Status of Google Wave

Status of Google Wave

How to Do SEO Cheap

How to Do SEO Cheap: "

Posted by Kate Morris

Most respected SEOs will tell you there is no such thing as cheap SEO. You get what you pay for in respect to hiring an SEO consultant. And that remains true. Whether you are hiring an agency, independent consultant, or hiring in-house, the best SEOs are going to know the value of their skills and its impact on your business. Going for the lowest cost option (bad SEOs, scam artists) is what gives good SEOs a bad name. Please, don't be one of those (read SEOmoz!), and don't hire one of those.

On the other side of the coin, I was also a small business owner at one time (independent consultant), and I know that you can't always afford the best in the beginning. There are a number of options available to small business owners on a budget. You don't have to forego quality to get good, cheaper SEO advice. Just remember that the less you pay with these suggestions, the more you might have to contribute your own time and learning. You are going to have to think about each of these in terms not just of cost, but also cost of your time. Doing cheaper SEO options means more time on your part learning. But ... with the right time and dedication, you can get the same results those bigger competitors are getting.

Remember the Marketing

From Distilled's Co-Founder Duncan Morris: If you are not an SEO, running your own business and looking to do this on your own, remember that the best SEO you can do is build your business right. You should network and find contacts, grow a mailing list, deliver awesome customer service, and maybe acquire another company. Do remarkable stuff, write interesting stuff on a blog, and tell people about it.

In the end, it's about getting people interested in your business. SEO is not the answer, it's yet another tool in your marketing arsenal.

Local Conferences

Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox on a Site Review Panel at PubCon

If you want to get the most bang for your buck and good suggestions for your site in real time, attend a local regional conference and submit to a site review panel. The key here is to find one in your area to reduce the costs as much as possible.

There are many you can choose from, a few from the past year include PubCon South, SearchExchange (no new one has been scheduled), SEMPDX SearchFest, and SXSW Interactive. There are many conferences in larger metropolitan areas, but they tend to be pricey. Look at the agenda ahead of time and make sure they have site reviews. On the day of the conference, get there before the session starts and give the moderator your card with the site address, and sit up front. I can't say that Matt Cutts will be the one reviewing your site, but regardless, these shows offer some of the best and brightest in the business.

Cost: Varies Wildly. About $200-750 for the conference (plus any travel costs)
Time: At least an hour for the session, but plan staying the whole conference, about 2-3 days

PodCamp, BarCamp, WordCamp

These are much like a local conference and meetup, but they are unconferences. They are usually free, day or two day long, with the key being that the content is user generated. Topics are about anything from new media (PodCamp) to WordPress (WordCamp), or really anything (BarCamp). There are many local experts you can meet here and ask about anything you need help on. These are the definition of community.

Cost: Free - usually
Time: A day or two for the Camp, and then applying what you learned of course.

Exchange Services

Exchanging services is one of the best ways to get services that you might not be able to afford right now. For instance, I got some awesome shirts "for free" in exchange for some PPC help for the company that printed the shirts. At the time there was no way I could afford the $500 for the shirts, but in exchange for my time? That was easy. If your company offers a service or product, talk to an SEO about an exchange of services.

It is also possible to offer good links for pro bono work. And on that thought, you could exchange your products and services as a link building tactic. Think about donating your time and services and getting links in return. This is a gray area (hat wise), but if you let them decide what to do ... it's cool. It's all about the intent and if the new link is useful to the users of the other site. Keep that in mind.

Cost: No money changes hands.
Time: It's going to cost in time however much you make the deal for your own time.

Visit Local Meetups

Check for local search marketing meetups via Meetups.com or contact your local chamber of commerce for any possible training that might be upcoming. The other option is to Google SEO group in your location - there might be some that aren't formal groups. Local professionals speak and attend sessions and are usually more than happy to answer questions and give advice to other attendees.

My pointer is to look for those meetups and groups that offer training for small business owners. For instance, in Austin, there is the Austin SEO/SEM Meetup through Meetups.com and that is a more training based group, however the AustinSEM.org group is for professionals only. Just be sure you are in the right group.

Second and biggest piece of advice: Don't go there for advice, hound the speaker, and then leave. They are people too. Be a friend, get to know before launching into your issues. Never expect free advice. Go there to learn and maybe you might get some good free advice as a bonus.

Cost: $0-$25 typically
Time: Substantial. An hour for the meetup generally, but there will be many of these over the year, you'll want to attend most of them you can find. And then you have to apply the knowledge.

Twitter (Read: Social Media)

Put simply: Get onto Twitter and make friends. Join in the conversation, don't be creepy, and be genuinely interested and interesting. There are many intelligent SEOs on Twitter that are happy to help friends. But you can't just get on there and ask. Building the relationships is what takes the most time and why this is one of the free options. You have to spend the time conversing and learning from what is being tweeted in addition to building the relationship. This cannot be automated, but once you are friends with an SEO, they are more likely to take time out of their day to help you out.

Cost: Free
Time: This one is all about your time. Hours, months, years is what I am talking here.

Simplest: Read

Read SEOmoz, SEOBook, Google Webmaster Blog, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, BlueGlass, Distilled, and so many more. For the most part (at Distilled this is true but I can't talk for everyone), we don't hold much back. If there is something new and cool that can help others with their campaigns, we share it via blogs. You just have to take the time to read them and apply the knowledge to your situation. This isn't easy as examples are not usually just like your situation, but with the right time and dedication you can learn much just reading.

Cost: Free
Time: Less than building relationships, but still high in personal time involvement.

Join a Community

Become a member of a forum or other Q&A type community like Webmaster World, SEOmoz Q&A, SEOBook, SEODojo, StackOverflow (more technical), and ExpertsExchange.

Webmaster World is free to use and the community responds to the questions. Each section has a few moderators, but your question isn't guaranteed to be answered. So there are pluses and minuses to that setup. I learned a lot there when I started, and the community is fantastic. They even have Google and Bing employees drop by to answer sometimes.

SEOmoz Q&A on the other hand comes with your membership to SEOmoz at all paid levels. Your level determines how many questions you can ask per month. At the PRO level, you get two questions a month. These questions are answered by SEO/PPC/Local/Mobile specialists at SEOmoz, Distilled, and across the globe by associates hand picked by the SEOmoz team. All the people answering are true professional experts and your question is guaranteed to be answered by an associate.

While I don't know much about SEOBook and SEODojo, I can tell you that there are many friends of mine that love these communities. They provide an area where you can ask questions and get answers from some of the best minds in search. I hear that Aaron Wall responds to many of the questions himself on SEOBook.

Check out all your options before committing but a community is very helpful at every stage of business or your career.

Cost: From Free to $300 a month at the lowest levels
Time: Good amount. You get direct answers in communities like these to questions about your specific situation, but you still have to learn and apply the advice you are given.

Adopt an SEO

If you have family and friends that are SEOs the chance is that you can get SEO services for free or at a highly discounted rate. So why not adopt? I kid. I kid. This isn't a suggestion for everyone, but if you do have a friend or family member in the business, you can make it their Christmas present to you for life if they will help you out. Most will be more than willing to help, unless this is your 17th "great money making opportunity."

Cost: A Lifetime - no really, you can't buy this one, sorry.
Time: Nurturing for an estranged SEO takes a lifetime, this is a big dedication on your part.

Look to your Family/Friends

Stock Photo Courtesy of Shutterstock

So if you have family and friends that are willing to help out but they aren't search marketing professionals, fret not. Enlist family/friends for help in content generation and link building. Everyone has a talent, and your family and friends can research and write about a number of topics. They can help you contact local businesses for linking opportunities. If any of them are interested in search marketing, you might even get them to read and join the communities we spoke of earlier. It's a win-win for anyone looking for a new career (maybe hire a student!) and your business that needs help getting the word out.

Cost: Minor
Time: Minor. It's your family and friends that are learning, so they get a benefit as well as the satisfaction of helping you.

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7 Tips for Succeeding as a Social Media Strategist

7 Tips for Succeeding as a Social Media Strategist: "

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

The role of social media is expanding rapidly and many organizations of all types are trying to stay afloat amidst the changes. Meanwhile, a small group of innovators pulls the industry onward.

In the past few years, the social media marketing role has become increasingly present, leading the way to more strategic social media programs. Enter the social media strategist.

Jeremiah Owyang, an industry analyst at Altimeter Group, a digital strategy consulting firm, recently spoke at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit about the career path of the corporate social strategist, touching on current responsibilities and challenges, as well as the future of the role. His presentation was based on months of research funded by Altimeter, in which 140 enterprise-class social strategists across various industries were interviewed. Other online sources, such as LinkedIn and blogs, were consulted to gather job descriptions, profile work histories and catalog the ebb and flow of new hires in the social media space.

Owyang presented seven key tips for building a successful social media program and focused on how social media strategists can facilitate those successes. Read his tips below and add your thoughts in the comments.

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1. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

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Owyang pointed to a funny, but oh-so-true anecdote that happened while he was collecting research for this study. While interviewing a social media strategist, the phone conversation was stopped abruptly as the strategist confessed, “Jeremiah, I’ve gotta go. There are two people standing in front of my office demanding Facebook Pages.” If they didn’t get the Pages, they were going to build them on their own.

While it’s somewhat hilarious to imagine two professionals camping in front of their colleague’s office until they get their doggone Facebook Pages, it’s equally as sad to realize that these instances actually happen in the corporate world. If this is happening in your organization, take a step back, look at the chaos, take a deep breath and then do something about it.

“A proactive mindset is required,” Owyang said. “You cannot wait for the company to catch up to you. You have to go to the business units and tell them what is required [to participate in your company's social media program] before they ask you for a Facebook Page. Make a list of requirements: dialogue, ready for conversations 24/7, ongoing commitment, two-way communications. Make it clear what’s expected, before they ask you.”

Being proactive and having guidelines will help alleviate stressful moments like the one described above, where being reactive is usually status quo.

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2. Be a Program Manager, Not Evangelist

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As social media programs become more sophisticated, Owyang believes that employees currently in the social media evangelist roles will move on to “the next thing,” evangelizing new technologies. But with an ongoing need for social media programming, a new role for social media program managers will emerge.

“Quickly switch hats,” Owyang advises social media strategists who want to stay relevant to businesses that have evolving needs. “It’s time to take off the evangelism hat and put on the program manager hat. A new skill set is going to be required, and a program manager is responsible for resources, timelines, Gantt charts, ROI models, analytics, data modeling, resource management, project management. It’s a very different skill set than the evangelist role that we’ve seen before.”

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3. Educate Your Business Units

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“Educate your business units ahead of time, and give them the information that they need,” said Owyang.

He is an advocate of testing employees to measure digital and social media proficiencies, pointing to Intel’s Digital IQ test as a great example of aptitude measurement. “You can take this online test before you participate in social media and become certified in that particular program,” he said. “That’s one of the more advanced programs that we’ve seen.”

In its official Social Media Guidelines, Intel clearly defines Digital IQ training as a responsibility for all employees taking part in social media on behalf of the company.

It’s important to not only lay down guidelines, but to also provide training for employees who want to learn more and get involved in the social media program.

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4. Organize for Success

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Five ways companies organize their social media teams

During his presentation, Owyang presented five models in which companies organize their social media teams — decentralized, centralized, hub and spoke, dandelion and holistic, as pictured and described above. He highly recommends that social media programs be organized in hub and spoke or dandelion models in order to scale.

In the hub and spoke model, there’s typically a cross-functional team that’s serving multiple business units, with the strategists at the center of the formation — 41% of the organizations that Owyang interviewed fell under this category.

Within large companies with multiple brands or units, such as Microsoft or HP, the dandelion (or “multiple hub and spoke”) model is common, where multiple social media strategists lead individual business areas or brands across the company.

There are three steps necessary in order to reach a hub and spoke or dandelion organization, according to Owyang:

1. “Set up governance: policies, legal, some executive buy-in.”
2. “Roll out processes: who does what, where, when and how — a triage system. How does information flow through your company? Publish that diagram on the Internet.”
3. “Launch an ongoing education program.”

“If you do those three things in that order, it’s very likely your company will form in hub and spoke with you in the hub,” stated Owyang.

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5. Be an Enabler

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It is unrealistic to think that one strategist can stay at the center of every social media effort or that he or she could even hire enough community managers to stay on top of an entire enterprise’s social activity. In light of that reality, Owyang believes that it is crucial for social media strategists to slip into the mindset of an enabler. He explains:

“Remember, social media does not scale. You cannot manage every social media program, campaign or effort. You now have to become an enabler to teach the business units to do it on their own — that’s the only way you’re going to be able to scale anyway. You become an internal consultant, an internal resource to help the entire business.”

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6. Deploy Scalable Social Media Programs

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Communities, advocacy programs, social media management systems (like CoTweet and HootSuite), and Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) — the practice of connecting social networks to your existing CRM system — are all worthwhile social media efforts, according to Owyang, because they are scalable.

“Dialogue does not scale,” Owyang reiterated multiple times. “One-to-one communications does not scale… You can’t possibly do it. What scales? Community programs — getting your customers to do the work for you. Advocacy programs — Microsoft MVP, Intel Insiders, SAP Mentors, Oracle Aces, Walmart Moms — those are advocacy programs, when you take your best customers and you give them a platform and let them do the work for you, and you don’t pay them. Those are scalable programs.”

While it’s important to set up channels for communication with customers, make sure your programs can expand as the company and community grow.

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7. Transcend Marketing

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The report found that 71% of social media programs fall under the domain of marketing or corporate communications. In order to make an impact, though, Owyang says that social media programs must transcend marketing. Strategists should take note and act accordingly.

“Over time, think about how you can be more than ‘marketing,’” suggests Owyang. “Think about how you can apply [social media] to support and service and the physical, real-world customer experience — and improve products and experiences.”

Owyang’s seven insights into succeeding as a social media strategist should have social media programs shaping up in no time. What would you add to his advice? Let us know in the comments below.

View Jeremiah Owyang’s WOMMA Summit presentation below:

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More Business Resources from Mashable:

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- HOW TO: Define a Social Media Strategy for Enterprise
- Social Media Success: 5 Lessons From In-House Corporate Teams
- HOW TO: Get the Most Out of a Coworking Space
- How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue
- Beyond Viral: How Successful Marketers Are Embracing the Social Web

Image copyright of Gary Michael and courtesy of WOMMA.

More About: business, corporate social media, Corporate Social Strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, social media, social media strategist, social media strategy

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