter other marketing activities.  Good or bad.  The Twitter community is persnickety and they speak differently than Facebook or MySpace.  Make a mistake and you will be ignored or blocked.  Do the same in an ERP application and you’d just lose your program access.

Okay I’m running off track here a bit.  I have to really question the blog entry by Jeremiah, because I truly question if the ERP developers and their programmers get social media and marketing.  I question if they can truly meet the needs of marketing departments and look beyond a simple project plan, marketing budget, or lead-tracking program.  Marketing, and in particular Internet marketing, is like voodoo.  Hard to quantify and difficult to measure results, yet something I believe in.  Okay I don’t believe in voodoo, but I did catch your attention.  I do believe in successful marketing and I do believe in ERP software.

So Jeremiah, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and Salseforce – do you really get it?  Are you writing software code that your marketing department lives and breathes by or are you writing code that helps your salespeople sell your ERP software?  Ask yourself the question, then ask a marketing person who understands both their functional role and your ERP software. The answer may surprise you.

Last week Google’s Internet marketing Guru Matt Cutts posted a new video in their Webmaster Central Channel on YouTube.  I love these videos because they are short and to the post and without any pitch or longwinded verbiage cluttering the real message.   The video that caught my eye was Matt Cutts’ discussion on Sock Puppet Marketing.   Yes you read that correctly.  Mr. Cutts is talking openly about puppets.

Puppets aside, the discussion was in relation to an individual or company creating fake Internet personas for marketing purposes.  While Matt did not go into how Google would react to such tactics, he did provide a very funny puppet commentary to illustrate the process.  While the entertainment value alone was good, Matt briefly described a real-world scenario where one company was fined over $300,000 for creating fake testimonials on the Internet.  He further talked about why he and Google felt this practice was harmful for all involved.

The short of this video is this – Internet marketing is powerful and effective.  People, companies, and the government now consider Internet marketing in the same ranks of traditional marketing techniques.  If a technique wasn’t legal in traditional marketing, it isn’t legal on the Internet either.  If marketing misrepresents anything, it isn’t marketing.  It is just bad business.

Matt summed this up with stating you should avoid anything you wouldn’t want your mother to see or read.   I struggle with this, because I am a mother and I know different mothers nag about different things.  I would be a larger nagger than most.  So, I would modify his statement to caution against any marketing tactic you have to think twice about.  If you question it, don’t do it.  You’ll be much better off in the end.

What does Social Search mean to you?

If you use Twitter for business, it means you’ve just had your world expand exponentially.  If you have few Twitter followers and struggle finding new Twitters to follow you, don’t despair.  Your tweets will soon be broadcasted to the world.

If you use Twitter for personal communication and you tweet about anything and everything, tweets beware.  Be a bit more careful about what you tweet, because like it or not, your tweets will reach more people than you may want.

As with anything in this Web 2.0 age, think before you type.

Ms. Moskwa then points to the FAQ section of the forum that states PageRank is one of Google’s 200 plus criteria for performance, but that it is only updated a few times a year so it should not be a focus of SEO consultants.  The FAQ continues with a suggestion of focusing on Google Analytics and a website’s actual performance.

So PageRank is not fully dead, just not nearly as important as solid and unique page content.  In the end is this news at all?  Didn’t we already know content was king?

What does this mean? For some SEO consultants, it means meta keywords can be completely ignored. I consider this the lazy approach. For me, this means I will take note and simply not place as much weight on meta keywords as I did in prior search engine optimization projects. Why? While Google does not use meta keywords in their primary search results, other search engines still do. Yes Google holds the most market share, but it does not hold the entire search market so SEO consultants cannot ignore the fact that keywords are still relevant.

What disappoints me most is the reason for this change. Matt specifically stated that Google assumed this policy because spammers continue to try and capitalize on competitors’ brands by stuffing unrelated keywords into their meta tags. As a SEO consultant who loves the search marketing industry, this saddens me.

Regardless, Google and Matt Cutts continue to win my heart as they collectively come out with additional insight on their algorithm and specific instructions for webmasters and SEO consultants to follow. This transparency makes me believe their tolerance level for illegal and blackhat SEO tactics will grow weaker in the coming days. Google is making every effort to guide Internet marketers in developing quality websites which rank well in their organic search. Take note fellow consultants, as I truly believe the ramifications of blackhat practices will be both swift and deep.

I am not only a Michigan girl; I was raised in a very small northern Michigan town that financially existed off of tourism. The survival of my little town of roughly 2,000 people is based on the cottage rentals, canoe trips, and bar tabs of summer vacationers. In recent years I’ve watched many of these businesses close as tourism flattened in the harsh local economy. It has broken my heart. No matter how different I find myself now, these people and this town are my home and my roots.

This summer I watched Michigan push back. Instead of trying to spend oodles of budget funds on high-end advertising, the state diversified and used the Internet to extend their marketing dollars. Personally, I think they exceeded. I found myself reconsidering an out of state vacation for a local vacation up north. I considered the long-term strength of my vacationing dollars and the difference it would have on the local economy within Michigan. I stopped to think and I did so often. In reality, I thought each time a Pure Michigan ad campaign came across my Facebook page or my email’s inbox.

I applaud the State of Michigan and the marketing team that put together this social media campaign. While my approval means little in relationship to the national recognition they have already received, I am local and it is my tax dollars that have been used to fund this campaign. I know not every Michigander will approve, I do not care because this Michigander does approve. As an Internet marketing professional, I know the value of social media and I believe Michigan has done a great job of executing their social media campaign and using their marketing dollars wisely.

Okay I may have just dated myself with the analogy, but Google reminds me of the TV show intro. Google is better, stronger, and much faster. If you submit a brand new URL and website to Google via Google’s Add URL option and follow up with a XML sitemap through Google’s Webmaster Tools, the main URL is indexed within 24 hours. Actually, my latest website submission was indexed within about 18 hours. The entire website gets picked up over the course of the next week. That is fast. Much faster than the Google we knew years ago.

Of course, please remember that fast indexing does not come without work. Your website needs to be Google friendly and you need to have a few inbound links on Digg or another popular content tagging website. Keeping that in mind, it is much easier to get web presence these days that it was in years past. Google friendly websites and organic off page search engine optimization can and will reward a new website quickly.

As usual, Google continues to provide free and valuable tools to webmasters and online marketers. Their Google Insights for Search tool allows users to view search volumes, geographical hot spots, and search volume increases.

For my example search, I selected “marketing”. Internet marketing scored fourth with online marketing scoring sixth in search volume. I learned Illinois was the top state for US based search with Minnesota and Georgia following close behind. My beloved Michigan was not in the top ten, but I will not blame this on Google. Rising search terms were social media marketing at 250% growth, SEO marketing at 50% growth, and affiliate marketing at 40% growth.

The tool also gives the ability to select a given region, state, or city and see the data all dynamically change based on the new selection. A decision support system at its finest, all free and all within my world of Internet marketing.

Once again, I say Google is Googlelicious.

That being said, we Internet marketing consultants know that this request is not necessarily realistic. You cannot predict that a famous person will die or that Twitter will be attached and plan for a huge peak in web searches and resulting traffic around such events. You can however, peak into the future if you pay attention to search trending.

Thanks to Google – yes I know I can’t seem to talk enough about Google these days – this is possible. Google Trends allows you to input one or more search terms and see trending data of these searches. In the example I tried, I entered Internet marketing, search engine optimization, and website promotion to compare the trends. Google Trends quickly gave me a relative rating of these terms based on search volume and rated Internet marketing a 1.0, search engine optimization a .50 and website promotion a .08. This validated what I believed, which was more people search for Internet marketing than they do for website promotion. More importantly it told me that these three terms stay fairly consistent with few dips and spikes in search activity. What I didn’t expect it to tell me was that Nevada was the highest subregion. This I am still contemplating.

While my test didn’t show anything significant, a test of the search term “Christmas decorations” did certainly provide insight and validate my own behavior. In fact, I will use this information come fall to show my husband that I am not insane or outside the norm. If you trend Christmas decorations as a search term, you will see a large spike occurs in late November and not December 24th as my husband would wager. We Americans begin thinking, buying, and decorating around Thanksgiving. It isn’t by chance that the stores start filling the shelves with Christmas décor this early in the season. They have marketing departments and they watch the buying trends of the consumer.

So if you want a peek into the search future of your product or service offering, take a moment to review Google Trends. If you see a decline in search terms over time, there is most likely a reason. Case in point is Web 2.0 and social media. The world was a buzz about Web 2.0 and then it seemed to dip, as social media seemed to rev itself up. Or at least this was my perception. While I not always accurate in my assumptions, I was correct in this assumption and Google Trends validated this for me as July 2009 activity showed social media overtake Web 2.0 in searches. Again validating what I already believed to be the case. I’d share this with my husband as well, but he will certainly ask me why he cares about Web 2.0 or social media. At least with Christmas decorations,our discussion can last more than a nanosecond.

Ugly or Just Confusing?

Some may question if a given URL can be ugly, but to Google and other search engines, a URL can be as ugly as the shirt your grandmother gave you on Christmas. More importantly, designing a website with friendly URL’s is key to making a website easy for search engine spiders to read and index. They are also important to the actual website visitor, because the pages are easily remembered and shared.

Here is a classic example of SEF versus Ugly URL’s:

UGLY = www.web-savvy-marketing.com/cgi-bin/gen.pl?id=871&view=basic

SEF = www.web-savvy-marketing.com/internet-marketing/search-engine-optimization-seo/

The first URL provides little information. The second URL tells the search engine spider and visitor that the page “Search Engine Optimization” is indeed about search engine optimization and that it is a subset of the category “Internet Marketing”. Visitors and search engine spiders like to see clearly defined pages and easy to follow website structures. Such use of SEF URL’s help both a physical person and a virtual process digest the information conveyed by the website’s designers.

Flipping the SEF Switch

There is a time and a place for “flipping the switch” on SEF URL’s. Typically a new site or a complete website redesign will utilize the ugly URL’s until right before launch of the new website. This will allow the website development process to change dynamically without the need of creating the SEF URL’s or worrying about the URL’s changing as the project migrates through the build process. Good website designers will stress this caution, because large scale websites can dramatically change as the design and build process unfolds. Once the build is complete and the site is ready to launch, the migration to SEF URL’s is fast and relatively painless in mainstream open source CMS packages like Joomla or WordPress.

A well-planned Internet marketing campaign will integrate a regular release of press releases, blog entries, and articles. While I would like my clients to release two blog entries and one press release per week, these are very unrealistic expectations for most companies. We therefore find a happy middle ground between what I would like to publish and what is feasible. The trick is to deliver quality contact on a continual basis. Quality contact includes press releases that are about a newsworthy topic and that are without exaggerated sales hype that offer little or no value. Robin touches on this in her article and points out the absurdity in the modern day practice of press releases.

You can read Robin’s entire article on Techcrunch’s website.

Does this mean you should forget Twitter?  Absolutely not!  Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds.  It can significantly help ranking of keywords and overall Internet marketing efforts.  While not everyone is on the bandwagon, many are and this number is growing daily.  As an Internet marketing consultant I am frequently amazed and also pleased at the growth of this website.

And as I read this article today, it reminded me of a question my mother-in-law asked last night.  She really did and I’m not just making this up to help my blog entry.  In general conversation she asked “What is Twitter and why do I care?”  I provided her with an answer that was long, but targeted towards her.  I will spare you all from reviewing this entire discussion.  What I did do is teach her how Twitter can apply to her life and information she may care about on a day to day basis.

While I can’t promise my mother-in-law or anyone else will be joining Twitter today, I can tell you she is asking about social networking sites more often and is getting much more interested in this area of Internet usage.  And while this is more because she doesn’t want to miss out on anything, it shows she – the general public – is listening to the growing roar of the tweets.

Twitter does have capacity issues and frequent error messages, but this Web 2.0 tool is powerful. In seconds a person or company can connect will hundreds of other people that would be virtually impossible to reach via normal communication channels. From celebrities to future customers, Twitter offers an endless opportunity to share your marketing message and watch that of your competition.

Social networking (making friends and business associates through the Internet) is not science, but it is a skill. Your tweets need to be readable and either entertaining or informative. They need to draw interest. Your profile needs to grab attention. While this can easily be done by a great profile picture, cool name, or spiffy background – you need something. When you combine it all together, you get a socially cool Twitter profile that is interesting and includes tweets worth following.

Follow me on Twitter @websavvymrkting.