1. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Why Search Marketing is Different Brad Fallon CEO Free IQ bradf@bradfallon.com cell/text 404-849-2199

2. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Search Marketing is Just Advertising ● Direct Response Advertising  Not “Image Advertising” ● Well Established, Time Honored Rules ● Works Even Better on the Web  Testing  Analytics  Speed  Cost

3. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. But Ad Placement is Different ● Off-line, you control placement and your message  e.g. the Insertion Order ● On-line, the message is “self placing” via search engine algorithms  Placement is a technical aspect of the message and things connected to the message ● Message and message placement are no longer independent

4. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Where Worlds Collide

5. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Where Worlds Collide ● Copywriting meets SEO  Conversion demands control of the copy  SEO demands control of the copy  Site design is important for both ● Writing for both humans and machines  Traffic depends on machines liking it  Conversion depends on humans liking it

6. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Dealing with the Collision ● Trade-off: Traffic over Conversion  “Write for the engines”  Sub-optimal Conversion, but overwhelm with traffic ● Trade-off: Conversion over Traffic  “Write for People”  Traffic suffers, lots of PPC, but Conversion is Great ● Find an Integrated Solution  The problem is technology  The solution is more technology

7. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SEO Copywriting ● More than the sum of the parts  Copywriting is easy  SEO is even easier  Putting them together is NOT ● Technology, Process and People  Technology bar is raised substantially  Integrated conversion and traffic management  Combined skill sets

8. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Top 5 Critical Elements ● Page Title ● Meta Description ● Page Linking ● Site Linking Topology ● Paying Attention (Tracking/Changing)

9. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Page Title ● The most visible part of the “ad” ● Must persuade the searcher to click ● In less than 50 characters ● A critical element of message positioning ● Has to have the keywords ● Best to have the exact phrase ● What else is possible?

10. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Long Tail ● Where do you draw the line? ● “Buoyancy” Bigger the base, the higher the whole site does ● Think of animal standing on its own tail. Build out the long tail yourself. ● Example: Promotional products, stupid long tail, colors/sizes. Only way to win, rank for 80,000 words. Harder than it used to be to rank from outside links. ● The “footprint” problem

11. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Search Meta Description ● Needs to support the title (match) ● Second most important click-through control after Title and before URL ● We really would like it to read sensibly ● It is auto-generated [yikes!] often by grabbing first occurrence of search phrase. ● Take a second bite at the apple ● “First Occurrence” means first “in file” not “in view” -- a tedious technical task to control both

12. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Page Linking ● Humans understand and need links to consume your site ● You want to extend their site visit using links ● Short text, in context, is easiest to process ● Link text, including internal links, is critical to ranking. Worthy of a 90-minute webinar. (option) ● Search engines don't understand “context” so complete key phrases are best, but often won't fit the nav-bar

13. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Site Linking Topology ● Not all of our pages are sales pages ● And not all sales pages are created equal ● Humans need links to all of our pages ● Links distribute Google PageRank (PR) ● We only need PR in sales pages, not support pages ● We need two linking structures, one for Google and one for humans

14. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Paying Attention ● What to track and what to do about it ● Organic CTR ● Top 10/50/100 ● Big improvements are possible

15. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Important Trends ● Search is “Disruptive Technology”  It changes the way we must work  It changes our organizational structures and processes ● Long Tail Niches ARE the Market ● PPC vs CPM (trend bodes well for “customer”) ● One Site or Big Sites vs. Thousands of Sites ● Not “Adapt or Die” - but HUGE opportunities for early adopters. (“online dating” vs. “atlanta dentist”)

16. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Opportunity ● The Web Redefines Huge  Enormous wealth is available on-line  “Overnight” success is the norm and still possible ● The Challenge  Adopting new technology  Integrating new business processes  The “one trick pony” is dead ● The Reality  Guru vs. Process  Continuing education: StomperNet, Free IQ “seo” (Jeff Johnson)StomperNet

17. Copyright © 2006 Smart Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Brad Fallon CEO, Free IQ bradf@bradfallon.com cell/text 404-849-2199 Any questions? Chris Watson and will be at our table all day tomorrow. 1. $1 StomperNet 2. Free IQ New Media PPC Ads on a Long Tail Content Network with no competition