In my spare time, I review children’s books. I swear that I can read at an adult level, it’s just that sometimes I prefer to curl up with a fantasy YA novel. I’ll spare you any long-winded explanation on why I think it’s important to invest time and energy into a genre that most of my peers stopped reading decades ago, but I will tell you that I have more picture books than your average family of four. What does this have to do with SEO? At first glance, nothing at all. It’s not like reading Where the Wild Things Are is going to give you some secret link building tactics, and yet, on closer examination, the process of judging quality is uniform across industry, genre, and subject.

As I’ve settled into the practices of organic link building at Outspoken Media, I’ve realized that although I didn’t start my work with the same SEO background as my peers, I do have a background in reviewing quality that serves me well. Every industry has its metrics for quality– when I review a book, I have a tangible scale that I use to judge each book. In the SEO industry, we have a lot of tools at our disposal, possibly too many, that allow us to assign a value to links whether that be ACRank, PageRank, MozRank, Alexa Rank, etc.  Although I’m a huge fan of tools, I’m also an advocate for the human end of evaluation.

As marketers, link builders, and savvy Internet users we are constantly judging the quality of the sites we encounter, and we rely on something a lot more uniform than any formal link evaluation process– our intuition and experience.

I realize that a website and a book are not perfectly analogous, but they aren’t apples and oranges either. Beyond the obvious comparison, that a book has a cover, and a website has a landing page, and each only has a few moments (like it or not) to dazzle, there are many ways that trust, authority, and likability are built in subtle ways with a user or reader. As Internet marketers and SEO consultants, we need to look beyond our tools and think about quality in a more intuitive way.

Presentation

When I look at a book my first impression is crafted by many small elements that might not seem like much, but all together they tell a story about the care with which the book was put together. When we look at a website as SEO’s, a lot of those same elements should influence how we judge its quality.

• The Cover I’m not advocating judging a book by its cover, but I also think that it’s naïve to think that first impressions don’t matter. When I look at a cover, I’m looking at the illustration, the font choices, the way that space and color are used. Each of these elements should entice the reader. I’m deciding if the book is doing a good job of making me want to read it.
• The Construction If the book is a hardcover, I’m going to pull back the dust jacket (whoo!) and see what’s underneath. I’m going to look at the binding and see if it’s sewn, glued, or stapled. I’m going to look at the quality of the materials in the paper, and in the cover. I’m looking to see if the book was cheaply put together, or if the publisher put care into its creation.
• The Design Inside the pages I’m looking at how the book was designed; if it’s a picture book I’m looking at the interaction of illustration and text. If it’s a novel, I’m looking at fonts, how the text wraps, and any other design elements the book designer may have added.

At its best, a good presentation elevates a book and makes it a cohesive whole. Each of these presentation elements gives the reader information about what kind of book she is going to read before she’s even made it to the first paragraph or word. A website has its own set of presentation elements that convey similar information. When we approach a website to evaluate we are going to use tools to get information about Trust Flow, Citation Flow, or PageRank, but we are also already making judgments about the quality of a site the second the page loads. So are the prospective users of that site.

A website may not have the same tactile qualities that a book has, but its landing page, navigation, layout, and design all work to present the website in a certain manner.

• The Landing Page On the landing page, the way the interplay of text and image, as well as color and space work, should make the user want to engage. A good landing page should have a clear call to action. It should use image and text to convey trust. In the same way that a book makes you want to read it, a landing page should make you want to convert.
• The Navigation With a website, the construction is all about navigation and user experience. What information is easily available, and is it the information a user will likely be looking for? Does the site have intuitive navigation?
• The Design Just as a stapled binding and poorly designed cover may turn a reader off, stock photos, or ad heavy content may instantly turn a user away from a site. Similarly, just as a hardcover book with thick cotton pages is going to have a certain appeal, so is a site with responsive design, or a well thought out user experience.

One of my favorite books from the last few years, Emily Gravett’s Wolves, does such a good job of tying together the book’s content and its presentation, that the reader has the wonderful experience of briefly believing they are part of the book. The book follows the journey of a rabbit who takes a book on wolves (a book that mimics perfectly the look of Gravett’s picture book) out of the library, and is hunted by one of its subjects.

It’s a book that you can’t resist reading, and the pinnacle of what any good book or site should do–draw you in instantly. To stay in a theme, a site that accomplishes the same task (with a little less predator/prey relationship) is The Strand. The landing page instantly engages with colorful design, and well thought out extras like events, staff-picks, and 2012 Notable Books. It draws you in, in ways you may not have anticipated, which means more time on site, and possibly more items in the shopping cart.

Audience

When reviewing a children’s book, the question of audience is a tricky thing. Every book has its intended audience, from picture books with just a few words intended for babies and toddlers, to YA novels intended for teens (and lately middle aged moms). The practice of writing for an audience that you aren’t a member of is what makes it so interesting. Most authors of children’s books are adults, and so much of the time the process of writing for their audience requires an imaginative approach. As a reviewer I have to judge not just whether or not I enjoyed the book, but how the intended audience might.

For example, Sandra Boynton’s Hippos Go Berserk! has a clear intended audience, and it delivers appropriate content for that audience. It engages with bright cheerful illustrations, and fun action based text meant for young children. If instead of going berserk, the hippos had a lengthy conversation on feeling alienated by their peers, or boys they had crushes on, Boynton would have missed the mark.

A website’s audience doesn’t work in exactly the same way, but it is something that we should look to when judging the quality of a site. The core question in judging audience engagement is not just, who is it meant for? but are they responding? A site should have content that’s engaging for its intended audience, whether that audience is moms, lawyers, college professors, or tech enthusiasts. For example, if your company has two completely different audiences you are trying to target, you may need two different sites.

PBS has some great offerings for both adults and kids, and they also understand that those audiences are looking for two entirely different things. Each user requires a different layout, navigation, and design. You just can’t mix Downton Abbey and Clifford the Big Red Dog.

PBS Kids

PBS

Beyond appropriate content, a quick look at audience engagement will show you whether or not the site is successful in its intent. If there is no engagement, be it comments, shares, or other social media interactions, then the audience is not there. The website is writing to an empty room.

When we talk about metrics, concrete tools and measurements come to mind. If we are being honest about the way that we look at quality though, instant and lasting impressions matter too. We need to treat the sites we are judging as an experience, the way that we would judge a book.

Traditional on-site expertise remains important, but I’m talking from a link building perspective here. Our industry is now less about gaming the system and more about creating creative content that fosters organic “link-earning.” Whether you like it or not, I think it’s time to get on the content train before it leaves you behind.

There have been a lot of posts on creating this kind of great link worthy content, and I think a lot of them can boil down to something I heard Dave Snyder say a couple weeks ago. Content is only really successful if it elicits an emotional response of some kind. Whether that emotion is joy, sorrow, fear, or anger, it is that knee jerk reaction that triggers the action you are looking for: a share, response, like, etc.

Producing creative content that accomplishes this type of response is something that I’m working hard to achieve, so I wanted to share five ways I’ve learned to help myself and others cultivate this kind of creativity.

1) Efficient Brainstorming

Brainstorming sessions can be a team’s best friend or worst nightmare. If conducted properly, brainstorming is an effective technique that will help produce creative concepts. While there are many steps involved in a proper brainstorming session, I wanted to highlight just a few that I think are often overlooked.

• Setting parameters is a key difference that separates a brainstorming session from a time wasting session. Before a group session begins, project goals and roadblocks should be addressed to create clear constraints for idea generation.
• Make sure these constraints are noted somewhere to save the group from later having to sort through irrelevant ideas. Personally, I’m not very good at coming up with ideas “on-the-spot” which is why I like knowing these constraints ahead of the group session (days ahead if possible!). This time allows me to passively think up concepts or ideas as I go about my daily life. You never know when hearing or doing something may trigger an idea.
• Another major requirement in brainstorming is to eliminate all negativity. Not only do people not want to be around a negative person, but negative or judgmental comments have the ability to cripple someone’s confidence and creativity, thus undermining his/her effectiveness. Always remember that the creation phase of a brainstorming session is not to vet every idea for its practicality or feasibility.

2) Cross Client Ideation & Collection

Just because an idea doesn’t pan out for a certain project, this doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad idea; perhaps it can be reformatted or altered to fit another client’s goal. The thought behind this is that brain power and creative ideas are valuable resources that we shouldn’t waste.

In a practical sense, I think groups should keep a collection of unused creative ideas and what inspired those ideas. Often these ideas will come from effective brainstorming sessions, but other times they will just be a random thought passing through somebody’s mind. Consider creating a shared document or bulletin board of some kind to house all these ideas, my boss Rhea wrote of some good tools for idea collection earlier this year in her Blog Inspiration Series. Try using Springpad, a private Pinterest board, or whatever collaboration tool you may use internally, to begin this collection. Add ideas, pictures, quotes, stats, and anything else that is relevant. Then add to it as you see fit.

I like to think of this idea collection as a place I can always visit for inspiration and creativity. I remember watching Canon’s Long Live Imagination campaign with Ron Howard and thinking to myself how cool it would be to have a room filled with amazing photo’s to pull inspiration from. Maybe one day I will have something similar, but for now I’ll stick to using an app and a computer screen.

3) Personality Awareness

It’s important to understand that in order to foster a creative group culture, we have to all be aware of, and respect, the different personality types in our organization. A personality misunderstanding can often be an underlying hindrance to group cohesiveness and communication. Working with a MBTI or DISC certified assessor will help shed light on what personality types are in the group and how to most effectively work together. I know as an extrovert I often have to spitball ideas with someone just to clear my head of all the drivel or unfinished ideas floating around. I would never come up with anything meaningful if I was told to just think alone at my desk. Knowing how people think and work is a powerful tool to get the most creative out.

4) Reliance on Others

I don’t believe a group can rely on one superstar to lead a team to success (think Cavaliers–Leron James era). Input and collaboration from team members is vital for creating the best results. Hopefully your organization, like Outspoken Media, is more about team wins than personal highlights. An organization like this eliminates any fear of sharing ideas due to a “he/she will steal my idea–and therefore they will look better than me” scenario. While a creative spark may come from just one individual, I think Spy Hop phrased it best in that “creative sparks must be nurtured, invested in, and shared with the world” and this cannot happen without the support of others.

Whether it’s to show me a different perspective, add a different aspect, or to point out an unseen fatal flaw, I am consistently relying on my peers.

5) Open your Mind

I believe there is no greater inhibitor to creativity than a closed mind. I follow the notion that creativity and inspiration are drawn from all of my combined experiences. The more different and unique experiences I can draw from, the more creative my mind will be. For this reason I am always trying to learn and experience new things. I love to travel, learn languages, read different magazines, and watch foreign films. I do these things not only because they give me pleasure, but because I know they are ultimately helping my creativity.

Creativity is not like riding a bike. Neither is it easily quantifiable. While there is research going on to identify exactly what is going on in your brain, nothing has been conclusively determined, so until then, I am going to follow the old adage that “the more you practice, the better you are.” Oatmeal said it best–creativity is a river, not a pool.

With that said, I think its only natural to employ these techniques and consistently think in the mindset of “how can I do it differently.” If this industry is going to continue to push us towards more content-based marketing and outreach, we might as well be producing the most creative, emotion-triggering pieces of content we possibly can.

There are so many other things that inspire me to try and be creative, but I would love to hear some things that inspire YOUR creativity.

As the landscape has changed from recent algorithmic updates, so did the model of how agencies and clients interacted. Some engagements have shifted from full-blown promotion to damage control, cleaning up fallout from past engagements, establishing new baselines, and auditing internal client activities.

It’s difficult to establish trust

With each new engagement we have to earn a client’s trust, and it’s not getting any easier. This is often the result of a campaign gone awry or past tactics done without full disclosure that resulted in a negative performance. Regardless of a client’s past relationship with a search marketing partner, trust is a necessity. We are tasked with marketing digital properties in constant flux due to algorithmic updates, and are expected to not only stay afloat, but increase performance, which can make for a variety of difficult situations and decisions. And, clients are putting their neck on the line for us to increase growth in an uncontrolled environment.

That’s a heck of a lot of trust on both sides!

Half of the battle with building trust boils down to setting expectations. Clients need results, and as an agency we are tasked with providing recommendations, strategies and efforts within a pre-defined scope of hours or cost. Getting these expectations nailed down at the start of discussions is essential. How do you effectively set client expectations?

Start with the pitch

While Outspoken Media grows a majority of our business through referrals from existing clients; pitching new business through phone calls, meet and greets, presentations and RFP’s is all part of the process. That shiny proposal or presentation with ranking, traffic, and conversion projections is a necessity–clients ask for it, procurement demands it.

Search marketers, consultants and agencies are used to promoting, validating and defending our expertise. How else can a client pick the agency that best fits their needs? When the expectations you set get inflated, this is when relationships hit trouble. Trust goes both ways; let’s not kick off our relationship with one of us cheating on the other.

This is the first step in building trust–setting the stage for what is achievable even if it goes against what clients think can happen (or think they deserve) within a given timeframe. This is also the timeframe for setting your expectations on what the client will be responsible for internally. Implementation delays of recommendations and legal approvals can wreak havoc on delivering results in a timely manner. Getting these issues ironed out before a formal statement of work is signed or within the project kickoff will ensure both parties are held accountable. Knowing who is responsible for each piece throughout the delivery and approval process will help expedite any roadblocks.

Get to the point

Clients often don’t have the time to address internal questions about search performance, algorithmic updates, or why certain campaigns aren’t working as fast as some would expect. That’s our job. They are busy wearing multiple hats, managing numerous digital properties, and trying to get internal resources allocated to make their efforts a success. This is where pushback and campaign lulls set it.

The key is to not to take this as a burden, but an opportunity to support your clients. Take the necessary steps to make them aware their investment in your agency was worthwhile and that you can be tapped to support their findings, or answer questions that are out of their comfort zone. Probably one of the most valuable and least addressed areas of an engagement is proactive education.

Investing in client education can help make them the internal champion, an added proponent for the benefits of search marketing and the value behind your work. I’m not talking about training clients, but rather weekly updates about changes in the search landscape and how those changes could impact their business. Find out when they have internal meetings or 1:1’s with their direct reports and arm them with updates about search and recent wins. Identify areas of importance or topics that resonate well with their internal teams, provide information that makes your client an expert within their organization and bring some added insight they may not be aware of.

Knowing the internal hurdles they face on a daily basis and aligning the recommendations to back their strategy can have immense success.

Trust and success are built upon small wins

Search marketers love finding silver bullets–that core set of recommendations, glitches or missed opportunities that can have a profound impact on the success of your client. Getting those core issues resolved is another hurdle all together, especially if you haven’t built relationships with the individuals or teams responsible for resolving them. Without trust, or at least an introduction on how you can help, you are just another consultant adding to someone’s increasing workload.

One of my past e-commerce clients had a dedicated person responsible for managing the site’s robots.txt and XML sitemap. This individual was organizationally segregated from the digital marketing team. A five minute fix involved a written functional requirement document, three meetings and a handful of internal approvals. It was an uphill battle for a simple fix that would also curb an increasing amount of errors that were getting indexed that the client’s technical team didn’t know about.

Rather than following the established chain of command that wasn’t resulting in any progress, we found out who was responsible for making the changes and gave them a call. We communicated that implementing our request would also resolve a few critical issues caused by a web application and that one fix would be mutually beneficial. In the end we gained trust, and recommendations that didn’t require more than 16 hours of development resourcing were given the green light. We learned we could build trust by framing the conversation through the lens of wanting to help, as opposed to highlighting a bunch of problems and parading them through the IT department. Ultimately, providing the client’s team with education and insight on fixing a critical issues put them in a good light.

When clients don’t trust your recommendations you feel defeated, so you need to establish that trust right away. Lobbing recommendation after recommendation over the proverbial fence rarely has much benefit, and the tone in which you make suggestions can cause delays. Your value and expertise spans more than an audit or strategy deck. Talk to your clients, find out what can help them in their role, and most importantly, be honest about what realistically needs to happen to meet their short and long-term goals.

When I first started at Outspoken Media, everyone in the office was using Basecamp, but it wasn’t doing exactly what we needed it to do (details below). With the goal of making our processes more streamlined, and our work more efficient, we began transitioning to Trello, and I helped to spearhead that transition. Had I already been a Trello enthusiast, I could have created a Trello board dedicated to setting up the Outspoken Media Trello account, but sadly hindsight is 20/20.

Why Trello Works: Lists!

On a large scale, what I like about Trello is the surprising versatility of a platform based on the simple idea of a list. I’m a list person. I make lists for groceries I need to buy, books I want to read, chores I need to do, things I would have done with my Powerball winnings, etc. Since I already use a system of real and digital sticky notes to keep on top of my tasks, I appreciate Trello’s nod to the humble to-do list. Lists work for me, especially when I get the satisfaction of scratching a to do off of them.

Here are a few other reasons why, if you have not yet tried it, Trello makes it easy to manage your online marketing campaigns:

Satisfying User Experience

This is one of Trello’s major advantages. I think part of what has left me so cold to Basecamp, is all of the navigating required within a single project. In Trello, each of our clients and company projects have a board, and each of those boards has a series of customizable lists, with individual to-do cards on each. When I’m looking at a client in Trello, I can see everything we are currently working on, things that we are planning on working on, and things we’ve just completed.

While that’s all great, the individual cards are what make this tool so functional. Each card can be dedicated to a task, and on that card you can:

• set due dates
• create checklists
• classify and label the task
• assign team members

You can even create a list on a card that is placed on a larger to do list. So many lists! That might seem like a bit much, but rarely are tasks made of simple steps, and the ability to break things down to that level is a great way to make a really daunting project a little less daunting.

In case you hadn’t heard, Outspoken Media recently moved our offices, and with that move came a lot of tasks. We had to buy furniture, coordinate renovations, update addresses, and worry about the moving van in the middle of the night. So we made a Trello Board to manage the move.

Having your face tied to a card is a major motivator; there’s no confusion about which tasks are yours. It can be a little intimidating to see your face plastered all over a board, but the satisfaction you’ll gather from moving a card from the “to-do,” to “doing,” to “done” list really can’t be beat. Combine that with a checklist on one of those cards, and as you work through a project step by step, your cards will reflect your progress.

Versatile Team & Project Management

How do you want to think about your work load? At any given point of time, I have more on my plate than just one project, or one client to manage. It can be nice to have each project or client separated, but sometimes I need to see all of my tasks at once. SEE ALL THE THINGS!

By navigating to the cards page, I can see all of the cards, across all of my projects. I can filter those cards by due date or project, and get a better sense of what I need to be working on now, and what I have coming up for each of my clients.

You can do that for your coworkers as well, which is a fantastic team management tool. As we are planning our projects and workloads for the month, by taking a look at the card page for each team member, we can figure out how to delegate tasks for a client. The ability to view workload on either a project level or a personal level makes managing larger projects much easier.

Cross-Platform Integration

Trello is not an island. It should be part of an arsenal of other tools you use to keep track of your documents, your calendar, and your time. Trello’s efforts to integrate with some of the most common tools out there keep processes smooth.

You can set up notifications that will alert you when someone has added you to or modified a card, and have those notifications emailed to you periodically, or as soon as a change has been made. That combined with the ability to @ another user within the comments of a card, means that dialogue about a project can be maintained within Trello, while utilizing email to keep everyone current.

On a card level, the ability to attach files, not just from your computer, but also from Google Drive and Dropbox means you won’t have the added step of downloading a file, only to upload it again.

A Note on Time Tracking
Harvest has also recently introduced a chrome extension that allows you to track time for a given task within the card assigned to it. The concept behind this is great, but at the moment it doesn’t allow an easy way to navigate in Harvest between projects for a single client. Depending on the scope of your project, the ability to track within cards without navigating away from Trello would be a huge time saver, I hope they work on this.

Trello’s Developmental Transparency

Trello is a work in progress, it was only recently that they added the ability to duplicate checklists across cards, or use Dropbox to attach files to a card, but that’s ok. They are constantly working on ways to improve the platform, and you can follow the developmental progress on a board they’ve dedicated to it. Better yet, you can vote on what ideas you’d like to see prioritized on their to-do list.

Having the ability to assign people and due dates to specific checklist items? Yeah, I want that!

The organizational nerd in me is really excited that Trello is a versatile and user friendly project management system. That said, project management is only as good as its users. The whole team has to use it daily, and make it part of their process, otherwise it loses its effectiveness real fast. Got that Outspoken Media?

What project management software do you use? Are you happy with it?

For many, Google Analytics is constant background noise in their browser. Unfortunately, not all of us are Google Analytics pros, number crunchers, or programmers–sometimes we avoid the more complex applications of Google Analytics code.

I know there are times when I’ve been afraid of breaking something on a site so I’ll hesitate to implement the code I hoped to. Without mistakes we can’t grow and this is why there are “undo” features, local backups, lots of online tutorials, and professionals you can consult with like analytics evangelist, Avinash Kaushik.

Through reading and experimentation I’ve found that there are a lot of elements on any given site that can provide major insight into customer retention, conversions, and goal funneling if properly tracked. But, these elements aren’t out-of-the-box ready for Google Analytics, they require the addition of event tracking.

A lot of sites tend to avoid event tracking implementation, because of an assumed lack of knowledge or skill. Well, I’m here to tell you that as scary as Google Analytics code can look, more often than not, putting this little snippet of code on the site is a fairly painless process.

There are two things to be mindful of when implementing event tracking:

• Use consistent naming conventions
• Give a day or two to test the code and make sure it’s properly tracking

Wary of building the event tracking code yourself? Raven offers a tool that can build the code for you! No excuses—we can do this.

Let’s talk about three potential event tracking actions you can start using today.

1) Downloads

Most sites do not have a “Thank you for Downloading” page that can be tracked as a goal, especially if what is being downloaded is a document (rather than a plugin, extension, or a program). So, how do you know how popular your download is? Event tracking! Tracking a download simply requires the addition of the onClick command after your “Download” link, e.g.:

‹a href=”/downloads/example-whitepaper.pdf” onClick=”_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'download', 'whitepaper', 'orm whitepaper']);”›Download PDF‹/a›

Since this tracks people who click the download link (and don’t necessarily save the file), it still won’t be 100% accurate for unique downloads. I know I have downloaded the same document numerous times because I kept forgetting to save it! Just keep that in mind when using event tracking, and analytics in general. Nothing is completely accurate; it’s all relative.

2) Video

Video can really increase click-through rates from search results and benefit user interaction and time on site, which can affect customer retention (positively). Once you’ve created that great video, what do you know about it? Perhaps not much, especially if you aren’t using YouTube embeds.

Google Analytics will tell you how many people viewed the page the video is on and average time on site, but you can’t assume that everyone who came to the page viewed the video. You know what happens with assumptions!

If video is a large part of your on-site content strategy, you’ll want to work to include more granular tracking of video views, plays, pauses, and exits. Relying on data from YouTube Analytics (if you’re using YouTube embeds) won’t necessarily be accurate for the number of views on your site.

For example, if you have the same video in multiple locations, or want to see how many people exactly (rather than a percent graph as in YouTube Analytics) left your video without finishing it, you’d need to use event tracking. Through even tracking you also don’t have to switch between YouTube Analytics and Google Analytics–and not everyone uses YouTube.

Rather than hazarding a guess as to how many people viewed a video, why not know for sure?

Warning: event tracking with video can get pretty complicated, because you usually end up having to modify JavaScript or flash files. If you use a video host like Wistia, though, they streamline the event tracking code integration for you. Otherwise, I would defer to and/or loop in a programmer, at least for the initial implementation.

3) Calls to Action or Site Elements

Whether you want to track a subscription signup or a button for the contact form, calls to action can be sorely neglected when it comes to measuring their effectiveness. Maybe you have two different calls to action on different portions of the site and want to know which phrase creates more clicks without setting up A/B testing for the same page?

Event track the two options and compare after you have a large enough pool of data.

A few other elements that could be worth tracking (depending on your KPI’s and goals) include:

• Number of visits to your social profiles from the website
• Blog article click-throughs or navigational elements on the homepage
• RSS subscriptions
• Newsletter subscriptions

Some of this data could be pulled in through Google Analytics in other ways–blog article click-through rates from the homepage could probably be determined through the Navigational Summary report in the Content section of Google Analytics, but event tracking allows more pointed targeting. Since you installed this specific code where you wanted it, generally you can be more confident about the accuracy of the data you’re gathering.

Data should always be the basis for decisions made about your website and event tracking is one way to get more data points to use. How do you use event tracking on your website?

It happened over Facebook, coffee, and early morning conversations.

After spending my first four years in SEO at another local SEO company and six years at a large digital agency in NYC managing and directing a group of highly talented SEO’s, I decided to look for a change. I just didn’t know what that change was going to involve.

What I did know:

I was willing to take a leap of faith and I wanted to not only grow personally and professionally, but to help build something and hopefully lend some of the experience I’d picked up over the years. I didn’t want a rigid set of guidelines on how to approach a client engagement, standard buckets of deliverables, or working under a set of unrealistic expectations. I wanted to work with talented people in a fun environment, to be generally excited, and to feel good about the clients I work with each day.

Simple enough, right? When looking for a job in SEO, money, perks, vacation, stock, benefits, and profit sharing are all important, but after those wants are met, what are the criteria for fulfillment?

Finding what you want is rarely easy, and it often involves change. Change sucks; it’s difficult and downright terrifying to step out of your comfort zone. But change is a necessity to keep progressing. Large agencies, small agencies, leading in-house teams, and heading back into the consultancy route were all areas I explored.

Then one evening, while sitting beside Lake George, Mike King (who I had the opportunity to hire years earlier) reached out and put me in touch with Rhea. There is nothing entirely special about that, people are being connected constantly, we live in a hyper connected world, but Rhea and I live five miles apart, work in the same industry, worked for the same people, have the same friends, and somehow never managed to connect. Fast forward a couple of weeks and we were having coffee at a time in the morning that was visibly too early for each of us with the intention of just having a conversation. Fifteen minutes later I was across the street in the Outspoken Media office in a roundtable interview with the entire company. If you know Rhea, you’re not the least bit surprised by how fast she moves, and I think she even turned the conversation to OODA loops.

Having the opportunity to interview with the entire direct team I might be working with was a great opportunity. It provided an avenue to gauge fulfillment levels, general knowledge, and what excited them. I’ve always had concerns when potential employees don’t ask questions. My interview advice to other SEOs–if you are going to spend 40+ hours a week with someone, you want to ask them as much as possible.

Here are some of the questions I asked the team:

1. How did you end up here?
2. What does your day to day look like?
3. What do you love about working here?
4. What do you hate about it or wish you could change?
5. What could be done to improve your day with tools, training and processes?
6. What is your career path and long term plan?
7. How could I help you if I was part of the team?

Then I asked Rhea the tough questions:

1. What is the company vision?
2. What do the individual client relationships look like and who are we supporting client side?
3. What are your biggest client hurdles?
4. How long have you been working with each client?
5. What are the primary services clients seek out from Outspoken Media?
6. What do you specialize in versus what do you love doing?
7. What are the three, six and twelve month growth plans?
8. What is the contingency plan?
9. Are you growing for the sake of growing and does it align with the business goals?
10. How are you accounting for profitability and do hourly bill rates make sense?
11. How are projects quoted?
12. How do you vet potential clients?
13. Which clients would you fire and why?

This is when the direction changed from “how do you” to “how will we”:

We both want to start families, how the hell are we going to do this?

I never entirely intended to do more than make a local connection, but she had a great vision for how she wanted to grow the company and we kept meeting to talk. I don’t even know if she was looking to hire someone, but the general approach and topics we discussed were unique. She inquired about my experience building and managing teams, involvement with business development, implementing processes, and my approach to managing clients. I pressed on about pipelines, profitability, employee development, client retention, service offerings, community outreach, charitable giving and most importantly, what and where is the process to get us where we want to be?

The one question she asked that really resonated with me was whether this was the right fit for me. It has since been a common theme and a topic that we bring to many discussions including new hires, tools, processes, and most of all clients.

Building a company with multiple goals beyond successful client work and managing profitability was refreshing. It’s also the cornerstone of my decision to join the team and the approach we take for long-term growth.

That’s how I ended up at Outspoken Media, hopefully these questions can help other job candidates and share what has worked for you in the comments. I’m typically a behind the scenes person, but you’ll be hearing more from me in the coming months about methods to achieving client goals, solving site-side issues, and helping people get where they need to go.

What’s the next big thing in search? It kind of depends on who you ask and how much booze is swirling around in her coffee cup. It’s local… no, it’s social… no, it’s mobile… no, it’s A + B + C = EMC² x 3.

ReadWriteWeb’s Richard MacManus argues that the next big Internet thing is… wait for it, wait for it… topic pages. While he draws a clear distinction between this phenomenon and traditional content curation, MacManus notes that the modern Web is way too noisy and we need more sites that organize third-party content in a meaningful way.

I couldn’t agree more. Well, I could, but then I’d owe Mr. MacManus a totem pole, a Tootsie Pop and a tattoo of a dancing taco. So, let’s just stick with the facts, shall we?

The facts are:

• Content curation is a needed skill that will only grow in importance as more big brands and publishers flood the Internet with all kinds of content.
• Curation can be a fun, rewarding and highly effective part of your online marketing mix.
• Curating content requires skill, tenacity and, above all, an unflinching focus on the needs of your audience.

So, how do you do it? I’m so glad you asked. I’ve assembled a collection of solid strategies and tasty tactics that will help you consistently out-curate your competitors. Read on like Donkey Kong!

Don’t Be Fooled by the Siren Song of Some Fancy-Schmancy Tool

The biggest temptation all search marketers face is to sell our souls to the Borg and AUTOMATE EVERYTHING. Don’t have time to compile data, build links or make delicious dumplings for the kids? No worries, there’s an app for all of that crap.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate time-saving tools as much as anybody. And you can find plenty of reputable content curation services, including XYDO, Curata and Intigi.

I just don’t recommend shoving all of your eggs into the same stinky basket. An effective curation strategy requires a healthy variety of sources. If you expect any one tool to do all of the work for you, you’re going to miss a lot of remarkable content.

So, use a fancy tool as one of your filters, if you wish. But don’t fool yourself into believing you can just put it on autopilot and watch it magically send you everything you need to succeed.

Scour the Interwebs With All of the Energy You Can Muster

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither were any of Victoria Secret’s fabulous form-fitting bras. If your goal is to curate content that provides true value for your audience, you’ve got to out-hustle all of the namby-pamby posers in your niche who claim to be curating, however half-heartedly.

Om Malik’s weekly roundup of interesting online articles is one of the few emails I actually look forward to reading on a regular basis. Although it intentionally lacks a laser-like focus, Om’s recommended reading list consistently delivers incredible value.

He is such a voracious reader that he always finds fascinating content that I haven’t come across on my own.

Be like Om.

Drill down. Triangulate. Stop, drop and roll. Do whatever it takes to intensify your content curation efforts to the point that you are seriously rocking the shiggedy out of a little sumpin, sumpin.

Try these 21 tasty tactics that are kid-tested and mother-approved:

1. Create Twitter lists of experts and thought leaders in your niche.
2. Save Twitter searches for relevant keywords.
3. Build customized MyAllTop pages to keep up on industry blogs.
4. Set up Google Alerts for targeted keywords.
5. Subscribe to blogs by RSS and view them in Google Reader.
6. Create topical lists on Facebook.
7. Perform keyword searches in Trackur.
8. Explore Regator’s curated blog directory.
9. Hunt down content by category on StumbleUpon.
10. Find applicable articles and experts with Topsy.
11. Join relevant LinkedIn groups.
12. Search Scribd’s documents database.
13. Dig into the bookmarked items on Delicious.
14. Keep an eye on curated niche sites that serve your audience, like Inbound.org.
15. Scour the Web with Snip.it and Scoop.it.
16. Drop your keywords into Bottlenose.
17. Scan the curated lists on List.ly.
18. Sign up for a personalized email digest from YourVersion.
19. Say hello to your little friend: Social Buzz.
20. Swing by Ice Rocket and ROCKZi once in awhile.
21. Ignore Google+ at your own risk. I dare you. #smooches

Consider All Kinds of Crazy Content

Content is king. Betty White is queen. And Humpty Dumpty is stinkier than an old lady’s bunions smothered in onions.

The point here is that you should not — I repeat, should not — base your entire curation strategy on text-based blog posts and articles.

Spice things up with relevant podcasts, videos, images, photos, infographics, forum threads, screencasts, webinars, presentations, research, PDFs and anything else that will benefit your audience or brighten their day.

Your ultimate goal is to create value out the wazoo. The wider you cast your net, the more value you will provide to the people you serve.

Here’s a smorgasbord of sites you can use to discover killer content:

• Podcasts: iTunes Store, BeyondPod, Blog Talk Radio, Podcast Alley, Blubrry
• Videos: Blinkx, YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Google Video Search, Mobento, Vodio, Metacafe, Redux
• Images: Flickr, Instagram, Picsho, Google Image Search, Panoramio, Pinterest
• Presentations: SlideShare, PPT Search Engine, Slideworld
• Forum Threads: BoardTracker, BoardReader, Omgili
• Q&A: Quora, LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo! Answers
• Research and Long-Form Content: Google Books, Google Scholar, Longreads, Goodreads, Amazon
• Projects and Products: Kickstarter, Indiegogo, RocketHub, AngelList, Refer.ly
• Product Reviews: CNET, Consumer Reports, ConsumerSearch, Buzzillions
• Patents: Google Patent Search, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Constantly Refine and Refocus Your Curation Strategy

The brilliant social media curator Robert Scoble may have said it best…

I like to cram tons of different sources into my content funnel at the beginning of each new curation project. Then, once I’m convinced I’ve cast my net wide enough, I begin the crucial process of whittling down those sources into a much more manageable list.

It’s kind of like a brainstorming exercise. If your focus is too narrow at the start, you run the risk of overlooking some amazing opportunities.

So first, fill your funnel to the brim. Then cherry-pick the highest-quality sources and kick the rest to the curb. That’s a little technique I like to call source pruning. It’s similar to link pruning, but it’s slightly less stinky.

You also can use another little technique I like to call bon bon eating. Just kidding. It’s really called favorites poaching. And it’s a lot easier than it sounds.

All you have to do is visit the Twitter profiles of authoritative voices in your niche and comb through the tweets they have favorited. You’re bound to find valuable content and some new authoritative sources you aren’t stalking yet.

Bada bing, bada boom!

Be the Pickiest, Little Curator Allowed by Law

In college, I took a magazine article writing class from a professor who liked to pay for his African safaris by writing about them. He told us, “Don’t ever settle for almost the right word. Every word you use has to be exactly the right word.”

If you’re going to out-curate your competition, every piece of content you serve to your audience has to be exactly the right piece of content. Hey, it’s good to have goals, right?

Set high standards and strive to exceed them.

5 quick questions you should ask yourself before sharing curated content:

1. Will my audience find this content useful or interesting?
2. Is the source credible and trustworthy?
3. What’s the likelihood that the people in my audience have already seen this?
4. What’s the likelihood that members of my audience will bookmark this or share it with their own networks?
5. Can I find something better on this same topic?

This Shamu-sized post doesn’t even begin to address how to organize all the amazing third-party content you collect. We’ll have to leave that discussion for another day.

I hope you find this information useful. I had a lot of fun writing it up.

Curate with confidence, my friends.

What am I wrong about? The comments section would be a lovely place for you to set the record straight.

From Inbound Marketing is Taking Off by Rand Fishkin

Why not just SEO?

One of the main arguments I’ve heard against calling it inbound marketing (other than people who just plain don’t like the term) is that SEO is already a thing.  If we’re still spending our time optimizing a website for maximum organic traffic from search engines, why do we need a new term?

For many of us, SEO is an important part of what we do nowadays but it’s still only part of what we’re tasked with.  A modern website marketer’s main task is far more likely to be “drive as much traffic to the website as possible from non-advertising sources, then get that traffic to convert better” than it is specifically “get more and better traffic from search engines.”  Some of us are lucky enough to work on teams of people getting the dizzying array of inbound marketing tasks done; for many web marketers, it’s all up to us.

Where the Boys (and Girls) Are

When I started doing SEO, the main three sources of unpaid traffic were organic search, direct traffic, and referrals.  Then social media became a bigger and bigger source of traffic, until it no longer really made sense to treat it as referral traffic.  Now all kinds of websites are adding a social element to capture people’s interests, eyeballs and dollars. Sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as more niche offerings like Pinterest and Instagram, are providing whole platforms for users to consume content – all without visiting search engines or your website.

How big a deal is this?  According to ComScore, Facebook has the 4^th highest uniques in the U.S. – and is the number one non-search-engine property.  Facebook is also second only to YouTube in online video content viewing. Pinterest has over 10 million users. Instagram has over 30 million.

We need to expand beyond search engine optimization because search engines aren’t the only way people discover or consume content anymore.

For informational queries (where is it, what is it, where can I buy one, what’s that movie where John Candy eats the giant steak) search engines may still reign supreme.  But social content portals provide a huge benefit for top-of-funnel marketing: getting your products/services/content in front of users who don’t already know about them.  Your content and brand is now discoverable and consumable on social platforms, which means having an online marketing strategy that includes content on 3^rd-party sites is more and more crucial.

Inbound Marketing is Good for SEO

Online branding is of increased importance in SEO, too.  We’ve all seen Google playing with making brands more important in SERPs by showing multiple results for one site for some queries. The rise of personalized search means that engaging users on social platforms increases the likelihood that you’ll show up in their/their friends’ SERPs, too.  Expanding our digital marketing efforts to include building brand awareness on third-party sites is a rising tide that raises all boats.

The Next Steps

Content marketing is, of course, a huge part of SEO and of inbound marketing.  As online marketers, we need to start thinking about content consumption on third-party sites and working it in to our existing content marketing strategies.  This includes:

• Adding relevant sharing buttons to our on-site content
• Creating unique content for different channels, such as separate videos for Google+ and for YouTube or creating unique images we only share on Pinterest
• Treating relevant content-sharing networks as new social media platforms and building a presence to engage users directly on them
• Instituting brand monitoring and sentiment analysis to track our branding efforts off-site

It’s a bold new world out there.  I, for one, am excited at the prospect of inbound channels that don’t rhyme with “moogle.”

Do you value and retain your customers? Purna Virji, Online Marketing Manager at Stroll, shares five quick steps to customer retention marketing success. Purna wears many marketing hats, speaks a half a dozen languages, and when she isn’t driving sales, she’s a mom. Basically, she’s our hero and we’re happy to have her on the blog!

As SEOs, we spend vast amounts of time and effort towards building relationships, earning links, and encouraging visitors to convert. But then, like a long-term relationship after the honeymoon period ends, we stop attending to these customer relationships once the sale happens.

We all know the old adage that it is less expensive to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one, so why don’t more of us work harder at retaining existing customers? The benefits are obvious. Past customers have a significantly higher likelihood of converting again, plus longer-term customers mean greater customer lifetime values, boiling down to the one thing we all pursue–increased profits.

But, the main reason you should even think about customer retention is that it also helps you – the SEO.

Happier customers become advocates for the company, referring friends and spreading the word online, helping social media and online reputation. More importantly, since higher lifetime values mean companies can afford to spend more to acquire customers, it will help you get buy-in from management for all the big-ticket link building or content creation projects you’ve had a tough time justifying previously. It’s a win-win situation for you and the client.

So what’s the best way to start? Customer Retention Marketing is simpler than you think–no rocket science needed. But like any other long-term profit strategy, it does take work. Hey, as SEO’s, we’re used to that!

Here are five strategies to kick-off your customer retention marketing campaign:

1. The Art of the Welcome:

Want to make your customers feel valued right from the start while combatting any buyers’ remorse? Send new customers a lovely welcome email or better yet, a welcome phone call. The messaging can be simple:

• Thank them for choosing your company.
• Reinforce the fact that they made a fantastic decision in choosing you.
• Build anticipation by reminding them of how well your products/services can solve the need they sought you out for in the first place.
• Provide them with contact information to reach out to should they ever need anything. Double points if you give them a specific contact person with name, number and email.

That’s all it takes to get things off to a great start.

2. Exceed Expectations & Tell them About it:

Now that they’re excited about your product/service, give customers a little wow factor when you fulfill your end of the deal. Mailing a product? If you advertise 1-week shipping, try to get it there in 5 days. Providing an SEO audit? Add on an extra section or two, perhaps throw in a competitor analysis as well or provide a prioritized action item list. Everyone loves to get a little more than what they paid for.

But it isn’t enough to just do it. The key here is to actually tell them that you over-delivered. Make them realize that you took the extra care for them, because you value their business. This small step will help build up trust and give the customer the feeling of being well looked after, allowing you to develop a loyal following.

3. Shower with Love:

Here’s where your content marketing skills can help. Create some helpful e-books, guides, useful tips, online videos, basically anything the customer will find valuable and appreciate receiving. Then every once in a while, send your customers an email with one of these value added pieces of content. Continue this even after the initial transaction has been completed.

An unexpected piece of communication that is all about them without trying to sell them anything is always very much appreciated. Top marks if you send a hard copy version via snail mail to them with a personalized note. Getting something tangible in the mail always provides a sense of greater value.

4. Engage and Delight:

Harness your community manager! They can be valuable assets in listening to what the customer is looking for and learning more about their interests. Answer questions promptly, give public kudos (e-props) to social media engagers and make your customers feel like part of an exclusive club. Having customer-only online contests or giveaways and hosting private hang-outs/webinars where you answer questions and give useful advice can both really help.

Also empower customer service teams to address customer problems and offer make-goods in the case of even the slightest dissatisfaction. At MozCon, Rhea had given the wonderful example of a fruit delivery firm she had ordered from. When she mentioned that one of the fruits had been slightly damaged, they promptly sent over a brand new box. Now that is great service and will guarantee repeat business.

5. Clever Cross-Sells:

Now that you have built up some trust, your cross-sells will be very well received. But there is an art to going about this. You want your customers to feel you are helping them by suggesting additional, relevant products/services. Think Amazon. How many of us receive emails from them with suggestions of products they think we’ll like? They come across as super-helpful and serving us, and we think oh that’s great, it’s just what I needed, and then hit the buy button.

It’s not altruistic on their part at all–they get a great conversion rate from this. So position your offers in such a way that your customers will thank you for the suggestions and see you as providing a service to them.

Not only will these tactics help you prevent customer attrition (the last thing we want is them going to the competition), but will also make the customer so delighted that they will be strong advocates for your brand, staying on longer, talking about you and referring friends—all helping your customer acquisition efforts. Whether you’re in-house or work with an agency, do talk to your clients about building in a customer retention marketing strategy; it’s always going to be worth the effort.

Lately, we’ve had to focus our energy inward. This makes me happy given the amount of growth Outspoken Media is experiencing, but at the same time, I apologize for the blog’s silence. It isn’t intentional, we still love all of you and we’ve got some great posts lined up for next week. There are simply times in a company’s life when we need to hunker down and get all hands on deck to take things to the next level.

In the meantime, take a moment to read Michelle Lowery’s post over at Raven on how an algorithm could replace writers. I think it’s her best piece, yet, and something everyone in the industry should be aware of. The blog inspiration series will be back next week with twice as many tips! I’ll also be seeing many of you in Seattle for MozCon where I’ll be presenting on online reputation management. It’s going to be a fantastic show.

And, because we never want to post without adding value, here are a few discoveries we had recently that hopefully you’ll find as useful:

Cloudflare for site optimization and security.






WorkZone for project management software.






Statamic as an alternative CMS for database-free content management.

Have a great weekend!