Friends, SEOmans, eMad Men—

LEND IAN YOUR EARS.

Tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. (PST), Ian Lurie, CEO and Webfather of Portent, Inc., will give an exclusive webinar at SEOmoz.  His free-to-all-comers presentation “Data-Driven Content” will illuminate, educate, inform and otherwise rock your search marketing world.  (We hope.)

Topics Ian will cover include:

• Why great content is no longer optional
• How to analyze content efficiency and maximize eyeballs using Google Analytics
• What makes a compelling SEO proposal
• Why conventional rankings aren’t as important as you think
• How to make Timely and Hootsuite your new best friends
• Why you should be worrying about your mobile marketing campaign RIGHT NOW

But like a late-night infomercial for the Magic Bullet, THAT’S NOT ALL!  Look forward to added bonuses like:

• How to Build an Audience
• Why Google+ might be the greatest thing to happen to the world (or not)

UNLIKE the Magic Bullet, however, you can get Ian’s webinar for the low, LOW price of FREE.  That’s right.  Nothing.  Nada.

For the Full Monty*, sign up HERE.

*The webinar.  Not the other Full Monty.

The post SNEAK PEEK: Ian Lurie to Present Data-Driven Content Strategies at Tomorrow’s SEOMoz PRO Webinar appeared first on Portent.

The SEO Preflight

Before diving into a new SEO project I want to understand what challenges the web site faces and, of course, the opportunities. Call it my SEO Pre-flight for Fitness Program.

To design a custom fitness program a personal trainer will begin by testing your strength and stamina. How would you feel if that trainer asked you to bench press 300 pounds during your first visit? Unless you are an advanced or elite class weightlifter 300 pounds is not a realistic expectation. The trainer determines your abilities first then uses that knowledge to create appropriate goals.

Search Engine Optimization works the same way. A web site cannot rank #1 for an industry’s most competitive search query without the right content or without earning adequate trust from the search engines. A Search Engine Optimization Review will find you web site’s baseline and help you select the best goals to:

1. Achieve higher rankings.
2. Get listed for more queries.
3. Prepare to rank, in the future, for keywords that are more competitive.

Start With Web Analytics

I begin my Search Engine Optimization Preflights by studying web analytics and crawl data.

Use tools like Google’s Webmaster Tools and your web analytics package to look for trends and insights. Here are some of the questions I try to answer.

1. What search queries or keywords does the web site rank for?
2. How high are the rankings for those keywords?
3. Do the search engine listings match the web site’s objectives?
4. Do people click on the search engine links?
5. Which search engines drive the most traffic?
6. How much traffic do search engines bring?
7. After they arrive from a search engine do people explore or abandon the web site?

Which Web Analytics Package for SEO?

To make sound decisions concerning anything you need good information. To make good SEO decisions your web site needs analytics software. It’s not an option.

Personally, I find Google Analytics more than serviceable for Search Engine Optimization. The price is right too, free. (Portent Interactive just happens to be an Authorized Google Analytics Consultant so if you need help you can call us.)

Some Portent Interactive clients use premium analytics packages like Omniture HBX SiteCatalyst™. If you think you might require premium web analytics I suggest you

1. List exactly what data you want to get that you cannot get from Google Analytics.
2. Make sure that the premium web analytics packages you consider can produce the data you desire.
3. Talk to people that use the software and ask them to share their tips and tricks.

The next two parts of the Search Engine Optimization Preflight will be competitive research and keyword research.

The post Search Engine Optimization Pre-flight – Analytics appeared first on Portent.

From Seattle – Search Engine Optimization – To You

All SEO professionals face a difficult task when explaining their work in ways that are :

1. Understandable

2. Meaningful

3. Actionable

I enjoy talking about Search Engine Optimization at Seattle area events and discussing SEO in everyday terms with our clients from around the USA—it’s a highlight of my work. So I decided that a fun challenge will be to explain, from my desk in Seattle, Search Engine Optimization and how it works in simple usable terms.

SEO Definition

I’ll start with my own definition of SEO. I wrote this awhile ago for the Search Engine Optimization Group on Facebook:

Search Engine Optimization endows web sites with the traits and authority required to achieve high rankings on Internet search engines. Part science and part art, the search engine optimizer’s craft requires intellect, discipline and sound judgment.

I should have added persistence and patience to my SEO definition.

SEO requires:

1. Knowing how search engines work
2. Understanding the search engine ranking factors
3. The ability to implement or strengthen different ranking factors

SEO is Not Connecting Dots

Search Engine Optimization is not a simple formula one blindly follows. You’ll find numerous forks in the road and hills in your path. SEO requires experience to understand the challenges ahead and sound judgement to make good choices.

Future Search Engine Optimization Stories

Going forward I plan to discuss each aspect of SEO, a beginning to end SEO Guide, except that SEO never really ends. I’ll include as much everyday vocabulary as I can muster too. We’ll start with a pre-SEO checklist.

So here we go. From my desk in Seattle, search engine optimization, for you.

The post From Seattle – Search Engine Optimization Explained appeared first on Portent.