Blue Chip SEO | Enterprise SEO for Big Business

Need Internet Marketing in Colorado Springs, CO?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:20:00 +0000

Slightly off-topic post but I'd like to rather gratuitously plug my dad, Tom Kuthy's new business. He's a Colorado Springs, CO Internet marketing consultant and reseller of WSI Internet Marketing solutions. He brings a seasoned, veteran marketing background to WSI's cost-effective, turn key production services to provide small business owners in Colorado Springs with a enterprise-quality Web presence. You can find him at http://www.wsiexpertinternetmarketing.com and check out the portfolio of services he's offering:

Thanks for the support and congrats to my dad on his new business!

Regards,

Dan

PVPower is Excelerating Its Growth!

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:53:00 +0000

PVPower has officially teamed up with Chicago's premier incubator for high-growth potential start-ups, Excelerate Labs.

Excelerate Labs is designed to connect entrepreneurs with the mentors, experts, funding sources and guidance needed to pursue equity financing and accelerate growth. As of June 1st we've been happily participating in Excelerate Labs and I must say that the program has exceeded all of my expectations.

We've met with dozens and dozens of fantastic mentors and benefited from the guidance and brilliance of Mr. Sam Yagan, CEO and Founder of OKCupid and Excelerate Labs' Executive Director.

Check me (Dan Kuthy) out on TechCrunch's CrunchBase
Check out Excelerate Labs in the Chicago Tribune
Check out PVPower
Check out some other press about Excelerate Labs

If you're an SEO professional and are interested in helping the Excelerate Labs companies, let me know. A number of the companies are looking for SEO help.

Regards,
Dan

Sunny Skies at PVPower - Going Solar!

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:26:00 +0000

News Update:

As of today, I am President at PVPower. PVPower is an online retailer of solar products (solar panels, charge controllers, inverters, etc.) based out of Chicago.

I'm still focused on SEO and plan to use my ecommerce SEO experience to make PVPower's content, community and products more relevant to industry queries.

At the same time, I'll be involved in helping grow the company, provide our customers better service and the right selection of products at competitive prices.

I'm looking forward to the new opportunity!

Regards,
Dan

Shooting at Fort (Ft) Hood Sparks Interesting Psychology Conversation

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:57:00 +0000

My girlfriend, Lindsay Doyle, is a PhD psychology student at the Chicago School for Professional Psychology and is attending a conference put on by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies today in Atlanta, Georgia. Much of the conversation at the conference is in regard to traumatic stress in war veterans.

She wrote a post today that looks at the shooting from a psychological perspective and makes some commentary on Major Nidal Malik Hasan (the shooter's) role as a trauma psychologist in the base's hospital.

Check it out:

Shooting at Ft. Hood

Well, It's True: The Bird is Indeed the Word

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:40:00 +0000

Some of you may have taken a glance at the application I referenced in my last post, The Birds the Word.

When I posted a few links for you guys to try the application on April 8th, the domain only had 2-3 URLs indexed in Google.

Today, there are 1,590 unique URLs from the domain indexed by Google. The site is beginning to receive traffic on niche keywords like:

3d animated disney clipart
gnr fanart

Here are a few of the URLs that might be getting ranked for these keywords and are already indexed in Google:

This application is also great for exploring concepts in a meandering, aimless sort of fashion. Check out what happens if you input John Deere. One of the results is february 7, 1804. At first, I was disappointed to see the seemingly irrelevant result come through the application. Until I realized that February 7th, 1804 is the birth date of Mr. Deere.

Very cool!

Everybody Knows, The Birds the Word

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:35:00 +0000

I'd like to take a quick moment to introduce a Web app. I don't want to go into its uses in great detail, but rather, let its users determine its best use.

Here it is: http://www.thebirdstheword.net

Try a few searches:
Villain
Superhero
Batman

Feel free to click around wherever you like - explore and let me know what your initial reaction is.

Snuggie Pub Crawl in Chicago - Viral Media is Powerful

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:14:00 +0000

I just want to take a moment to plug a recent project that one of my co-workers, David Barnes, and I are working on.

Behold, the Snuggie Pub Crawl in Chicago.

The Pub Crawl became an overnight success. On a slow Friday afternoon, Dave and I launched the site and sent out a few notes to friends and co-workers, hoping they were interested in attending. And like the California wildfires of 2008, the word spread fast! (Too soon?)

By the numbers:

Traffic:
Day 1: 199 Visits
Day 2: 49 Visits
Day 3: 42 Visits
Day 4: 239 Visits
Day 5: 1529 Visits
Day 6: 2869 Visits

Top Traffic Sources:
Day 1: Direct entry, Facebook, Digg.com
Day 2: Direct entry, Facebook, Google
Day 3: Direct entry, Facebook, Craigslist
Day 4: Direct entry, Facebook, Twitter
Day 5: Direct entry, Chicagoist, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Google
Day 6: Direct entry, Gapersblock, Chicagoist, Twitter

As of yesterday, we had a total of 4,927 visits and ~450 submitted their email addresses on the site.

About a 9-10% conversion rate. Not bad.

More to come as this project continues to grow. I hope you plan to attend, it's going to be a riot!

Setting Expectations at the Enterprise Level - Read Carefully, This Impacts You

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:56:00 +0000

If you aren't communicating the following four things to your colleagues, you're going to have a hard time leading a successful SEO program for a large business:

Many of the actions that members of Web, eComm, IT and Marketing departments take impact their business's positions in search engines
Search engine optimization is a lifestyle, not a marketing tactic and long term success is a result of changes in corporate culture, behavior and established processes.
Seeing increased traffic and revenue from SEO will require more time, more resources and more cross-departmental communication.
Like anything in business, real estate on search engine results pages is competitive and won't come easily - we still need to outwit our competitors to gain market share.

Stay tuned... my next post will identify my top 5 enterprise SEO challenges and philosophies for overcoming them.

Whopper Sacrifice: Is Zuckerberg Afraid of Be Unfriended for a Burger?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:02:00 +0000

I love it. I absolutely love the Whopper Sacrifice app. What a creative, counter-culture driven application that puts a playful and sinister twist on our oh-so-coveted social networks. Burger King has successfully exposed the darker side of Facebook and like the pseudo-ignoble, highly creepy and skulking "King," the app is one that people either seem to love or hate.

Facebook just recently announced their disapproval of Whopper Sacrifice. Luckily, my counter-culture heroes over at Burger King responded with this simple but pointed image:

Bravo!

It looks like Mr. Zuckerberg has been outwitted this time. In my opinion, Mark would have nothing to worry about if, as you'll hear from any Facebook staffer, friendships on Facebook are more sincere than MySpace and more reflective of real-world social circles. Apparently not, because Facebook users seem to be plenty willing to sever their social connections for a hamburger.

Keep up the good work, King.

Have We Forgotten Why We Optimize?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:42:00 +0000

I’m as prone to selling natural search as any SEO out there. I’m good at sales, but I’m not good at selling something I don’t believe in. I believe in SEO, but I don’t see SEO as a silver bullet for Web-based businesses or businesses that see the Web as a key part of their growth strategy.

Doing a quick scan of blogs, industry press and what not, it’s easy to notice the utter obsession with rankings and the technical ins and outs of optimization. I’m not here to de-value rankings or technical know-how but I am most definitely here to say that without making money, SEO is just a geeky hobby.

To determine if we’re making money, we need to look at all of the associated costs and benefits. After all, Profit = Revenue – Cost.

Costs
1. Pay your subject matter expert(s). Typically an agency or in-house staff.
2. Development time and resources
3. Technology costs including tools, analytics and any tracking costs
4. Opportunity cost of foregone priorities and initiatives

Benefits
1. Increased brand awareness
2. Immediate desired site actions (leads, revenue, etc.)
3. Future desired site actions (leads, revenue, etc.)

How’s your SEO P&L?

If you can honestly say that you’re generating more benefits than costs, your search engine optimization strategy is a success. If not, it’s an awfully expensive hobby.

What is Conversion Rate Hiding From You?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:29:00 +0000

I posted an article about my new favorite search metric (especially for natural search) over at FindResolution.

It's designed to demystify conversion rate, which can be incredibly misleading especially when you're dealing with an enterprise ecommerce site because it ignores the average size of an order (which often fluctuates from category to category and season to season).

Update: You can also read Media Post's take on my favorite new search metric at Search Section 2.

Enjoy,
Dan

How To Use Wildcard Entries in Your Robots.txt File

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:39:00 +0000

Working with robots.txt files at the enterprise level can be a nightmare. Common stumbling blocks include millions of URLs, incredibly large spreadsheets, hundreds of URL appends and params, sporatic directory structures and more.

One of the easiest ways to manage URL-hell in an enterprise environment is to take advantage of wildcards in your robots.txt file.

Wildcards allow you to block portions of URLs that match specific patterns.

For example, many publishers and retailers allow visitors to view "printable" versions of their content. Printable content is always duplicate and almost always exists on a unique URL.

Let's say that http://www.example.com/dan/enterprise-seo/wildcards.html is the URL of my article.

I have a "printable" version of this article at http://www.example.com/dan/enterprise-seo/wildcards.html?print=on

I can use a robots.txt wildcard entry to disallow this URL by adding this line:

Disallow: /*print=on*

As of fall of 2006, all of the major search engines accept wildcard entries in the robots.txt file. In fact, Google has published their own guidelines for taking advantage of "pattern matched" entries. Read through their rules to determine how to best implement wildcards in your robots.txt.

REMEMBER: Robots.txt wildcard entries are case sensitive (for Google, at least). Be sure to check your robots.txt file against your targeted URLs using Webmaster Tools (Tools--> Analyze robots.txt).

Don't be "That Guy," Keep Your Eye on the Prize

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:55:00 +0000

Though it may feel like it some times, SEO is not about waging geek wars on unexpecting designers, programmers or Web strategists. We are not here to berate our clients, belittle their efforts, scoff at their priorities or in some way portray a world where natural search results are king and those that get in the way should cower on their knees.

A mature, discplined SEO is cogniscent of the wide range of priorities that come pass the desks of a corporate IT/Web dev team. As important as you think you are and even if your blog, Facebook page, Linkedin profile, newest SEO for dummies book and Classmates.com profile all dominate the top of the SERPs, your projects will rarely dominate the top of your client's priority list.

Work to escalate your SEO projects on the priority list, but be realistic. Our jobs are to help our clients grow their business through a stronger Web presence, not to preach a "me first" priority plan.

Keep it humble, progressive and realistic.

Temporary Content Poses an Interesting Challenge for SEOs

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:25:00 +0000

Well, a post about the Google "Let's Get Social" event never materialized. Being relatively new to the blogging world, I'm still amazed at the amount of time required to properly maintain a blog.

As the holiday grows ever-closer, and with the month of November just around the corner, my client is in the midst of developing a whole host of new holiday content. With wireframes stacked high on my desk, I've had a little thought stuck in the back of my head.

What is an SEO to do with temporary, promotional content? Some of these wireframes are only going to be live for 6 weeks. After their 6 week run, they will be buried until next year and likely replaced with newer, fresher content.

We can certainly wrangle internal link popularity, add this new content to XML sitemaps to ensure indexing and work to make them as viral as possible, but at the end of the day, is 6 weeks enough time to build the link popularity needed to compete on high-volume holiday keywords?

Here are a few ideas for putting immediate momentum behind brand new content that is only going to be live during the holiday:

Find relevant pages on your site and create a solid internal linking architecture to pass popularity to the new page.
Add the new content to your XML sitemap and ensure the page isn't being blocked by your robots.txt file.
Be realistic in your keyword research. Target attainable keywords that are further down the tail.
Dig up last year's pages and permanently redirect them to this year's holiday pages. You may be able to take advantage of external links that were built last year. Not to mention, you'll create a continuous user experience and prevent potential customers from finding last year's content.
Rally with vendors, partners and other Web properties you control to get some quick and temporary link popularity.
Make it viral - encourage holiday visitors to link and share.
If your content is newsworthy, use online press release submission to build buzz and the link popularity that comes with it.

Any other ideas? What's the best way to optimize content with an uncertain future?

Even Though I Missed the Afterparty, I Still "Got Social"

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:56:00 +0000

On Tuesday, Google hosted a social media event for agencies, publishers and partners at their Kinzie St. office in Chicago. Speakers included Jeremiah Owyang from Web-Strategist.com, members from the MySpace and Facebook sales teams and Paula Drum, Marketing VP from H&R Block.

Stand by for a download of the day's highlights and tidbits. More to come...

Search Behavior on the Campaign Trail – A Lesson for Marketers

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:21:00 +0000

There are plenty of online information sources that voters rely on when evaluating Presidential candidates, and as marketers, we constantly evaluate the impact of online research on offline behavior. Voters look to authoritative sites like Project Vote Smart and the Congressional Budget Office for non-partisan data on candidates’ positions, voting records and the impact of their proposed legislation on the federal budget and national debt. On the flip side, it is no surprise that constituents turn to Google, Yahoo! and Live Search to dig deeper, learn more about the candidates and explore the often nefarious world of political blogs.

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Because I’m a voting American and an experienced search engine marketer, I thought it would be valuable to consider the differences in the ways Americans query their beloved candidates. There are three major questions that I’ll answer for you:

1. What are the key behaviors that differentiate searchers looking for Obama vs. McCain?

2. How do media events, speeches and campaign actions impact political search behavior?

3. How can politicians and marketers leverage search behavior to run more effective campaigns?

In Chicago, we typically start our conversations with Obama, but I’ll buck the trend by giving Mr. McCain the first word. McCain searches are conducted all over the world, but I was surprised to see Iraq ranked second to the United States in McCain and Palin search volume. This is likely a combined result of U.S. military personnel and Iraqi citizens and officials showing interest in American politics. McCain searches most frequently originate in Washington D.C. followed by Colorado, New Mexico and Maryland. McCain’s home state of Arizona is ranked 7th in McCain search volume. Not surprisingly, when McCain queries are compared to those for Obama, he commands a much stronger portion of searches in rural areas and small towns. The politics of Politics have peaked the interest of McCain searchers as well. Queries for “paris hilton mccain,” “mccain flip flops,” and “mccain houses” are all on the rise, as a result of allegations that, when asked, McCain didn’t know how many houses he owned and the recent appearance of Paris Hilton in his campaign ads. For the first time in August, McCain queries outnumbered those for his rival, Barack Obama. Both candidates experienced a significant uptick in overall search volume since August 10th in anticipation of the Democratic National Convention on August 25th and 26th.

Obama searchers heavily outweighed McCain searchers in 2008 and until August, there was no point in time when McCain was more heavily searched than his rival. Like McCain, Obama search volume from Iraq ranks second to the United States. Obama searches are indexed most highly in Washington D.C., Oregon, Maryland and Vermont, in that order. The politics of Politics haven’t ignored Barack Obama seen in up and coming queries like “obama lies” and “obama pastor,” referencing the extremism displayed by Barack Obama’s former pastor.

Sarah Palin has taken the cake in the Vice Presidential matchup and has enjoyed nearly 5 times as much search volume as Joe Biden. Queries for Senator Biden have dropped off significantly since August 24th, preceding the Democratic National Convention while queries for Governor Palin continue to rise.

Taking a look at McCain search volume January through March, it’s clear to see the impact of campaign actions on search queries. McCain winning New Hampshire in the Republican primaries [C], his speech on Feb. 5th [B] and President Bush’s official endorsement of John McCain [A] are all visible in search query volume:

Click image for larger view.

On the same note, you’ll see the impact on search volume experienced when Obama won the primary vote in North Carolina [B] and clinched the primary nomination [A].

Click image for larger view.

Candidates and marketers rarely take full advantage of the wealth of search behavior information available to them. As candidates respond to attacks from rival campaigns, they should be monitoring up-and-coming search queries to determine which smears are getting under their constituents’ skin. Candidates should be flighting their search budgets to capture the dramatic spikes in search volume that revolve around their campaign actions, speeches, etc. Geographic data can accompany polling data to determine key swing states. Search behavior enables competitive research by allowing campaign analysts to identify trends in searches around on competitive or sensitive issues like abortion, the economy or national security. Search behavior isn’t only valuable to political junkies; it is an incredibly powerful form of market research that business leaders should be tapping regularly.

A Focus Group, But Less Awkward

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Kuthy) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:58:00 +0000

As you may already know, the “Power of Search” is reflected in mass customization and instant point-of-need direction. For those who need to brush up on their Query Marketing, let’s do a quick review:

Mass Customization: Marketers can display a different listing to each consumer based on the perceived intent of his/her query.

Instant Point-of-Need Direction: Marketers can instantly direct interested consumers to a specific destination based on the query where they can engage with the brand.

These two Powers are frequently used to ensure a relevant consumer experience but are less frequently used poll the market. Every day, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people from every walk of life are providing Marketers with a vote of their mouse. No matter what the question Marketers are looking to answer, Search can be used like a focus group to yield scalable consumer insight and proof of consumer preference.

Let’s give it a try:

The Question: My customers in coastal cities, especially Miami, have been hardest hit by a downturn in the domestic real estate market. They have less disposable income and don’t seem to be buying my products. Will they be more willing to buy if we put our products on sale? If we marked our products down 10%, would they start buying again?

The Test: Solicit 10,000 well-focused clicks from the Miami area. For 50% of the clicks, serve up traditional, generic messaging. For the other 50% deliver a poignant sale message including a $-off or %-off message and a landing page that features the discounted items.

The Results: After soliciting 5,000 clicks from each scenario, the results are in. Remember, we’ve got to look at both revenue and margin to determine the validity of a price reduction scenario.

In this case, running a sale in Miami doesn’t seem like the solution to enhancing profitability in a weakened market. As you can see, decreased margins in the sale scenario outweighed increased willingness to purchase. If a sale won’t spark a rebound, what will? A rebate? An eco-friendly attitude? A gas card with a purchase over $100?

Instead of just guessing, let’s put it to the test and let our customers make the call.