Women Who Tweet, Blog, and Otherwise Stay On Top of Social Media

September 16th, 2009

by Laura Thieme
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I’m compiling a list of women in my network who Tweet on www.twitter.com and blog, either for their corporation and/or personally. I’ve asked them via my LinkedIn account to provide me their Twitter address and their blog address in a comment on this blog. Please insert your links. If they are spammy, or un-solicited, and/or non-relevant to my request or invitation, I’m afraid I’ll have to moderate them.

Here’s a start:

1) Bizresearch’s Laura Thieme www.twitter.com/bizresearchlmt
Topic: Search Marketing, Analytics, sometimes technical, sometimes light-hearted, occasional non-business related

Laura Thieme’s Personal Twitter account: www.twitter.com/laurathieme - related to women in technology, and anything that might have to do with motherhood

Laura Thieme’s Personal blog - www.laurathieme.com related to things I’m passionate about in life, including being a working mom, the environment, pets, rescues, etc.

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Once the list begins to grow, I’ll work on organizing it and republishing the results via LinkedIn, Twitter and both of my blogs.

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Thank you.

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Big Brands & Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at Google SERPs

April 7th, 2009

by Laura Thieme

I’ve seen a number of people write about big brands complaining that their sites aren’t doing well in Google SERPs (search engine results pages). I’ve worked with a number of big brands in the past 12 years. Let me tell you the most common reasons that big brands don’t do well in Google’s SERPs:

1) Their sites are not search engine friendly
Case in point - I worked on a major retail site that had their URLs controlled by the FAST site search engine. The search engine URLs were not getting indexed in Google. Do not expect Google to remedy this situation. It’s up to you to have a search engine friendly website, and to ensure your URLs are indexed.

2) Do not assume that the sitemap.xml or .php page is going to get your entire website indexed. Another common myth about big brands is that if a sitemap exists, surely Google will index all of your pages. Does not always happen this way.

3) Don’t know about Google Webmaster Central Tools - love this ever-growing, web-based console for webmasters to learn how Google is accepting a site’s content and any errors they might find. Suggest big brands verify their sites using Google Webmaster Central, then monitor messages in the console.

4) Because people can’t control Google SERPs, although they may try and occasionally succeed, big brands often don’t invest even 10% in SEO compared to their paid search campaigns. Because they can’t control SEO results, they often don’t invest in SEO nearly as much. I’ve seen about 10% of paid search budget allocated for SEO. It’s also over-scrutinized compared to paid search, which is ironically on auto-pilot most of the time.

5) Big brands don’t add new content enough - many sites do not add new content enough, or post content in select sections of the website. Thus, large parts of a corporate website may not get updated frequently enough. This can create stale content, and search engines may give preference to updated sites who continuously post content.

6) Blogs often get people to link to content pages - and corporate sites could learn to use social media to their benefit. I blogged a lot about the Explorer II (now known as Minerva) ship after the Explorer I ship sank in November 2007. I had Abercrombie & Kent’s PR person in frequent communication, as well as the family who owend the Explorer I ship that sank before selling the ship 3-5 years before it sank. I was impressed by the level of communication both companies extended me, as a simple blogger, who was talking about their brand. But here’s the thing (as the new female judge would say on American Idol), a blogger can write something about a given brand and show up within minutes on the Web, as if it were a news headline. So, if a blogger can figure this out, and begin to control its influence on the Google SERPs real estate, certainly big brands with millions in advertising budgets can. It’s an issue of priority - it’s also an issue of mindset. It gets little of both.

7) People identify free with something that is not valuable, nor trusted. If something is free, then you can’t trust it, right? Google Analytics often gets little respect despite being a robust search analytics application. Sadly, it’s because it’s free, or considered free, but really Google Analytics is a result of participation in Google Adwords paid search advertising program. Of course, people can have Analytics running without Adwords running, but that is why it was originally available - to track your paid search program better. However, the search analytics program is extremely valuable, and is the first program people should be investing in before investing in more sophisticated programs such as Omniture. Same with Organic - SEO - it’s free - or so people think. But to get a site listed in Google SERPs, with concentrated efforts, is not free. It takes time, strategy, and there are no guarantees it will work. There are tricks, games, and frustration - lots of it with SEO - if you want to rank in Google’s SERPs for popular terms. SEO is not free, and should not be treated as such.

8) Big brand corporates sites often have complex dynamic data-driven websites that can’t be indexed by Google. Unrelated to the situation above with the FAST site search engine controlling URLs and not getting indexed, sometimes sites are unable to be indexed for a variety of reasons. However, in many cases, some large brand sites are simply not easily optimized. They either have URLs that can’t get indexed (want to know if your site is fully indexed? - go to google.com and type in “site:yourdomain.com” without the quotes), or can’t easily optimize page titles, content, due to the content management system. They might have little content on the page. They might not be able to make the headings H1 tags. They might not be able to easily update the content quickly due to regulations, or other things that large brands deal with - like health regs, or pharmaceutical regs. This slows down the ability to affect change on a website, and thus the ability to impact Google SERPs.

9) Google doesn’t owe anything to large brands in its SERPs. That’s what paid search is for - you want to control SERPs - well, paid search is to the right and above the organic listings.

10) Corporate large brands can learn alot from bloggers - and how their sites and what they say gets distributed across the Web quickly. It’s the survival tactic of the small guy, evening out the playing field. The ability to be quicker, nimbler - but here’s the good news - if a corporate brand site invests in SEO, and has a high page rank of 5 - 7 or higher, a little SEO goes a very long way - really! I can speak from experience. Optimize your page titles, headings, and make sure your pages are getting indexed. Ensure your content is updated using cross-selling tactics. Have a corporate blog that many share responsibility in updating. Use social media to drive other users to your content. SEO can work, if done correctly. Watch your Google Webmaster Central account to make sure you aren’t blacklisted, or worse. SEO and paid search should work together. Neither should surpass the other.

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Bizresearch on Twitter

October 9th, 2008

by Laura Thieme
October 9, 2008

At the recent SMX East Search Marketing Expo in NYC earlier this week, some of us were asked in sessions if we were using Twitter. Only a handful of people raised their hands. I was one of a few in the room raising mine. This is still a growing phenom. We’ve been on Twitter for just three months or so.

If you want to follow us on Twitter updates, visit our Bizresearch profile.

You can have Twitter updates come in via mobile devices, including your cell phone, or visit your Twitter page for updates on a daily basis.

Twitter accounts are great for news media, or news media consumers who want to stay up on all that’s happening, quickly.

It is also a great way to distribute information quickly to a large group of people, via the Web and their cell phones.

We’ll review your Twitter updates, if you post your link below and tell us what you’re using Twitter for? Thanks.

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Search Marketing 101: The Beginning

July 6th, 2008

by Laura Thieme

In 11 years+ of business, I’ve learned so much. If it hadn’t been for eating poppy seed bread in 1996, and losing my job as a result, I probably would not have started a company to provide international market research a year later. Many of you know that story, however, here’s a quick recap.

I was working for American Electric Power (AEP), www.aep.com, in 1995. I started as an Internet research assistant, and spent hours creating databases for the economic development department. I often visited the North Market, a nearby farmers’ market, where I frequently purchased Highlands bread, which would later cause me to lose my job at AEP. I did get my job back, after a week of meetings and other events, and learned that not everything in black and white was believable or correctly interpreted. I learned a lot about human nature. I learned the value of fighting for what you believed in. While I got my job back, my reputation was pretty much ruined. I lost my job again in less than a year. I had also suffered a torn ACL from a skiing accident at the end of 1996, which was the beginning of an eight-month recovery ordeal. I would have physical therapy three times a week, which is brutal to say the least. Your body does wierd things under that much stress. An incident occurred one night late at work, around 8 or 9 at night. I was working - no one was there - as was often the case. The days before you had the luxury of a laptop to take home. Something happened to my body that I couldn’t explain. I knew something was wrong. I was soon tested for Multiple Sclerosis (MS), thankfully which turned out to be negative. I’ve since been tested again, which was negative thankfully. Nasty disease. Fast forward to June 1997, less than a month after a very successful public speaking engagement at the Ohio Development Association (ODA) annual meeting, I lost my job again. I had consulting job offers. I had a teaching position offer. Everything seemed to be going great. I was even asked to go to India, with AEP’s dereg group. But then things started to take a turn quickly - within a couple of weeks. No matter what I did to prove my value - I could see that someone in particular wanted me gone at AEP. I anticipated it - I saw the warning signs - but I was determined to do the right thing, and show my value to the last minute with a smile. I was just not meant to be at AEP. I started my company on June 4, 1997. I landed my first research project in September 1997.

In November of 1997, I offered a seminar showing local business owners how to use the Internet search engines for research. I had put together a very simple website over a weekend, and metatagged it, and submitted it to the search engines. Within days, I had top rankings for keywords related to my services. I wanted to demonstrate to the business owners how marketers can affect the way we do research. Attendees were far more interested in how I got my website to the top of the search engines. Within six months, in May of 1998, I was offering the search marketing service to business owners.

The days of metatags and search engine submission services as a form of search engine marketing are long over. In fact, not since 2000, has that been a viable search marketing service on its own. In that year, I noticed that retailers were becoming more interested in return on investment, notably small businesses. I began to find that search marketing tools, called web analytics tools, were as valuable if not moreso than tracking a site’s keyword visibility. If you could prove traffic resulted from visibility, that was a measure of success. If you could prove sales resulted, that was another form of success. If you could prove that acquisition costs were acceptable, as well as customer lifetime value (CLV), that was the ultimate success.

Imagine that when I began in this industry, Google did not even exist. There is not a day that I pick up the NYT, or WSJ (which is not everyday mind you), that Google is not in the news. It’s recent story headline - about how much employees have to pay for daycare/childcare. 19,000 or more employees. There is a Google campus, much like you might find at major corporations. 19,000 - AEP had 22,000 when I worked for them downtown. Imagine that type of growth in just 10 years. Imagine the management challenges…. whew!

This industry as matured greatly in the past 11 years. It’s been referred to as a cottage industry, with jargon such as SEO, search engine optimization, website marketing, search marketing, PPC or CPC bid management, web analytics and voodoo amongst many other words.
However, one thing is for sure, if you know search marketing, you remain valuable and it could get you through a tough economy. It got me through 9/11, the dot-com failures, and today’s current economy. Major companies have risen to the top of the industry, many of whom have been acquired. Few search marketing companies have failed, that were notable to begin with. Search engines have failed faster. But companies that know how to utilize search for marketing purposes have not failed as easily.

I’ll be compiling the basics to the advanced of today’s search marketing in the coming weeks here online. If you want to subscribe, to the feed, click on the RSS feed link to the right. I’ll be focusing on what you really need to know when it comes to all those search marketing and analytics tools. I’ll be focusing on the executive perspective, above all else, because we all know your time is limited. What is you really need to know?

How to increase sales at a profit? What information should you be paying attention to? That’s what I’ll be writing about in the coming weeks and months.

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Happy New Year’s & Best in 2008

December 31st, 2007

Happy New Year 2008
by Laura Thieme

I am very happy 2007 is over, or nearly over as of this writing at 6:30 p.m. EST. I am home from Antarctica and Argentina, which was such an incredibly wonderful way to end 2007. Bizresearch is taking on a new focus for 2008 and that is tool development. We are working on a new tool that will make us more efficient, as well as answer some of those frequently asked questions. SEO is no longer an easy way to get free listings. Sometimes, it’s quite frankly, easier to pay for those listings. However, if you’re willing to invest in the long-term value of search engine optimization, complementary with paid search and web analytics, you could have a very strong retail marketing program on the Internet. But we are spending too much time answering those special projects, and training people, only to have them leave a year or so later. So, we are keeping our numbers smaller for the first half of the year, and are focused on search engine optimization, analytics and reporting tools. We are not going to on-board more clients, unless it’s a replacement, or it’s a special consulting gig where they want only me for a two-day gig or something and the money warrants the extra time. Otherwise, it’s crunch-time for reporting tool enhancement.

I do a lot for free, and quite simply, at the end of the year, when you’ve passed one more year of work - you have to question all of the things we do for free. I’m one for community service, but it can get out of hand easily. It’s hard to say “no”, right?

So, in 2008 - my goal is to say “no” more, unless they’re paying for each hour I work, or my team works. When we are paid to focus on the project at hand, we can do a lot for the client and all of us are happier in that situation.

I thank all of the clients and colleagues who have made our lives better - there are many clients and vendors who make Bizresearch a better company - and I thank them all. I wish all of you a happy new year, good health, smart decisions and patience to achieve all that you set out to achieve. Perhaps you too, can take a break like I did, in 2008. Go to Antarctica and take in what is happening, or some other part of the world - focus more on the environment and how to reduce, reuse and recycle. Blessings.

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Elephant Island, Point Wild, Chinstrap Penguins, B-15 Iceberg, Drake Lake

December 18th, 2007

by Laura Thieme

Jim McClintock

It’s Tuesday morning and we’re getting ready to hear Jim McClintock give one of
his last lectures on the Antarctica cruise. We’re all nicely relieved as we’re experiencing the calmer side of Drake Passage, which is commonly referred to as Drake Lake (gentle swells). We were dreading the return through the Drake Passage, as we experienced Drake Shake (up to 35 feet waves) on the way down to Antarctica.

Albatross Mating in Antarctica

Yesterday I did not feel as inclined to write as it was our last day of icebergs and Zodiac excursions. I wanted to savor the day in its entirety.

To read more about the Antarctica Journey, click here.

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Voyaging Home from Antarctica

December 16th, 2007

by Laura Thieme

We have one stop remaining but the thought of returning home is on many a mind tonight. A bit of sadness, a bit of trepidation with thoughts of what lies in between here and home and that is Drake Passage. We had 35 feet waves coming through - and many of us were sick - however many were not. At this point, the majority of the sites to be seen have passed, books have been read, andsolitude, or boredom, settles in. How do you handle solitude?

To read more about the Antarctica Journey, click here.

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The Polar Plunge in Deception Island, Antarctica

by Laura Thieme

Deception Island

I did it! I walked to the top of the mountain crest, to what’s called the
window, looked out over the steep, sheer drop to the ocean, took a couple of
shots, walked down, and then jumped into water, where you can only survive for
just 3 minutes! I can promise you I did this for less than 1 minute!

To read more about the Antarctica Journey, click here.

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Land Excursions, Laziness & Learning at Cuverville Island & Enterprise Island

December 15th, 2007

by Laura Thieme

This morning, I literally rolled out of bed and dressed for the Cuverville
Island 8:00 Saturday excursion at 7:45. Vintage Last Minute Laura. However,
with the light lasting 24 hours now, it’s difficult to sleep. I find it takes
me over an hour or more to fall asleep, and then I rest soundly for a few hours
and then wake up again at around 5:45 or 6 a.m.

Lemaire Channel

However, this morning after
the big night last night in Lemaire Channel and staying up until well after 2
a.m., it was a true effort to get out of bed and start the day of excursions.

To read more about the Antarctica Journey, click here.

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Seasickness and getting through the Drake

December 11th, 2007

by Laura Thieme

Many of us are seasick, including me. I’ve spent the entire day in bed, with
one excursion out on deck and lunch. Alben, my room attendant, has really been
looking for me. Most people around me did not make it up for the Captain’s
dinner. I like the fact that they have the lectures and events covered on
Channel 2 TV in your room, so if you’re too sick to make it up to deck, you can
still watch the television. However, you know when you’re really sick because
you don’t want to talk, write, photograph, videograph, or watch any TV for that
matter. Thus the brief notes above, it was all I could muster up considering
the circumstances.

To read more about the Antarctica Journey, click here.

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