Marketing in The Age of Google (by Vanessa Fox) is an insightful book about search, how it’s impacted the web and our lives, and how to make the most of it for business.

Vanessa goes into detail about the specifics of search engine optimisation and how search engines can be used for business planning, research and testing. i definitely agree with the tag line: “Your online strategy IS your business strategy”. The information is good, tying together the various concepts and tools available with examples and diagrams.

The parts that stood out for me were these quotes (bolding mine):

According to leaked 2008 Google quality guidelines, utility (how helpful the page is for the searcher based on intent), “is the most important aspect of search engine quality.”

A much better strategy is to focus on what the search engines are trying to achieve with all of those algorithm tweaks – showing the most relevant results for a given query.

Remember, the customers remain the same – they are simply adapting new behaviours to take advantage of the world of search.

What does this mean for you?

Don’t wait for the search engines, get ahead of them.

How? 3 steps:

1. Be useful.
2. Be relevant.
3. Be easy to use.

Because the customers haven’t changed, only the way they are finding information!

The reality is, if you are all of these things, the search engines will eventually catch up to you. With 26,316 seriously smart people at Google, (not to mention all the staff at Yahoo!, Bing and the others), they are bound to tweak their algorithms to catch up and deliver the most relevant and useful results.

[Side note: It was great to see that Vanessa's concepts closely aligned with our Web Strategy Planning Template, particularly the idea of "search personas" mirroring "buyer personas".]

Recently, Bluewire Media has claimed the #1 spot from John Hacking, who has dropped from #1 to page 2 (any ideas why?). If you looked at the home page of the Bluewire Media website however, you might be confused as to how we’ve made it to the number one spot. There’s no heading saying “Web Design Brisbane”, the words “Web Design” and “Brisbane” appear only once each in the browser title tag, and they’re not together or near the start. In fact, the phrase “Web Design Brisbane” or “Brisbane Web Design” doesn’t even appear anywhere on the page.

Compare this with the companies who share spots 2-10, most of whom start their titles with “Web Design Brisbane”, and you’ll be left to wonder why Bluewire Media is even on the first page.

Well, if you know anything about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), you’ll know that inbound links (links from someone else’s site back to your site) play a huge factor in getting your site to rank higher in search results. A quick scan of the number of links pointing to each of the top 10 websites reveals that Bluewire Media has roughly 24,000 inbound links, while the rest of the top 10 have between 1,000 and 10,000 inbound links (with a couple of exceptions).

Search results for "Web Design Brisbane" using SEOBook's SEO Toolbar to display link data

Fair enough, you might say, until you hear that Bluewire Media does not actually offer SEO services directly (apart from ensuring the websites we build are search engine friendly, we refer our clients to our SEO partners, Reload Media, for all their other SEO needs). How then, have we managed to get twice or three times the number of links that our competitors have, most of whom offer SEO and linkbuilding services?

Well, at Bluewire Media, we’re big believers that the best way to market your business online is to give something of value away for free. Our free Web Strategy Planning Template, co-created with international keynote speaker and best-selling author David Meerman Scott has been downloaded and used by thousands of businesses worldwide to help them define their web strategy.

By giving this template away for free, we’ve managed to not only get our logo and contact details into the offices of hundreds of companies Australia wide, but also to get hundreds (and eventually thousands) of links from webmasters and bloggers who have found it useful and wanted to share it with their audiences, and in doing so have helped us achieve our number one ranking.

We try to recommend to most of our clients that they write an e-book or similar and give it away for free, but many of them, being business-people, just can’t get their head around the concept; and it’s often hard to think of all the right arguments to convince them on the spot. Here, I’ve outlined here what happens when you give away for free something other people thing is pretty valuable.

The process:

1. You publish something (let’s call it a widget) that people would pay for (because it’s that good), but instead you give it away for free. It could be a free e-book, an online tool or app, a printable template or checklist (like ours), or even just a great blog post!
2. People read or use your widget and find it valuable. It’s so good that they can’t resist telling their friends and followers about it using social media (especially if you make it easily shareable). This spreads your brand name and increases your reputation.
3. If your free widget is good enough, eventually it will create enough of a social media storm that people will start blogging about it (hello backlinks!).
4. People who read those blog posts will then know about you and your free widget, and if they find it valuable enough, they’ll tell their own friends and followers.
5. This cycle goes on and on while your brand name is being spread further and further and your reputation is skyrocketing.
6. You now have a first-class reputation, and your customers come to you ready to buy your products/services because they’ve read about you, seen your work and trust your expertise.

But why does it have to be free?

Making your widget free means that when someone comes across it, they don’t have to deliberate over whether they can afford it or whether it will be worth the money, they don’t have to get up and walk across the room to get their credit card details (don’t under-estimate the laziness of the general population), and they have no reason to trust that your widget will do what you claim it will. If it’s free, however, there is absolutely no reason why someone wouldn’t use/read/download it right then and there and be blown away by how valuable it is. Basically, by making it free, you’re allowing it to spread faster and further.

Want to learn more?

[Edit: Lesley has linked to an excellent video in the comments. If you're interested to know more, please have a look]

David Meerman Scott is a thought leader in this field, and has some great books that really help clarify exactly why you should give something away for free. I recommend buying and reading his book ‘World Wide Rave’ (we’ve got some copies in the office if you’d like to borrow one) and downloading some of his free e-books (yes that’s right, he practices what he preaches).

Are you convinced?

A lot of people will remain un-convinced, especially if they think they’re in an industry that this doesn’t apply to. Really though, if you have a product or service and you have a website, there’s a way that it can work for you: you just need to be creative.

If you’re having a hard time thinking of a way to do this in your industry, leave a comment explaining your situation and I’ll think of one for you!

And while it’s granted that Google moves in mysterious ways, and you will never be able to control every single variable, there are nevertheless loads of techniques you can use to keep kicking goals when the Googlers make it tricky for you.

One simple and effective way is to make sure what actually comes up in the Google listing is fully optimised, makes sense, and tells the viewer “this is what you are looking for” – by addressing exactly what it is that your website delivers.

Your Google heading can be up to around 66 characters & that includes spaces, so you don’t have long to grab the viewer. With that in mind, it’s important to remember the following:

• The viewer is looking for something. Does your headline assure them that you have what they need?
• If you do in fact offer what they want, is it simple for them to attain it? What means have you offered them to make life easier? Is there a call to action?
• Is there anything new, interesting or out of the ordinary? Can you manage to stand out from the crowd?
• Have you included your company name & made sure that you have a different heading for every single page on your site?

So: can you manage that in 66 characters? With clever copy, the answer should be ‘yes’.

Now that we have a succinct and attractive headline, we need to ensure the description is up to scratch. Think of the description like the copy of an advertisement. You have roughly 155 characters including spaces to offer a compelling glimpse into what lies beneath the click of the mouse. Think of the description like a taste test. And make absolutely sure that you use your keyword/s at least once toward the beginning.

That said, keyword stuffing is frowned upon in the Googlesphere. And thank goodness! Who wants to read the same phrase same phrase same phrase same phrase same phrase same phrase over and over again? Nobody!

Finally, choose a URL that is clear and indicates where the page lies within the site’s structure. For example: http://www.bluewiremedia.com.au/web-design-brisbane.html

And next time you Google something, take note of just how much the heading and description affects whether that’s the site you choose to peruse.

Search Engine Optimisation: Call Bluewire Media on 1300 258 394 to find out more about how SEO can benefit your company.

What was most striking in reading the book was that much of optimising your blog or website is naturally intuitive. Most SEO is more related to time and effort than mathematical trickery.

With that in mind, I’d like to share a particularly helpful (& simple) technique that I learnt from Glenn’s book – link baiting.

So, imagine we are going fishing. We need bait. I mean it’s obvious right? Why would the fish (or the people you want to read your site) bother coming near you if they weren’t going to get a tasty little treat out of it?

With this in mind we need to create content that people want to read. There’s no point trying to be everything to everyone – just like bait, you need to consider what fish you are hoping to catch, and what they like to eat.

To cut the fishing metaphor for a moment: people appreciate good content and will probably link to you if you deliver that. Case in point: Glenn Murray is the number 1 copywriter on Google. He writes great content and now I’m linking to it. And so are thousands of others. Hence the rank.

Anyway, once you’ve got good bait you need to cast the line where the fish are – otherwise it’s just great content floating in the vast expanse of ocean that is the Internet.

Enter social media – a fishing rod for the digital age. Let your network of friends & followers know there is some bait getting about – and watch as they break it down into pieces, redistribute it into their own blogs and backlink to yours in thanks of your food for thought.

Thanks Glenn.

Read a free sample chapter of SEO Secrets on Creating Great Content.

You can also buy the SEO Secrets e-book online.

SEO Brisbane: If you are interested in Bluewire Media implementing these strategies for you, feel free to get in touch on 1300 258 394.

Craig answers the following questions:

• What is SEM (search engine marketing)?
• What are the benefits of SEM?
• How does Google determine where you rank?
• What can clients do themselves to improve their own ads?
• Why should a company engage an SEM professional rather than do it themselves?
• How do you work out what keywords or phrases to optimise for?
• Can you give us an example of that?
• What sort of results have you seen from clients on your programs?
• Finally, what can a Bluewire Media client expect when they start an SEM program with you?

SEM Brisbane:  For search engine marketing (SEM) programs with a Google Qualified Individual, contact Bluewire Media on 1300 258 394.

Bluewire Media is an official partner of Reload Media.