Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing

Spent a marvelous morning yesterday with the Chicago metro REACh group, people from various colleges and universities who focus on "adult" marketing and recruitment. We met at a suburban campus of Illinois Institute of Technology.

REACh's Scott Pfeiffer and Tim Panfil asked for an ambitious program: cover 8 online communication topics in 2 back-to-back sessions of about 75 minutes each. The major challenge: compress some topics that I cover in 2 to 3 hour sessions into just a few key points to take back home. Since it is easier to let presentations grow than to shrink them, that was an interesting and useful exercise.

To start the day, I asked the people present to vote on which of the 8 topics we were covering were most important to them, the proverbial "if you could only pick one of these, which would it be?" question. These are topics (in the order covered) and the votes for each:

• Web Design... 3
• Search Optimization... 6
• Writing Right for the Web... 14
• Paid Search... 0
• Web Analytics... 2
• Video... 4
• Mobile Marketing... 2
• Blogs, Email, Chat Rooms... 7

I was a bit surprised and very pleased by the size of the Web Writing vote compared to the others. And just as pleased to see that the "old favorites" of Blogs, Email, Chat Rooms retain strong interest at a time when it is easy to be dazzled by new capabilities at the expense of "traditional" online communication that is still in favor with the people who use college and univesity websites.

3 New On-Campus Web Writing Seminars

"Writing Right for the Web" continues to be a popular presentation. Between now and early August I'll be doing on-campus sessions at Fielding Graduate University, Stonehill College, and Dominican University. And look for another web conference with Academic Impressions in October and a CASE V Annual Conference session in December in Chicago.

Whether you start on-campus or online, improving the quality of your web writing is often the most important thing you can do for stronger engagement with your visitors. Ask me about a session on your campus at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com

Subscribe to Website Magazine

On a related note, if you have never checked Website Magazine, do that soon. Each issue includes worthy articles on more than one of the topics listed above. The current issue is at www.websitemagazine.com where you can subscribe to either a print or an electronic version. Or both. 

That's it for now.

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If you've been to one of my "Writing Right for the Web" sessions, you know that an example included in the SEO writing section is about the benefit of creating title tags on your web pages that include something specific about a particular release. Do that and search engines aren't as likely to think that you only have one press release on your website.

Now I've just finished reading a blog post by "collegewebguy" about what you can do to increase the chances that online news services by Google and Yahoo might pick up your own releases. And that involves more steps to create a distinctive identity for each release that's put online.

The post includes the important note that should motivate many people: well over half the population aged 18-29 looks online as their first source for news. And that percent is climbing for people between 30 and 64 as well. These days, if you aren't careful when you take Newsweek or Time out of your mailbox, a light breeze will blow it away. That's called "disappearing ad pages" and it has been happening for years now.

You'll find valuable tips on how to maximize your releases for Google and Yahoo at http://collegewebguy.com/2008/04/01/getting-university-news-picked-up-by-google-news/#comment-610 and you can go on from there to delve deeper at the original sources if you want.

"CollegeWebGuy" is a web designer at University of Arkansas at Little Rock. 

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Did you by chance think the Washington Post was just the name of a newspaper?

Major newspapers don't survive today by selling papers, subscriptions to papers, and advertising in newspapers. The Washington Post Company has been diversifying for years and holdings now include the college test-prep business of Kaplan, Inc.

And so it isn't a surprise that the Post has now bought a search marketing firm used by a plethora of colleges and universities to find adult students for masters and bachelors programs. The announcement in the Washington Business Journal at http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2007/10/08/daily35.html reports that advertising in the education sector was a bright spot. Education-related advertising increased 23 percent in the 2nd quarter of this year.

The new acquisition was founded in 2004 and will continue to operate under its Course Advisor name at http://www.courseadvisor.com/

When you visit, be sure to notice the client mix that ranges from University of Phoenix and Capella University to University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Boston University, and numerous trade schools.

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More than dozen dedicated people continued on for another three hours last Tuesday after the close of the eduWeb 2007 conference for my workshop on "Simple Steps for Search Engine Success."

We had a fine time until 5 PM finally ended our explorations. From all that we what we discussed, here are some key points that stand out today.

• The emphasis on speding time to rewrite title tags was well worth the time in the presentation, as many of the people present agreed that the title tags on their pages (the first thing a visiting search engine sees) are not detailed enough about the content on the page. To see a great example of a page optimized for search results, from title tag on down through the page, visit http://www.mbaregis.com/
• People using niche keywords like "careers in elementary education" often end up in places probably not designed as entry pages. See, for instance, the Indiana University elementary education page at http://www.indiana.edu/~udiv/majors/majorinfo.cgi/43 One important task to improve marketing impact of your website is to identify pages like this and work with the "owners" of the page to add carewords content that will increase engagement with new visitors.
• The keywords tool at Google (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) can be used for a quick visual review of the number of people searching for related terms and the number of times that keyword is being bought for online advertising. Use this and you might be able to find keywords for paid web advertising on Google or elsewhere that are somewhat popular but are not often used by advertisiers.
• If you plan to spend money on search advertising, plan to evaluate the results just as you evaluate any other advertising: track inquiries from the source and know your "cost per inquiry" and your "cost per enrolled student." That's the only way to decide if paid search advertising deserves a place in your marketing budget.
• Everybody speculates about what's next in search marketing and optimization so get close to the source with Google's Matt Cutts in his blog at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
• You can't tackle an entire website at once so identify the pages you'd most like people to find at your website, the key "entry" pages, and work on those first.

Why the emphasis on Google?

Simply because it is has by far the largest share of the search market (50 to 60 percent depending on the source) and the market share has been increasing in 2007. Yes, Yahoo still has a large share at over 20 percent, Ask might have the most elegant reporting, and you might feel pity for Microsoft and Live. But if you have little available time, focus on Google.

And in any case, what you do in "organic search" to optimize your site will work well for all the search engines. That Indiana "careers in elementary education" page noted above was top ranked by each of the major search engines.

Most college and university websites will benefit from careful attention to improving organic search features from the page title tags to the careful use of keywords throughout the page in headline, subheads, and regular text. Start soon, be patient, tend to the most important pages first.

Finally, congratulations to Shelley Wetzel and her associates for planning a very fine conference, filled with valuable content throughout. Plan now to attend eduWeb 2008 in Atlantic City next July.

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Wednesday morning today is final prep time before my Search Engine Marketing workshop this afternoon at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference in Chicago. 

And so a quick note from today's issue of Search Engine Land as I was checking the latest Search Marketing news.

"SEO Tips and Tactics from a Wikipedia Insider" is a column by a person who volunteers to review and revise inappropriate changes to Wikipedia content. The focus here is on changes made by the offices of political figures to remove unflattering references to them that were indeed based on true facts.

Two elements stand out from this report:

• Changes were spotted quickly by the Wikipedia volunteer corps, in part because it was usually easy to see who made them.
• Edits to remove the "bad" content and in some cases restore what had been changed were also made very quickly.

But that doesn't mean that editors from college and universities (and political offices, for that matter) can't play an active role in updating Wikipedia content and achieving stronger search engine visibility. The article gives 8 "white hat" tips on how to do that without getting yourself in trouble with Wikipedia.

Spend some worthwhile moments at http://searchengineland.com/070717-113550.php for the details.

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If you haven't yet discovered a new feature from Wordtracker, visit the "Free Keyword Suggestion Tool" at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Enter single keywords and you'll get back a plethora of results for your entry and a long list of similar combinations. When you can't quite decide how to label something at your website, go here and use the tool for an estimate of how many people are searching for your possibilities each day.

Yesterday, after lunch at the CCU Communication Officers Conference, three of us were discussing the relative popularity of "elementary education" and "teacher education" as possible labels for a website path at a particular college. None of us really had an especially educated guess about which one to use.

Wordtracker made it pretty clear which of those terms is in more common use:

• Elementary education... estimate of 800 searches per day
• Teacher education... estimate of 81 searches per day

That's obviously quite a difference and strongly suggests which term is best used in the title tag for a page and for the primary heading on the page.

We also learned that "Special education teacher" was a relatively popular term, with an estimate of 222 searches a day.

Your results might not always be quite so definitive, but this is a quick and easy way to do an initial test.

In July, I'll be offering two workshops on search engine marketing. The first is on the pre-conference Wednesday afternoon schedule at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference (http://www.act.org/epc/). The second is a post-conference Tuesday afternoon event at the eduWeb Conference (http://www.eduwebconference.com/).

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If you're just starting to puzzle out what you might do to improve the "searchabiity" of your website pages, one of the better places to start is by reading Search Engine Optimization by Gradiva Couzin and Jennifer Grappone.

Reading the book and realizing just how tedious a process it is to review and remake your website for better search results is a great good thing. You'll ask yourself a critical question: do I really need to do this? And the answer is: if you have good web traffic now, with people making the various conversions (completing inquiry forms and admissions applications, for instance) you want them to make, then you just might not need to spend the extended time it takes to truly move your website to a new search marketing level.

You don't have to read the book to take advantage of the website that goes with it. Visit "Your SEO Plan" at http://www.yourseoplan.com/ and you'll find information for the novice and the more experienced.

What does a website truly optimized for strong search marketing results look like? Here are two I've included as examples in my new presentation on search marketing (a short version for the Aslanian workshop next week and longer versions in July for the ACT and eduWeb conferences):

• The Regis University Online MBA at http://www.mbaregis.com/
• The University of Illinois Online at http://www.online.uillinois.edu/

Try a Google search for "online college degrees" and note the only individual school that comes up in the top 5 results. The folks at Illinois Online indeed know how to do search marketing for top results in a very competitive arena. If you'd like similar results, you're ready to start the process.

My guess is you'll see some things you can start doing on your own website even before you read a book or visit a website.

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Google continues to gain market share among people using search engines and Wikipedia is among the Top 10 must visited websites in the United States.

If you or someone else at your college or university isn't checking your Wikipedia content regularly, it might be time to start doing that.

In the past few days, while searching for various schools, I've noticed that the URL for the Wikipedia entry is listed among the first 5 responses that appear. With the overall popularity of Wikipedia as an information source, it seems likely that more than a few people will make a visit to the Wikipedia location.

I'd love to see research among people who have visited both the official website and the Wikipedia counterpart as to which one has more credibility.

Here are four institutions and how the Wikipedia URL finished in Google searches over the last few days:

• McDaniel College... fourth listing
• Philadelphia University... fifth listing
• University of Toronto... fourth listing
• Hofstra University... fourth listing

Google for your school soon and see if it is listed as high as these. I've not done anything resembling a "scientific" review, but it does seem frequent enough to pay attention.

How useful are the Wikipedia entries? For basic information about the number of students enrolled and the academic programs offered, it is usually faster to visit Wikipedia than an official website. Pity about that, but it is often the case.

And don't forget the official seal. For some reason, most of the Wikipedia entries I've seen include the seal or crest of the university right on the front page.

If you haven't already, start checking your Wikipedia content soon.

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The January 7 edition of the quarterly Education Life supplment to the NY Times seemed a good place to find out if colleges and universities are creating special landing pages to use with their advertising when they include URLs in the print ads.

Landing Pages Increase Conversion

Special landing pages can significantly increase conversion activities from people who come from an ad to your website. The landing page should repeat and reinforce the main theme of the ad. When you see a good landing page you should have a very good idea of what the original ad was all about.

The issue had 43 ads, including multiple ads by different units of several large NYC universities.

If you used an especially prominent word or phrase in your ad, what happens when somebody reading the ad comes to the front page of your website in search of more information and types the word or phrase into your search engine? Will that lead them to more information about the ad? In the "Google era" that we live in today, many people are likely to do just that.  

Can Your Search Engine Find the Content in Your Ads?

For instance, one university paid for a full page ad on the back cover of the supplement, not an inexpensive thing to do. The ad highlights high profile academic students as "shooting stars" at the school. The URL takes readers to the university's front page, where there is nothing about "shooting stars" is obvious. And typing those words into the search engine doesn't bring up any content related to the ad.

How about some good examples? I didn't check everyone of the 43 ads, but wandered from front to back and didn't find very many examples of real landing pages. The ones included ranged from good to great. All avoided the cardinal sin of abandoning visitors at a front page with no content related to the ad that brought them there.

New York University

www.nyu.edu/gsas/ma/winter07 (The best example found. The ad is what you see here, a list of available programs, with links to more information about each program and an inquiry form.)

Columbia University

www.emph.columbia.edu/t1

www.gs.columbia.edu/nyt

Metropolitan College of New York

www.mcny.edu/nyt

Iona College

www.iona.edu (Actually, the front page of the website but photos used in two ads flanking the centerfold are among those rotating on the page and the "Earn a degree that matters" is prominent on the page.)

St. John's University

www.stjohns.edu/learnmore/00683.sju

The overall impression is that there are miles to go before most people are paying careful attention to integrating advertising with website content. In other words, an element of marketing integration that isn't yet being well executed at most colleges.

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The January 7 edition of the quarterly Education Life supplment to the NY Times seemed a good place to find out if colleges and universities are creating special landing pages to use with their advertising when they include URLs in the print ads.

Landing Pages Increase Conversion

Special landing pages can significantly increase conversion activities from people who come from an ad to your website. The landing page should repeat and reinforce the main theme of the ad. When you see a good landing page you should have a very good idea of what the original ad was all about.

The issue had 43 ads, including multiple ads by different units of several large NYC universities.

If you used an especially prominent word or phrase in your ad, what happens when somebody reading the ad comes to the front page of your website in search of more information and types the word or phrase into your search engine? Will that lead them to more information about the ad? In the "Google era" that we live in today, many people are likely to do just that.  

Can Your Search Engine Find the Content in Your Ads?

For instance, one university paid for a full page ad on the back cover of the supplement, not an inexpensive thing to do. The ad highlights high profile academic students as "shooting stars" at the school. The URL takes readers to the university's front page, where there is nothing about "shooting stars" is obvious. And typing those words into the search engine doesn't bring up any content related to the ad.

How about some good examples? I didn't check everyone of the 43 ads, but wandered from front to back and didn't find very many examples of real landing pages. The ones included ranged from good to great. All avoided the cardinal sin of abandoning visitors at a front page with no content related to the ad that brought them there.

New York University

www.nyu.edu/gsas/ma/winter07 (The best example found. The ad is what you see here, a list of available programs, with links to more information about each program and an inquiry form.)

Columbia University

www.emph.columbia.edu/t1

www.gs.columbia.edu/nyt

Metropolitan College of New York

www.mcny.edu/nyt

Iona College

www.iona.edu (Actually, the front page of the website but photos used in two ads flanking the centerfold are among those rotating on the page and the "Earn a degree that matters" is prominent on the page.)

St. John's University

www.stjohns.edu/learnmore/00683.sju

The overall impression is that there are miles to go before most people are paying careful attention to integrating advertising with website content. In other words, an element of marketing integration that isn't yet being well executed at most colleges.

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In this first week of January in the New Year it isn't too late to add additional resolutions... if you're interested in Search Engine Marketing, make a resolution now to visit http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3624359 

33 Links Worth Exploring

What you'll find is one person's list (Greg Jarboe) of 12 top speakers in this area (and links to topics they speak about), 11 bloggers that Jarboe thinks are worth following from the legions available (and links to their blogs), and 10 worthy writers (with links to Search Engine Marketing articles they've written). All in all, this is a treasure trove if you have a day or so to set aside to prep for better Search Marketing efforts in 2007.

Search marketing is an easy topic to get lost in. But getting lost in the woods for a while and then finding your way out the other side of the forest can reap rewards in a marketing environment when more and more people expect search engines to take them where they want to go.

Resolve to Review Your Title Page Tags in 2007

Consider this for your second resolution: take a trip through the primary pages of your website and read the title tags for each page. Does each one reflect the primary content on the page? Is, for instance, the title page for each press release you post written to present the content of the press release in a way that search engines looking for new content will recognize and index?

Include this in your resolution: over the next year, every page in my website will have a different title tag. Every one. For a good example of how one university does this, visit http://www.capella.edu and click through on each of the primary section headings and the what's below those.

As 2007 unfolds, start on the relatively simple task of improving your title page tags to create more "opportunity moments" when search engines come to visit your website. When you do that, you're much more likely to increase the pages from your website that the spiders will take back to their nests and add to their databases.

Posted by Bob at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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In this first week of January in the New Year it isn't too late to add additional resolutions... if you're interested in Search Engine Marketing, make a resolution now to visit http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3624359 

33 Links Worth Exploring

What you'll find is one person's list (Greg Jarboe) of 12 top speakers in this area (and links to topics they speak about), 11 bloggers that Jarboe thinks are worth following from the legions available (and links to their blogs), and 10 worthy writers (with links to Search Engine Marketing articles they've written). All in all, this is a treasure trove if you have a day or so to set aside to prep for better Search Marketing efforts in 2007.

Search marketing is an easy topic to get lost in. But getting lost in the woods for a while and then finding your way out the other side of the forest can reap rewards in a marketing environment when more and more people expect search engines to take them where they want to go.

Resolve to Review Your Title Page Tags in 2007

Consider this for your second resolution: take a trip through the primary pages of your website and read the title tags for each page. Does each one reflect the primary content on the page? Is, for instance, the title page for each press release you post written to present the content of the press release in a way that search engines looking for new content will recognize and index?

Include this in your resolution: over the next year, every page in my website will have a different title tag. Every one. For a good example of how one university does this, visit http://www.capella.edu and click through on each of the primary section headings and the what's below those.

As 2007 unfolds, start on the relatively simple task of improving your title page tags to create more "opportunity moments" when search engines come to visit your website. When you do that, you're much more likely to increase the pages from your website that the spiders will take back to their nests and add to their databases.

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If you are truly devoted to search marketing, you might already know that the 2006 Search Engine Strategies conference is underway right now in Chicago.

All of us who couldn't make the meeting can still learn quite a bit about what's going on from a team of bloggers who will report on most of the sessions.

Visit http://www.seroundtable.com/ to see what's already been posted as I write this, starting with Danny Sullivan's opening keynote presentation.

Don't expect web friendly posting style. You won't be able to scan much of anything posted, but the diligent who start reading and work through what's here will certainly become more informed about the latest (and sometimes greatest) opinions about search marketing from people active in the field.

I won't get to read much of this myself until sometime next week. After that, I might do some posting of points that seem especially relevant to college and university marketing efforts.

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If you're debating the value of search marketing on your campus, be sure to read the latest from Marketing Sherpa in a 19-page report on "Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007" taken from a larger version you can buy for $247.

In-house search efforts produce lower results

The report starts on a note of surprise that the search marketing business failed to grow at the rate projected in the 2006 report. What happened? Widespread decisions to do search marketing "in house" rather than spend money to hire a professsional search marketing firm. The report notes that this comes at an ROI price. Outsourcing, according to this study, produces "significantly" better results. You'll see just how "significantly" for yourself in the report.

Top half of the left side of the page is most powerful location

You'll find lots of interesting nuggets in this free version. Google, by far the largest search engine source, correctly receives most attention. Be sure to review, for instance, the Eyetracking page, where you'll see why search results are "explosively better" for those listed in the upper half of the left hand part of the page than for a listing anywhere in the right hand column.

People don't read full search headlines

A point I found interesting and will add to my Writing for the Web presentations was the fact that few people read the entire headline even in a search result listing. What counts most in the first one or two words people see. That gives new meaning to the ability of people to quickly scan a page for most valued content.

Press releases optimized for the web have high impact

This is one of the areas where most colleges and universities can improve search performance at relatively little cost. Most press releases on college and university websites are not written right for the web and therefore are missing opportunities to be found by search engines exploring for new and relevant content.

Instead of just putting up a traditional press release on your website, take the extra time to create a new headline with strong keywords, use those keywords in the title tag for the page, and add two or three subheads in the press release. Take those relatively simple steps and search engine results should improve. Alas, only the longer paid version actually identifies keywords that did best for press release visibility.

You'll find the Marketing Sherpa report at www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/SearchMarketing_BG07_ExeSumm.pdf

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If you want to stay up to date on your campus by reading articles, newsletters, and blogs on Internet Marketing in general and Search Engine Marketing in particular, you won't find a better place than this website.

Robert Clough searches sources throughout the web for the latest postings that you can translate into better college and university Internet marketing strategy and techniques. Best of all, most of what you'll find here is easily understand by "normal human beings" with an interest in the topic and just a little experience. In fact, if you have no experience at all and want to get up to speed quickly, this is still a good place to visit.

The newsletter almost always has something worth reading. I'd recommend this as a natural starting place to stay connected.

Visit http://www.searchengineguide.com/ and explore to find what's best for your interests.

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How important is SEO? Without a conversion plan, not much.

That's the message from Stoney deGeyter at www.searchengineguide.com/degeyter/007360.html

While rankings are important, too much attention is paid to the "search" element of a marketing campaign and not enough to conversions after a prospect visits your website. deGeyter wisely notes that the key evaluation figure here is percent of conversion, not number of conversions. Focus not only on increasing traffic to your website but also on increasing the conversion percent from your visitors.

If you need ammunition to convince anyone on your campus that creating special landing pages to increase conversion in indeed a wise investment of time and money, have them read this article.

Building a relationship after the first conversion from Search Marketing

Shari Thurow's advice at www.clickz.com/experts/search/results/article.php/3587096 in her article "Debunking Search Engine Myths" can't be repeated often enough.

No matter how successful you are in bringing people to your website, if the website itself doesn't provide a valuable experience for the visitor then "a positive branding experience can disappear with only one click."

The most valuable message here: start an Internet Marketing effort by first building a strong website based on the interests of the audience you wish to attract. Build content first, and make it easy to find. Then begin your SEO and other marketing efforts. If you just add a Search Marketing program to get people to an indifferent website, you're heading for diappointment no matter how high you are ranked and no matter how strong your special landing pages.

Always remember the bottom line for any website: Content, Content, Content.

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To have an intelligent conversation about how the four top search engines... Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask... evaluate websites and decide to rank them in their databases, Jim Hedger's article, "Grand Slam SEO - Can My Site Rank Well on all Four Major Engines?" at http://www.searchengineguide.com/hedger/007824.html is a great place to start.

From the main points that Jim lists for each site, you'll see that Google is the most complex. And since it has nearly half of all search engine traffic, it is clearly the most important as well.

Google: Incoming Links, On-page SEO, Site Design Spiderability, User analytics, Outgoing links, Inclusion in other Google indexes, Document Histories

Yahoo: On-page SEO, Links and Link Patterns, Site Design, User analytics, Inclusion in other Yahoo indexes, Document Footprints

MSN: On-page SEO, Site Design and Structure and Sipderability

Ask: On-page SEO, Site Design, Site Structure and Spiderability

The most important criterion for Google is the number and quality of links that lead to your website. When you read Jim's article you'll get much more detail about that and other words of wisdom that will help you plan a search engine optimization strategy.

How important is SEO to your overall Internet Marketing efforts? How much time and energy should you spend on it? My next post in the category, in a few days, will try to shed light in that direction.

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How do Search Engines work?

Nothing is hotter in Internet marketing right now than search engine marketing, from paid search advertising to search engine optimization.

If you don't have expertise in this area yet, a fine place to start is with a visit to www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2003/HowWebSearchEnginesWork.asp to explore "How Web Search Engines Work."

Your credibility is bound to increase after you read definitions of things like a "spider trap" and a "deep link." Be sure to click through to the section that explains "Keyword Stuffing" and why you don't want to do it.

Nobody you meet can tell you exactly what to do to ensure that your website will come up near the top of search lists. The criteria of search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are closely guarded secrets that change often to keep the search engines several steps or more ahead of the people who try to fathom how they work. That's part of what keeps a huge and profitable industry afloat giving guidance on how to achieve higher rankings.

Content is King

If there's a consensus on what's most liable to work regardless of how the search engines change, its about the importance of content that's important to the audience you want to attract.

I'll have more entries about that as August unfolds and we build a guide to better search engine performance for the "normal human being" like you and I. Lots of good stuff out there.

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