Using Social Media for SEO Guest was Chad Pollitt of Digital Hill MultiMedia, Inc.
Business901 Podcast Transcript
I had Chad H. Pollitt on the Business901 podcast discussing the effects of Social Media on SEO and what it can do for you. Chad has a unique view on what he terms successful SEO. He is not after achieving #1 or #2 ranking on Google for his customers, he is after achieving the entire 1st page. Listen to the podcast and find out some tips on how you might be able to start on this path. Better yet, attend Chad's upcoming workshop on September 24th, 2009. Chad will be holding the Fort Wayne Chamber Business Brown Bag on "Cost Effective Marketing Using Social Media." If you are thinking of participating in a workshop on social media, this transcript is a worthwhile read to help you evaluate Social Media workshops. Chad H. Pollitt list of accomplishments include Internet Marketing Masters Certification from the University of San Francisco's prestigious School of Business and Management, BS in Entrepreneurship from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. He has won multiple awards in sales/marketing and sales management while working and residing in Fort Wayne, IN. Chad is also a Lieutenant in the Indiana Army National Guard and a decorated veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Chad is currently works for Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc. as a Web Technology Consultant and Internet Marketing Manager and will be featured in The Wall Street Journal Sept. 16th. Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc. was founded in 1997 as a web design agency with a focus on providing professional website solutions for businesses while helping them promote their business to the vast global audience on the Internet. Now with a more diverse clientele and with clients nationwide, Digital Hill Multimedia has grown to become a full-service Internet Marketing Agency.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe Dager: Thanks everyone for joining us. This is Joe Dager, the host of the business 901 podcast. Participating in the program today is Chad Pollitt. Chad currently works for Digital Hill Multimedia as a web technology consultant and Internet marketing manager and will be featured in the Wall Street Journal, September 16th. Chad, would you just give me a little background about yourself and Digital Hill Multimedia? Chad Pollitt: Yes, Joe. Digital Hill Multimedia has been around for almost 13 years now. We're located up in Goshen, Indiana. That's where our headquarters is. I work out of the Fort Wayne area and go down to Indianapolis and pretty much anything east of Fort Wayne and south from Indianapolis is my area where I have my clientele. As a matter of fact, I just landed my first New York client today. So I'm branching out farther East than I ever have before. As a company we focus on not just web design but we focus on Internet marketing strategies, because there are a lot of platforms that exist out there on the web that people are utilizing every day. If the people are there, then businesses can be there as well to market their products and services. We help businesses define what their goals are in the virtual world and then pair them with the technology to accomplish those goals. Joe: You say that you're more than just a web technology company, but isn't everybody anymore? What really separates you and makes you different? I see all these web developers and things building web sites, but what separates Digital Hill? Chad: Well, there are two things really. It is very important to be very methodical with the web. At the end of the day, there are really two models that work for companies to make money online. The first model is to get as many people as possible to the website, and then hopefully convert a certain percentage of them. The second model is to convert as many people as possible within that amount of people that come. What we do as a company is look at ways to maximize traffic and maximize conversions from that traffic to really hit that sweet spot for that company so that they are going on all cylinders to be successful online.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe: When you say that sweet spot for customers, does that mean their target market. I always tell people that they have to own a word to be successful in today's marketplace. Or own a phrase. That is so important because you can't be everything to everybody, especially when it comes to the Internet. Is that kind of how you look at it? Chad: That's exactly how I look at it, Joe, because one of the major aspects of what we do is search engine optimization. It is being found organically in a search engine. To be successful with a search engine optimization strategy, you have to own a word. In fact I have a very methodical process that I take a client through. Not only do we design a web site for them page by page with something called Project Map, but then we identify keyword phrases and attach them to each phrase, so that we have a primary keyword phrase, a secondary keyword phrase, and a tertiary keyword phrase. We build content and the site around that. That way if you do own the word, say Fort Wayne Web Design for example, and you do your strategy properly on the SCO side, you will come up organically in the search engine. Joe: When you say organically, what do you mean by that? Chad: What I mean by organically is that in the areas where 80 plus percent of the people in the United States click on. That is the area, not those sponsored links and not those links next to the map on Google for local searches, but the area below that. Joe: Why don't people click on the ones next to the map? Chad: People do click on those. I have, for example, a link on the map for Indianapolis for one of my targeted keyword phrases. I do get probably five to seven leads a week off of that. Now I know for a fact that over a thousand people a month type that keyword phrase in down in Indianapolis, but I only get that many conversions.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe: I still think people look down past the map. People want to see more than a name. They are still looking for that little short line of what somebody is about before they click on them. That is what I think. It sounds pretty simple, but it usually is. Chad: You are right. It also depends on the user. If a user has a bad experience clicking on those in the past, whether they are looking for a plumber or a mechanic, and they clicked on those and didn't get what they expected to get. They are not going to click on those anymore. Joe: You're putting on an event, September 24th at the Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce and it's called Cost Effective Marketing using Social Media. Tell me what you're going to be talking about. Chad: Well Joe, I've been to a couple of "similar events" in the area, and what I found was that they pretty much just tell businesses and organizations, these are the social media platforms that exist and this is how you use them. Well, that's not enough. What people and businesses really want to know is how can I use these tools to affect my bottom line. What we are doing is we are examining... well, first of all we are identifying and defining what the marketplace is in those media. For example, Facebook by itself alone is the third most traveled website in the world. That is a huge marketplace. As a matter of fact if I recall, I think that would make it the fifth largest country in the world via population if it was in the real world. To define what those marketplaces are and then to showcase studies on what real businesses in the real world have done and how they have utilized a particular strategy in those environments and in being successful.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe: So you're going to touch base on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and the real popular ones and give a brief overview of what is really going on for business in those areas? Chad: That's correct Joe. Joe: But I am in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Why don't I just pick up the phone and call somebody. Why do want sit here and start participating on Facebook or LinkedIn when my business is pretty much centered in Fort Wayne? Chad: At the end of the day, Joe, it is no different from the middle ages when the town crier would go to the town square and ring his bell and people to go to the blacksmith's shop. The reason he went to the town square is, because that is where the people were. The people are on these mediums, and they are on them more and more. They are on there every day. As a business, you have to adapt to that. You have to take your pitch, your brand, your message to the marketplace. If that is where the people are at, then that is where you have to go. Joe: I always like to see the person that is talking about it, using it. Are you active, are you using these as a tool for your business? Chad: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, at Digital Hill we take, surprisingly, a unique approach. Everybody in the organization is involved in the different mediums on social media, as well as blogging, as well email marketing, as well as pay per click, as well as search engine optimization. We all get involved, we all have our own accounts, and we link them all together, because at the end of the day, it is the synergy, and the size of the footprint that those particular platforms create on Google, that are going to make us more successful.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
So as a business, if you have one blog and one Facebook page, you are going to reach so many people, but what if as a business you had 15 blogs, from your employees. Say you set up the blog for them, and you laid the ground rules, and you said, OK, I want you to blog about your area of expertise within this industry. Now you have 15 blogs out there that Google could possibly index and bring up on a search. That is a large online footprint, and that is our strategy and our goal, and that is how we approach it. Joe: How can someone make a difference with a blog? It takes a lot of time, doesn't it? Chad: Well it can take some time. It is two things with a blog. Number one a blog is candied to Google. Google loves blogs. The reason Google loves blogs is because a blog shows a commitment to Google to fresh content. So Google makes the assumption, if it gets to a blog that wow, this should have regularly updated content. Now fresh content to Google means that Google can give the people that use Google, the searchers, can give them relevant new content, which is what everybody is looking for; Relevant and new content. The second thing with blogs is that it gives you a lot of flexibility to present yourself as the "subject matter expert" in your field. So you are truly providing value to that person out there that is going to find your blog and utilize it. So if you are a photography expert and you blog about the tips and tricks within photography that you have learned over the years, because you are an expert in photography, then that is a value to someone out there. So it brings Google to your blog, because Google loves blogs, and it also allows for people to find that subject matter expert in a particular field.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe: Twitter is the big rage right now, though. Why don't I just shortchange Facebook, and LinkedIn, and blogs, and just spend my time on Twitter? Chad: Well you could, but the beauty of it is that you can link them all together. Through a technology called RSS, it stands for Real Simple Syndication, you can create a, well you don't need to create the feed, the feed is already there on the site, but you can point that feed to Facebook, or Facebook's feed to Twitter, and connect the two, really creating that synergy. At the end of the day, it is about maximizing your exposure to your audience, and maximizing your brand's exposure to the audience. So, you can reach more people if you utilize Twitter, and Facebook, then just one. Joe: OK. You talked earlier, a little bit, about SEO. Does all this help your SEO, and could you spend a little time explaining why SEO is important, the cost of it, and why businesses should care. Just as importantly after you get through that, tie it in to what we were just talking about with the social media. Chad: Well with search engine optimization, I take a unique approach in my industry in this area, at least. Being number one on Google is great; I have clients that are number one on Google. I am number one on Google a lot, but that is not really my goal with search engine optimization. My goal is to be number one, number two, number three, and so on and so on. I want to own the first page of Google, whether it is organically, or the paid area, or the maps area. I want to own every single link. That way my competitors can't get those links. Now where social media comes into that is, if done properly and optimized properly, for the right keywords, if I type in Fort Wayne plumber, and I have a plumbing company with a Facebook page, that is highly optimized for those keyword phrases, that Facebook page may take a spot from my competitor down the street, in those search engine results.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
That is the true power of social media, and blogs, and all those other platforms. They allow you to hog up the links as an organization, so people are forced to be confronted with your brand, and your company, and your message. Joe: I have to agree, because it used to be when you type my name into Google, I think my blog comes up first now, but it used to be LinkedIn always came up first. The power that had, and now Twitter is right in there in the top five that comes up. I think people need to recognize that Google puts a value to Social Media now. Chad: Right, and again, as I said before, what Google's goal is to be the best search engine, and to be the best search engine they need to provide the users the most up to date, real information. If it was no good, if the data was no good, if those links just went to something that had nothing to do with your search, people would stop using it, and then they wouldn't get any ad revenue. So because of that, Google recognizes that that fresh content in those social platforms are important for people when they search. Joe: Should they be on all these social networks, or should they pick something out that is more pertinent to them? Chad: If you get three or four people like me in a room, we may argue this point. My opinion on the matter is that, yes there are some social media platforms that may not make sense for you. For example, MySpace tends to have a younger demographic, but if you own a roller rink it may make sense to be there, but if you own a roller rink it may not make sense to be on LinkedIn, for example. At the end of the day, it is how much time and resources would you like to allocate to those social media platforms that make sense. So, if you are not getting a return on your investment, then you are not going to do it. That just brings me to the idea that if the people are there, and they are your demographic, you should be there, too.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe: Facebook is a big place for authors. MySpace is still a big place for songwriters. LinkedIn as the human resource, the professional network that you need to be on, especially if you are in sales or connecting with business people in general, you have to have a presence. Those are a little of my takes. Twitter, I think people downplay Twitter, a lot, because of the 140 characters, because there is a lot of neat things you can do with Twitter, isn't there? Chad: Yes. Twitter is great. Here is the thing about Twitter, I am going to compare and contrast Twitter and Facebook, real quick. Facebook is about the people you know, or used to know. Twitter is really about the people you are going to know. Twitter is a networking tool. Twitter allows for you to meet people with similar interests, very quickly, with a real time search. So if I put a hundred and forty characters into Twitter, as soon as I hit the gold button, it's then indexed by Twitter and can be searched by anyone. That's the true power of Twitter. Joe: Very interesting to me because you do find relevant subjects, relevant conversations and then you end up having conversations, because I think that's how we first met. Chad: Yes, it is. Joe: On that, and then we extended our conversation online, offline. And what's so great about these different networks is that you're able then to keep the conversation flowing online between times you see each other. Chad: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, it's great. And the other neat thing about Twitter - and I'm sure my competitors will say the same thing, we all follow each other. It's an unspoken rule that we follow each other, but we all know what we're doing; we are monitoring each other. So we know what's going on.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe: Now, you have a white paper on building virtual barriers to entry on Google, what is that about? Chad: Well, I spoke about it a little bit ago, when I mentioned owning the first page of Google, OK. What a SERP is, SERP stands for search engine results page. And the idea of creating a barrier to entry on the SERP is to choose a keyword and grab as many of those links as possible on the first page, preventing your competitors from getting on that first page. That's the barrier to entry on Google. Joe: That's pretty hard to do, to own one page. Chad: It is very hard to do. I've never accomplished a hundred percent ownership. The best I've done is I've gotten eight out of 13 possible links on the whole front page of Google for one of my targeted keyword terms. I believe if I had more time, I could make that happen. If I had a team with the sole goal of going after that one, targeted keyword strength, I could probably get it done in a couple of months. Joe: Yeah, I think people forget that it does take time with the Internet too; everybody thinks that the Internet is immediate and it's not. There is a process there, is that not true? Chad: Yes, the search engines have an algorithm - proprietary algorithms. What they do is factors for - in order to measure the relevancy of a website for a certain term. Google has somewhere between 100 and 220 factors that it looks at, when deciding whether or not one website is relevant over another website. So that process does take time. I've seen things being indexed by Google in as little as seven hours, and then I've seen things take over a month to be indexed by Google.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
People like me in the industry, we know a little trick. Well, I wouldn't call them tricks, because they're not tricks. Google allows for you to speed up the process and allows for you to send different files and URLs and submit things to them that allow them to index you faster. Joe: I'm going to jump back to your seminar at the chamber. What do you hope someone will take away from that? Chad: Well, two things. The first thing I hope that is taken from our chamber event is a recognition that the virtual world is a true marketplace. It's no different than the real world, other than you're on a computer keyboard looking at a monitor. The people are there, and they're there in droves. So it's very, very important for businesses to get there too, because if they don't, their competitors will. And once their competitors are there and they get entrenched, it's going to be hard to play catch-up. And then the second thing I want the visitors to our seminar to live with is the plethora of case studies we're going to go through. We can't hit every possible industry, that's impossible. But what we can do is focus on some real Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube success stories, and show how they've benefited the company, and show real revenue figures of growth based on these platforms. Joe: I think that's quite interesting, Chad, because I don't think there's another seminar can really do that for somebody is to show them some real life examples. I think most of the seminars that I've seen around are people talking about, here's how you do it, here's how to get found, here's how to do this and how to use the tools, but they're not actually giving real, concrete examples.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Chad: Exactly, exactly. And I recognized the same thing. That's why we came up with this seminar series. What we're going to do, Joe, following the seminar, we're going to leave a short questionnaire, basically asking the people that come to the seminar, what kind of seminar you would like to see next. And we've already been able to get a commitment from the Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce for more seminars. So whether the people tell us they want search engine optimization or just general Internet marketing, or maybe they want us to get deep into Facebook; we're going to plan for that on later seminars after this one. Joe: Fort Wayne is ahead of the curve, or do you think they're average, or they're little behind the curve when it comes to social media right now? Chad: Well, the civilian population in Fort Wayne is right with everybody else. As a matter of fact, when it comes to Twitter, they are a little bit ahead of the curve, from the rest of the country. Businesses on the other hand, are a little bit behind the curve. A lot of businesses I've spoken to want to be in those places they just don't understand it or it's hard for them to develop a strategy to go onto those platforms to be successful. But that's where I come in. I help businesses with that every day. Joe: Could you tell me how someone could get a hold of you? Chad: Yes, I've got over 12 websites, but I'll keep this one simple. Chad: If you get on digitalhill.com or you can call and ask for Chad, or you can fill out the "Contact Us" form, and it will be routed to me; I'll receive that. Or they can email me at chad@digitalhill.com.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joe: What if someone just wants to find you on Twitter? Chad: Yeah, on Twitter, my Twitter moniker is at cpollittiu. Joe: I think this seminar is a great opportunity to get some real life examples, and that's what's really impressed me about Chad in looking at the work he's done, is that he's really walking the walk. He's one of these people that are out there every day, promoting his business and himself on Social Media. And again, the seminar will be the Business Brown Bag at Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce, called Cost Effective Marketing Using Social Media. You can get a hold of Chad again at digitalhill.com Chad: Yes. Joe: Listen to this podcast, you can also download it on my business 901 iTunes store, and I wish you the best of luck, Chad, with your seminar, and I'm sure we will be talking again. Chad: Thanks, Joe.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing
Joseph T. Dager Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Ph: 260-438-0411
Fax: 260-818-2022
Email: jtdager@business901.com Web/Blog: http://www.business901.com Twitter: @business901 What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe's ability to combine his expertise with "out of the box" thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with." James R.
Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive company providing direction in areas such as Lean Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Launches and Re-Launches. As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a certified coach of the Duct Tape Marketing organization, Business901 provides and implements marketing, project and performance planning methodologies in small businesses. The simplicity of a single flexible model will create clarity for your staff and as a result better execution. My goal is to allow you spend your time on the need versus the plan. An example of how we may work: Business901 could start with a consulting style utilizing an individual from your organization or a virtual assistance that is well versed in our principles. We have capabilities to plug virtually any marketing function into your process immediately. As proficiencies develop, Business901 moves into a coach’s role supporting the process as needed. The goal of implementing a system is that the processes will become a habit and not an event. Part of your marketing strategy is to learn and implement these tools.
Using Social Media for SEO
Business901
Product Marketing
Lean Marketing