It has been a while since I’ve posted on automaticable, so let me catch the world up on a few things.

First, I’m still doing SEO at BKV in Atlanta. And by that, I mean it is taking over my life. Because of the life-takeover problem BKV graciously hired me an assistant, Tom. He is brand new to the SEO world (just as I was) but will become an expert shortly since I’m kind of throwing him in the deep end. Sink or swim, baby.

Not only am I (and Tom) working on SEO, but we’re also in charge of everything social media at BKV. That means we get to spend most of our day on Twitter, Facebook, and every other site most companies ban access to. Sweet deal. If you have Twitter and want to follow me, you can find me at twitter.com/kwegner. Make sure to @me so I know you are automaticable fan.

I don’t usually like to pump work stuff on personal posts, however we are doing social media work for a non-profit right now that is totally awesome. We are working on promoting an event for the March of Dimes called “March for Babies.” It is an event to help raise money to support research into premature birth & other birth problems. If you want to help out the cause, check out www.marchforbabies.org or follow March for Babies on Twitter at twitter.com/marchforbabies.

That is it on the update. Expect more posts from me in the near future, as I’ve recently been reinvigorated by the fact that automaticable just suprassed 100,000 total views.

• Twitter Revisited – Takeaways
• Do You Twitter?

Level One: Internet Marketing

I generally respond to questions about my job with something along the lines of “I’m in internet marketing and advertising,” and see what happens from there. Often people will already have a glazed look over their eyes, not knowing what internet marketing and advertising even means. If they are familiar with the subject though, often the next question will be “Oh so you do banner ads and popups?” Ughhhh, no I am not that annoying guy that creates banners that let you know that YOU ARE VISITOR NUMBER 1,000,000 CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!

Level Two: Search Engine Marketing

If internet marketing brought on the glazed eyes, moving on to the next level, search engine marketing (or SEM), makes most people look like a deer in the headlights. To most people, search engines are neutral territory. They think there are nothing but natural, worthy results in Google. So when I bring up that my job lies mostly in marketing to search engines people wonder what I could possibly do all day. At this point I explain to them that (gasp!) a number of search results on Google are actually paid advertisements, but my work is to take the unpaid search results and make them even better.

Level Three: Search Engine Optimization

If I get here it is usually a miracle, but I love explaining my job in detail to people. This will be the first time I use the term “Search Engine Optimization” or my real title, Organic Search Specialist. I try to explain in as few words as possible how my job is to make sure the websites for our clients are ranking in the search engines for everything related to their businesses. I go on to talk about how my job is a mixture of art and science. It is an art because the search engines never reveal what they actually look for on web pages, so we never really know what is going to help. The science is in making sure the websites are technically sound, follow web best practices, and adhere to the SEO basics. Generally if someone gets this far they have proven that they are seriously interested in my job, so I talk about my day to day tasks and overarching principles for as long as they will let me. Sometimes I go on for a little too long, but I don’t see that as a flaw.

What I Lack: An Elevator Pitch

I know there are plenty of obscure jobs out there, but I’m not sure many of them need to vet people who ask about their jobs for their aptitude in the field before answering. I’m also pretty sure that there is an easier way to explain exactly what I do in less than 60 seconds, IE and elevator pitch. So, fellow SEOs, what is your elevator pitch? Can you use it on anyone and reasonably expect them to understand what you do for a living, or does this still lead to blank stares and/or playing a game of 20 questions? Leave your suggestions in the comments, as I would love to learn how other folks in the field explain their job to people who simply want to know “What do you do?”

• When SEO Isn’t About Rankings
• Learning SEO: From the Beginning

Since my upgrade to lead Organic Search Specialist at BKV I’ve been involved in a number of new business pitches. The most recent I’m a part of is for a new client who has partnered with one of our existing paid search clients.  They are going through a site overhaul and need some heavy duty SEO work. I’m talking a serious overhaul too; the client has over 400 individual domains. While they are working off a newly created template, it is still a beast to manage.

Because the client was a partner of one of our existing paid search clients, our strategy was to project our traffic and sales growth numbers off of our current client. What we quickly found out, however, was that this was not going to be possible.

After working out the numbers–direct traffic, search traffic, sales, leads, conversions, etc.–the figures we were coming out with were not making any sense. Somehow we had projected that with a decrease in traffic we could almost double their sales leads. Obviously something was wrong.

When the conversion rate matters

When we went back to the raw data, comparing our existing client to their partner they referred our SEO services to, we saw what the real problem was. Our prospective client was driving plenty of traffic, both through paid search and SEO. What they weren’t doing, however, was converting. Their conversion rate was nearly 1/4th that of what we were benchmarking from.

Finding this out early gave us a huge advantage, as now we can plan and project off 2 separate strategies, regular SEO and increasing website conversions. Justifying our costs is going to be even easier than we expected.

How to increase organic conversions

Increasing organic conversions is different than improving paid search conversion rates. Instead of calling out deals, adding starbursts, or using any other regular direct response techniques, converting organic traffic takes finesse. Instead of blasting potential customers with advertising techniques, the conversions need to come naturally. This can mean a number of things, but sometimes it’s the simplest techniques that make the biggest difference.

Keep it above the fold

Whatever your conversion method may be, you need to have access to it above the fold. This means the first section a user sees when they load a page needs to include your phone number, address, email signup, web form, or any combination of the above. The client we are pitching had their phone number above the fold, but it was tiny, gray on black text that screamed “IGNORE ME!”  Also, their main conversion metric, web leads through a contact form, wasn’t even available on the home page. After clicking through 2 whole layers the user would find the form…below the fold!

Lesson learned

Increasing the conversion rate for a client like this is going to be a no-brainer. With a few simple techniques, their sales leads should increase 2-3 times what they expected. But what have I learned from this? Most importantly, I’ve learned that SEO is about much more than title tags, descriptions and alt tags. At the end of the day the job of an SEO is to make your client richer through organic traffic. Whether that means #1 rankings, leveraging social media, or increasing conversion rates, the client will be happy if there is more money in their pocket.

• Defining SEO For the Uninitiated
• Essential WordPress Plugins

The reason I know about this is because Martin contacted me and asked permission to use the image I created.  Though the image has been realeased under the Creative Commons Licence (with some restrictions), I really appreciated him asking whether he could use it or not.  The internet is such a free for all with people stealing other people’s work, and it is nice to know that some people still respect the hard work people put into their art.

If the presentation ever gets put online and Martin follows up with me with the link, I’ll definitely be posting it here.  Until then, just know that a group of people on the Champs Elysees saw my RSS image and name during some conference on June 19th. 

• Plagiarism in an Online World
• Twitter Revisited – Takeaways

When I made the announcement I had just learned of a new SEO technique that sounded very promising. It is something that has very little risk, but presents a huge reward if implemented correctly. I am being vague here for a reason; if I gave away too many specifics on top of a link to the new site I am running, someone could come in and take away my competitive advantage. I’m sure any of you SEO gurus could probably figure out the gist of what I am doing by studying the site for a while, but the technique is fairly intricate and focused, so it wont be immediately apparent.

So what is this site? Well, it is a blog (well, not really…) called Review: Gibson Guitars. It fuses my interest in music and guitars with my experience with SEO, and is starting to look promising. I only have a handful of posts up there right now and I am working on getting a few more up soon. My goal is to make the site a great destination for people interested in Gibson guitars and guitar buying in general. So if you are interested in what I’ve been working on lately, or want to learn about guitars in general, go check out my new site about Gibson guitars!

• Plagiarism in an Online World
• Mountain Man Competition #1: Grow a Beard

Firebug

Firebug is a powerhouse Firefox extension for SEO, but it is also a must-have extension for web development. This tool allows you to view the html and CSS of any page element at the click of a button. Not only can you view the code behind a page simply by rolling your mouse over the element, but you can also manipulate the code and see a real time update of what your changes would look like. I find this SEO extension amazingly useful for client presentations where I want to show a “before and after” screen shot, even if the “after” hasn’t been implemented yet. [ get firebug ]

IE Tab

Between checking how pages render and the number of sites that are still not Firefox compatible, I find myself forced to use Internet Explorer all the time. One of the main reasons I have grown to hate IE is because I lose all of my customization and functionality from my SEO Firefox extensions. IE Tab fixes this problem. At the click of a button you can render any page in IE while still using Firefox. You lose any on-page extensions, but all of your toolbars and browser functions will still be available. This has saved me a ton of time and effort while doing SEO work through Internet Explorer. [ get IE Tab ]

Rank Checker

Released through SEObook Tools, Rank Checker does for free what many companies pay thousands of dollars for. Check your keyword ranking in Google, Yahoo, and MSN for any number of sites. Not only does this tool allow you to save your keyword lists, but it also generates historical rankings data every time you run it. This tool is still in its infancy, but it has a ton of potential and has already made my life a whole lot easier. [ get RankChecker ]

RankQuest SEO Toolbar

One of many toolbars available for SEO, RankQuest has a ton of useful options. There are validation tools to check links and html for errors, content tools to evaluate keyword density and text ratios, and meta tools to find keywords and analyze meta tags. There are also popularity, search engine, and SEM tools, but in the interest of keeping this as short as possible, you might as well take a look at all of the options yourself. This is a very powerful toolbar to have at your disposal for your SEO research. [ get RankQuest SEO Toolbar ]

SearchStatus

This is one tool I like to keep active no matter which Firefox profile I am using. SearchStatus is unobtrusive and does not slow down my browsing at all. At the click of a button I can show information such as indexed pages and backlinks on the 3 major search engines, highlight nofollowed links on the page, show a link report and more. Although some of the options here overlap with other extensions, it is still very useful because it is something I can call up on demand. [ get SearchStatus ]

SEO For Firefox

The first of two search engine extensions that I will outline, SEO For Firefox gives your search results more power. When searching on Google or Yahoo!, each result will load a wealth of information underneath the description, giving you competitive data in an instant. Information for each search result includes page rank, links (broken down into .edu and .gov as well), Technorati, Alexa info and more. Another feature of SEO for Firefox that I use frequently is the ability to highlight ‘nofollow’ links automatically in any color you choose, which is information I like to know about most pages I visit. [get SEO For Firefox ]

SeoQuake

This is the extension most similar to SEO For Firefox, but with a few important differences. Like SEO For Firefox, SeoQuake will show page rank, inbound links, site age, and social results inline with search results on Google and Yahoo!, as well as MSN. What makes SeoQuake more powerful to me is that it also includes a floating toolbar at the top of any pages you visit that includes all of that same information. The SeoQuake toolbar is nice because it loads dynamically on the page itself, and can be minimized or closed if you want more viewing space. Another extremely powerful option on SeoQuake is the ability to order your search results not only on relevancy as Google forces you, but you can sort by page rank, inbound links, indexed pages, or any other data point SeoQuake provides you. This makes competitive research a breeze, and is something I don’t know how I ever lived without. [ get SeoQuake ]

Server Spy

This simple, lightweight extension does only one thing, but does it well. In your bottom toolbar Server Spy will indicate to you what brand of HTTP server the page you are visiting runs on. This is just one more piece of information at your fingertips that wasn’t available before. [ get Server Spy ]

Split Browser

Although this is not an SEO extension by any means, Split Browser does help with SEO work immensely. If you want to compare two sites side by side without having multiple windows open, Split Browser is your new best friend. Open new “tabs” on the top, bottom, left, or right of your current viewing area. These new split tabs can be resized in any number of ways. I especially like using this to compare an original site to one I have manipulated using Firebug. [ get Split Browser ]

Tamper Data

Tamper Data lets you view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers and most parameters, as well as view load times and priorities. This is great for doing a site analysis since you can pinpoint exactly what is holding up load times on specific pages. [ get Tamper Data ]

Web Developer

As the name states, this is not only an SEO Firefox extension, but a web development extension as well. This extension adds another toolbar to your window and will allow you to manipulate pages and pull information quickly. Functionality includes that ability to disable page features such as Java, CSS, page colors, and almost any other universal page element, as well as displaying information such as alt tags, link details, div orders, and comments all directly on the page being viewed. I could write an entire post about all of the features of the Web Developer Firefox extension, so for more information you should probably check out the link to the extension itself. [ get Web Developer ]

ProfileSwitcher

I put this last on the list not because it is the least useful tool for SEO, but because it has made my life so much easier when I am not working on SEO. The extensions outlined above may slow down your browsing speed considerably, especially in search engines, since they pull so much extra information from the web. Because of this, I need an easy way to set up and switch Firefox profiles so when I am casually browsing the Internet I am not slowed by all of my SEO extensions. ProfileSwitcher has made this job easy. [ get ProfileSwitcher ]


These extensions are the ones I use on a daily basis doing SEO work, though the list is definitely not exhaustive. I know there are a ton of options out there for SEO Firefox extensions, so if you find that I have left a must-have extension off the list please let me know. I will be adding any additional extensions to the list as they are referred to me.

For more info on SEO and other topics, check out the rest of the posts by Kyle Wegner and the automaticable crew.

• Browser Review: Flock – The Social Browser
• Excel 101: 4 Tricks Everyone Should Know

One of the problems with being part of emerging media is people often hear very little about the subject but have been told they NEED to be a part of this new and exciting marketing technique. The problem here is that social marketing does not work for everyone. The basic idea of social marketing is that you let your message spread virally through social networks, blogs, etc. That only works if you have something people want to talk about, and not every product or service is exciting enough to be considered newsworthy.

The hard part is convincing a client that their product or service, which they are generally passionate about, is not “cool” enough to spread socially. Nobody wants to hear that, and if you say it the wrong way you may lose their business altogether. This is even harder to deal with because of the mantra “The client is always right!”. As an agency our job is to please the client with the results they want to see, so if they specifically say they want to move into social media then darn it we better get them into every blog and network we can possibly find! While that would be an easy short term solution and would bring in more money to the agency up front, when (not if) the campaign fails, we as an agency will not look good and will have a hard time picking up repeat business. I am proud to say I work at an agency that prides themselves on their honesty about these types of things and hope all of our clients see the value in such honesty.

• Learning SEO: From the Beginning
• Plagiarism in an Online World

With such an active community that supports the WordPress project, there are literally hundreds of plugins to choose from. It’s simple to customize every aspect of your blog, without writing any of your own code. So without further adieu, here are the ones that I’ve chosen to stick with:

Akismet

This one is pre-installed on every fresh WordPress blog, and thank goodness for it. Akismet has become the de facto standard for catching comment spam in blogs. From their website, they say that 91% of all blog comments are spam. It works quietly behind the scenes so you never have to worry about it.

Overall Rating: 9.1 / 10

wp-cache

This is one of those plugins that you don’t realize you’ll need until it’s too late. Essentially it’s an extra layer of server-side caching, which saves bandwidth and speeds loading time under heavy traffic. It’s gotten some recent hype with sites like Digg and slashdot that bring in lots of traffic all at once. I haven’t noticed any difference yet, but this is another plugin that you can simply setup and forget about, and sleep a little easier at night.

Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10

All In One SEO Pack

Everyone knows that with having a blog now-a-days, it’s all about SEO. Although WordPress already does a fairly good job of organizing your content, this plugin promises to optimize even further by automatically setting title tags and optimizing other meta data. This is a good start to get your page noticed by search engines like Google, but it’s by no means an end-all solution either. One of the other little features I enjoy about this plugin is its “One Click Upgrade” option– no more fussing with FTP every time there’s a new version out.

Overall Rating: 6.7 / 10

Google XML Sitemaps

This is another little charm that will help with getting your blog listed, and keeping those listing up-to-date. A sitemap is a file that lives in the top directory of your blog (generally “sitemap.xml”) that Google’s crawler uses as a cheat-sheet for indexing your page. Using a sitemap is highly stressed in Google’s Webmaster Tools. Not only will this plugin keep your sitemap prioritized and up-to-date automatically, but it’ll also notify Google and other search engines every time you post new content.

Overall Rating: 7.1 / 10

Flexible Upload

One aspect of WordPress’ interface that I feel is lacking is their options for upload images for posts. They do have a simple box that will let you upload and insert, but your options from there are limited at best. With this plugin, you also have the ability to automatically create a smaller thumbnail image and resize the original while you upload. This is better than simply specifying a smaller size in the HTML, because it can reduce load times. Also, if you have an image-viewer plugin installed, such as LightBox, it integrates with those as well. The scope of this plugin is pretty narrow, but I feel it patches an important whole in the WordPress editor.

Overall Rating: 7.6 / 10

• WordPress Updated
• Happy 1 Month Anniversary!

In a few days I am going to be switching gears at the advertising agency I work for and move into the interactive media department, specifically working on SEO for our various clients. Other than what I have read in passing over the last few years I know very little about SEO, so I’m sure it is going to be an informative and exciting journey into the new department.

As more and more software and services become free online through open source and web 2.0 methodologies, everyone from student programmers to CEO level business people are going to need to know how to make money off of what they provide for free. Advertising is going to be a great way to create a profitable business and still keep products and services free, and properly implemented SEO is one way to increase those profits.

I want to take this opportunity as I learn about SEO to share some of the intricacies and processes that I stumble upon and share them so the every day person can get a handle on just how much goes into achieving great search engine optimization. This should be a unique view into SEO since I am learning from scratch, so the information will be as interesting and new to the reader as it is to me.

Here’s to starting fresh in a brand new department and bringing you along for the ride!

• The client is (NOT) always right!
• Defining SEO For the Uninitiated