In the field of search marketing, there are a ton of different areas where skill proficiency is a must.  If you are new to the arena, back from a hiatus or just need something to help you focus on one area at a time, I have something for you.  I use a short and simple equation that organizes all of the search marketing tasks into different groups.

Here she is:

Research + SEO + Link Building = High Search Rankings

Seems like a elementary equation to represent such complex tasks and systems but I assure you, it will help when you need a frame of reference or you get lost in the weeds.  As always, the better you become in each area of the equation the better results you’ll achieve.

Part One: Research

The most overlooked area of search marketing is in my opinion, the planning and research necessary to the success of any website online.  You should be engaging in keyword research, niche analysis and competitive analysis before you construct your plan of attack or develop any target keyword spreadsheets.

• Analyze keyword difficulty
• Analyze the competitors that currently rank for the keywords you want
• Compile a comprehensive keyword list with at least a metric for keyword difficulty
• Develop your SEO plan of action

Part Two: Search Engine Optimization

Of course, before you decide how the website will be optimized, you’ve got to have a firm grasp on which keywords are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. Obviously, you should scoop up the keywords that are easiest and put in solid consistent effort in improving your rankings for more difficult long term keyword goals.

Before you build your first link, write your first blog post, submit to digg.com or tell a friend about your website, you must:

• Create unique page titles
• Create unique meta data/information
• Create unique urls using mod-rewrite or something similar
• Fix any canonicalization issues
• Check site-wide architecture and make sure the infrastructure is in tact with no server error pages
• Make sure unique content is on every page
• Don’t ever serve two pages with the same content

If you can’t master the aforementioned tasks, don’t tell anybody until you can.

Part Three: Link Building

So, you want to get your website fully indexed by the search engines and you know you’ve got to get some juicy inbound links to it.  Sorry guys, ultimately, if you suck at link building, you’re going to have an impossible time getting the rankings you/your client is looking for. If you’re giving it a shot anyway, here are a few popular ways to accomplish this task!

• Manual Link Building (slow): this usually consists of contacting website owners and convincing them to put a link on their website that links to yours.  This is totally cool for the more popular websites whose link would benefit your rankings greatly but don’t just go contacting any old Joe with a PR1 blogger blog for a link.

• Blog Writing (slow/medium): One of the best ways to build links to your domain is to create an active blog that offers content to an eventual community of users.  The topics can usually be directly or tangentially related to your company/product.  The con here is that creating a successful blog takes time, creativity and patience which a lot of us don’ t have.  If you can weather the storm, the pro of keeping a successful blog severly outweighs the con with thousands of visitors per day becoming the “talkers” for your company often linking your site to others and spreading offline word of mouth as well.

• Social Media Marketing (fast): If you engage in social media marketing correctly, this can turn into a link-building powerhouse for you.  By far, the most difficult part of this process is creating link-worthy content and refining your promotional skills, two activities that even “web 2.0” experts struggle with.

There are many more link-building examples that could work for you, check out some examples over at SEO BOOK.

Remember when optimizing your website and campaigns, you’ll want to make sure you’re using analytics data to make decisions about which tactics work and which ones do not.  The power of the search marketing equation should get stronger and stronger over time.

Note: this is by no means the end to the work done in search marketing, but it does illustrate in a quasi-mathematical way, what areas you must focus on for success with your website.

-Nicholas Santillo

For those of you who are anti-social media, non-believers or unsure- I am here to convince you otherwise.  Here is your wake up call and a real example professed by the CEO of Reddit.com at a recent TED TALKS.

Universal Social Media Lessons

1. The playing field is level: This is true in the fact that the internet is a place where anyone can publish content.   If anyone can publish, anyone can create a successful internet meme or campaign.  Can anyone create the ideas behind the campaigns with a high success rate?  This is less than likely and where the amateurs of social social media get left in the dust.   Social media experts and web 2.0 agencies are in fact, held responsible for creating content that fits the culture of a specific community. The goal is to create content that marries the brand with what the community finds valuable.  This takes constant involvement in those communities and trend research to be able to use those communities to your advantage, time after time.

2. Social Media Submissions Cost $0
The actual cost of submitting content to a social community such as reddit.com, digg.com, stumble-upon, etc.. is indeed $0.  Perhaps the only cost associated with social media marketing is the cost of content development and production.  Its possible that your brand is a PR dream however, in most cases its not, within this gap there are many web 2.0/social media firms around to help you properly utilize social media for your business.

3. Be Genuine/Write Original Content
Writing original content is the backbone of everything on the internet. You should never inflate, lie or copy others work and claim it as your own. There are many negative SEO implications for copying content that comes from somewhere else and not to mention ethical problems associated with it too. The internet is for producing and reading original, interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) content. No posers allowed.

4. Lose Control
For those bigger corporations, losing control is probably the scariest thing one could say to you but for social media, you really have no choice. With the proper planning and campaign strategy, you can lose control positively. There will always be opposition to your brand but as long as the positive comments and sharing outweigh the negative, the word of mouth alone will go a long way.  Word of mouth alone can make or break your brand, product or even business so using social media wisely key for any business.

1. Facebook’s 25 Random Things Meme

If you were on Facebook last January, you no doubt saw, or even participated in a meme that swept across the social networking site like wild fire. The meme was basically a survey with rules as follows.

“Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If i tagged you, its because I want to know more about you. “

This simple concept became one of the most viral memes ever on Facebook, with very direct impacts on their traffic and user participation. Compete.com data shows that nearly 4 times the more people visited the “notes” section (the section utilized for the 25 things meme) on Facebook in January than the previous. This reached a high of 20million in January vs 4 million in October 2008. In addition to this, Facebook itself saw 15% overall growth in January, with 60% more profiles created in January than December. You can see the increases in general traffic, and the notes section reflected in the graph below. The meme eventually became so popular, it garnered mention in the mainstream news. Thanks to readwriteweb for the image and analysis.

Notable Features of the Viral

1. Specific rules for sharing: The rules mandate sharing with at least 25 other individuals. This is a HUGE reason why this particular meme took off and became so viral. By requiring tagging of others, this meme accelerated exponentially.

2. Appeal to vanity: Telling others about yourself appeals to vanity, given an excuse such as a meme that “everyone is doing” give people a chance to talk about themselves that they normally wouldn’t be able to discuss. This helped to make each participant in the viral meme feel a sense of ownership in it, adding to their desire to share.

3. Appeal to learning inside scoops: The nature of the viral was to share information other people didn’t know. This made the meme interesting to both participants and readers. This meant that even those who did not write a “25 things” p0st themselves, still acted as spreaders for the meme in that they talked about it with others both on and offline.

2. FakeBait – The Viral Lie

In May 2008, marketer Lyndon Antcliff, wrote a sensationalized and fictional article for his client money.co.uk. titled “13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers”. The story became popular on digg and was then picked up by mainstream news sources including News.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, and Fox News. The fake news bait resulted in over 2,200 links for his client. Even more exposure came when Lyndon exposed the article as a fake, gaining hundreds of links from reputable marketing blogs across the internet.

If looked at in terms of viral success, this was no-doubt a blockbuster, however there is more to consider here than simply the number of links that were built. This case should be seen as a both an interesting example, and a warning to those who might consider a similar viral strategy. Using a lie can result in a good deal of negative press, so one must be understanding of that risk, and asses negative publicity as part of the equation.

Notable Features of the Viral

1. Lies can make great Virals: The caveat to this is that they can damage a brand and its credibility. There are however instances where this might not matter, or strategies for dissociating the brand from the lie.

2. Sensational outrageous stories coming from legitimate sources result in viral success. The weirder or more bizarre, the better.

3. Viral success isn’t your only goal, if its a detriment to the brand, forget it.

3. Mappos – Viral Mashups

Mappos is a real-time google maps mashup that shows people buying shoes from the Zappos.com website in real time. As each customer buys a pair of shoes, that shoe pops up to the location corresponding to the buyers IP address. You can then click on the shoe and buy it! There is also additional functionality for voting for shoes you like, which gives users additional incentive to participate. While this particular example has yet to be a viral blockbuster, I felt it was worthy of mention for several reasons:

Notable Features of the Viral

1. Good viral content allows viewers to relate to a product in an interesting way (even when its something mundane like shoes) . This sort of mashup illustrates the sort of thinking that result in viral content that spreads the word not only about the content itself, but about the business/brand as well.

2. Good viral content can convey additional value of a product. This particular case demonstrates popularity. Only a popular site like Zappos could make an application like this, because only Zappos has the traffic and customers to make it work.

4. Blendtec

Blendtec is a company that makes high powered blenders. They are responsible for the “Will it Blend?” series of viral videos that began in 2006 and continue today. The premise of the virals is to take everyday objects and see what happens when you put them in a Blendtec blender. Things they have blended include: a rake handle, marbles, an Iphone 3G, Glowsticks, Cubic Zirconium, Hockey Pucks, Golf Balls, and many other items.

As of June 21, 2009, the Blendtec series of videos had collected a total of 83,238,033 views (an average of 967,884 views per video) on YouTube. The viral videos became so popular, Tom Dickson, the companies founder and star of the videos, found his way onto television several times including a feature on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 2007, Blendtec announced that their viral marketing campaigns with the “Will it Blend?” series had improved sales numbers by a staggering 500%.

Notable Features of the Viral

1. The viral succeeded in being interesting, and at the same time demonstrating value of the product. If you’re goal is to build brand awareness through a viral, it is necessary to make sure you’re viral marketing idea somehow conveys the benefits of your product. Blendtec does this spectacularly by showing the durability and strength of their product in a very interesting, and viral way.

2. Packaging is important to legitimacy. If you watch the “Will it Blend?” series, you will notice the care that went into the videos, the professional quality, the set, and the overall production value. This is an important element. In many cases the presentation is almost as important as the content. Presenting something professional and pleasing to the eye encourages sharing, and adds value and legitimacy to both the product and the viral content.

5. AVirginsPlea.com

I wanted to mention this particular viral because its really a combination of three that have already been mentioned (Savetoby.com and Ex-Girlfriend Revenge, Viral Hoax). The site was set up with the premise that if 5 million visitors came to AVirginsPlea.com in 30 days, a girl had agreed to sleep with the sites owner. That back story included the fib that the author was a virgin whose fiancee cheated on him six months before their wedding, ruining the next three years of his dating life.

The hoax took off and Matthew Gamble, the creator of the site, did more than 20 interviews with news programs before finally being exposed as a fraud. The viral had no monetary goal, and was not used for the viral promotion of a product or service, but is still interesting as a concept for virility.

Notable Features of the Viral

Matthew Gamble commented that the idea “worked too well”. In my opinion, this is because it included several elements that had proved successful before. These include:

1. Telling an outrageous story that people find share-worthy.

2. Giving readers a scenario they can empathize with.

3. Giving readers an incentive to share (in this case sex, but also altruism)

4. Definitive goals to reach (5 Million Visitors)

5. A Time Limit (30 Days)