FAQ: What is Search Engine Optimization?

Eight Questions with Jay B. Lipe of Emerge Marketing

We recently had a chance to fire a few questions at one of our clients, Jay B. Lipe, CEO of Emerge Marketing. Jay is a marketing speaker, author, and consultant, for small (and growing) businesses. We discussed how web marketing fits into a company's overall marketing plans.

1. Jay, let me first congratulate you on being one of, if not the only marketing author to dedicate a full chapter of your book to search engine positioning. Now, could you explain why that was your 16th chapter and not your first?

I’m a firm believer in strategic marketing - that is, thinking before you act. So, the first 15 chapters have to do with strategically planning out a company's marketing effort. This includes developing a marketing plan, targeting, positioning and putting a process in place to implement the marketing plan. Once the growing company has established this marketing foundation, marketing programs (like search engine optimization) are far more effective.

2. Can you share any success stories with us about growing companies using the web?

The best story I can relate has to do with our own company. Less than a year ago, we began working with your company to improve our search engine ranking. Since then, we've landed a client worth over $50,000 in sales to our firm. That's a 3000% return on investment! Most small businesses would kill for that today.

3. When working with clients on new website designs, we occasionally encounter clients with the "chicken and egg syndrome”. That is, trying to coordinate their website with offline (and often outdated) marketing materials. What advice can you offer businesses with outdated materials that suddenly realize the importance of an online presence?

For online marketing efforts, content is king, while offline marketing efforts depend more on imagery. So for web sites, we recommend uncovering what content your visitors seek first. FAQ's (frequently asked questions), free downloads and other interactive tools are all content devices that encourage the visitor to interact with your site.

Only after you’ve developed (and tested) various content for your site, should you seek to integrate it with the imagery of your offline materials.

4. You mention in your book that one of the hardest things you've had to do as a marketer is get over your love of graphics. What other lessons have you learned about web design to increase a site's marketing potential?

The most important lesson I’ve learned is that getting your site found is the most important step. How it looks is of secondary importance. By using tried and true search engine techniques of keyword-dense tags, keyword-rich copy and linking strategies, you'll boost your traffic almost overnight.

5. I noticed throughout your book that you refer people to the Publications section of your website for more free downloads. This seems like an interesting form of cross media promotion. Can you give us some other examples of things you've tried for your own business or with your clients?

I call it "Bouncing". Bouncing is when you direct a prospect to learn more about your company from a different marketing vehicle. For example, you could send out a direct mail piece, and in it suggest they “Visit www.oururl.com to see how we’ve helped other manufacturers” Here, you're bouncing them from direct mail to your website.

You could also bounce prospects from your:

• Brochure to your additional collateral piece (Call and order your free copy of our special report The Keys to Branding)
• Website to your email newsletter (Sign up here for our Weekly Specials E-Flyer)
• Voicemail to your website (Don't forget to visit us at www.emergemarketing.com)

6. You mentioned in your book that companies shouldn't expect graphic designers to become marketers. Along those lines, what advice can you offer companies when assembling a team to design a company website?

Always include someone who sees the big marketing picture. Without input from this "Keeper of the Marketing Keys," your approach may be wrong strategically. For example, your team may decide you’re going to duplicate your current brochure. Yet, that's not what visitors want. Instead, they want to use the site to obtain up-to-the-minute information on the status of their projects with you. A Keeper of the Keys, by always asking "Is that what our customers want?" might point this out.

7. When discussing copywriting in The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses, you cover the often-overlooked subject of calls-to-action. Who's dropping the ball on this and why?

We marketers are in the business of convincing people to take action. So, it is our obligation to tell prospects what action we want them to take. It’s not enough to just rattle off your product’s features and benefits. You must go one step further by telling your reader exactly what you want him (or her) to do next. Remember that he’s probably reading your copy while watching a football game and keeping an eye on Junior. Everyone responsible for marketing should use calls-to-action—highly motivating statements that tell the reader exactly what action to take next.

8. The web seems to allow a whole new level of tracking and analysis. This is often not the case with offline marketing efforts. What do you think are some of the more important metrics to track online?

In The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses, I list the Top 10 Web Metrics we see. They are:
1. Unique Visitors per day
2. Page views per day
3. Average page views per visitor
4. Most popular pages on the site
5. Common search phrases used
6. Most common site entry point
7. Most common site exit point
8. Most requested pages
9. Top referring sites
10. Busiest days and times of day for your site

Author Bio

Jay B. Lipe, CEO of Emerge Marketing (www.emergemarketing.com), is an internationally recognized author, speaker, and consultant who has helped 100’s of growing companies. He is known as the "Plan Man" and has recently authored The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses (Chammerson Press: 2002), available at major booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Borders. It can also be purchased at http://emergemarketing.com/publications/marketing_toolkit_for_growing_businesses.htm

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