Catalyst Magazine’s May issue features a discussion highlighting the latest in business trends. It includes an interview with me and our friends Chris Reilly from Unleashed Online Marketing and Frank Swoboda from Corner Booth Media. The article does a really nice job highlighting some of the most recent trends business owners should be aware of when it marketing their business.

Click here to read the article.

Although we can’t see black holes, we can detect their presence (or at least make an educated guess) by measuring effects on objects around them. That same principle is the basis for this (not provide) keyword detection method. While it doesn’t technically get your beloved keywords back, it will hopefully help fill in the gaps since Google implemented this (sucky change) in reporting.

The purpose of this post is to help business owners and marketers easily get a snapshot of the *likely* keywords they’re missing. There are other more detailed technical posts for those looking for a deeper dive into the keywords (not provided) pool. These posts from Avinash Kashik and Rachael Gerson are great if you’re looking for a more detailed analysis.

Most of the people I’ve talked with have reported the percentage of (not provided) keywords at between 10%-20%. That’s what I’ve seen for the most part, but it really depends on your visitors. Covario has a great post of how (not provided) impacts different audiences. The growth rate is more concerning to me (especially with Google+ and Android adoption). As more and more people log into Google’s products, the less and less we’ll see.

But not to worry Google has made us dance before and they’ll do it again. Yes, we lost some keywords, but we can still see the landing pages these searches are directed to and can *mostly* infer what those lost keywords were. So, if you have a relatively optimized website you can make some pretty reasonable assumptions about what these (not provided) keywords were. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Find Your Keywords in Analytics

Step 2: Isolate (Not Provided) Keywords & Select Landing Pages

In the interest of full disclosure this is not my idea. I just added the Black Hole image Rachel Gerson of SEER Interactive first shared it with me at GAUGEcon in San Francisco. Be sure to follow her on Twitter. She is awesome!

The Get Listed Faculty at O'Doherty's the night before the 1st Get Listed University event.

Get Listed University has presented to nearly 2,000 business owners and marketing professionals since our innagural event in Spokane in February of 2010. It’s been amazing to be part of such an A-List team. It’s a priveledge (and absolute blast) to get to spend time with these wonderful people five or six times a year at these events. But what’s been even more incredible is talking with business owners over the years and being in a position to help. I’ve been thinking about Get Listed University a lot recently and wanted to put together a quick summary of why I think Get Listed University is so valued by business owners.

1) No Pitches. Ever.
I go to a lot of conferences. Nothing makes mad like traveling to a conference, paying the price of admission, and then getting pitched by a presenter. At Get Listed there are no “back of the room” sales, no pitching of our services in any way, and no uttering the cardinal sin of the conference upsell world,… “We’ll be covering that at the follow-up conference for just X dollars. Register today!” Nope. That just ain’t our style.

2) We Don’t Hold Back Any Content.
Not only do we not hold back content, we continue to find ways to provide even more content for business owners to use to their advantage. For example, this year we have created a more formal structure for our site clinics to really maximize it so you’ll have more time to ask any of our experts 1-on-1 questions about YOUR website.

3) We Provide Actionable Information & Real Case Studies
This information is not collegiate theory. You will literally be able to take these insights and apply them immediatelly to your business the following day. We use examples highlighting how real businesses use these strategies to improve their business. In fact, David is unveiling a new presentation in Spokane called “Prioritizing Your S*!t” that provides a roadmap of actions that will guide you along your way to online greatness.

4) The Faculty are Amazing!
I’m not kidding when I say how fortunate I feel to be part of this team. At times I feel like snuck in the back of the pickup when they left for town – and now they’re stuck with me These folks are the best in the business! We are so fortunate to have them back in Spokane again.

5) We Know & Respect Business.
We know running a business is hard. I believe all us have either owned a business in the past or are current business owners. We know it’s tough to committ a day to learn about online marketing and we work very hard to make every second count. We keep finding new ways to improve the events for our attendees. For example, for the Spokane event this year we added social media and paid search as well as expanded our site clinics.

Bonus) We Do Our Best to Make it a Dang Good Time!
We know your brains will be full by the end of the day. But we balance your efforts with a good dose of humor, enough food and snacks to keep you fueled up, personalized Q&A, and an awesome networking happy hour to close the event out right! It’s also important to note that our speakers don’t take themselves too seriously and are approachable the entire day with any questions you have for them.

What t-shirt will Mike Blumenthal be wearing this year? Oh, the suspense!

We look forward to seeing you at Get Listed this year! If you have any questions about the event please feel free to call the Sixth Man Marketing office at 509-624-5580 or going directly to the Get Listed University website.

1) It strengthened my online community

I think the most powerful thing I discovered this week was the effectiveness of blogging for connecting or re-connecting with people. I received several blog comments and emails from industry peers and friends welcoming me back to blogging and providing encouragement. This extension of my community makes the world feel just a little bit smaller and reminded me of how cool it was posting to online forums and user groups back in the day. For example, I’ve never met Toronto SEO Dev Basu in person (Although I think we might’ve met at SMX Local in San Francisco – 2008). But I’ve respected his work for a long time and blogging is a great way to keep in touch with industry professionals like Dev and grow your network. I can only imagine how effective regular blogging + conference attendance is to growth in the industry. In fact, it was at SEOmoz Advanced 2009 that (after a little tequila if memory serves correct) I suggested Spokane as the first stop for Get Listed University. I always look forward to great conferences like SMX Advanced, Mozcon, & Searchfest to learn from the best in the industry, connect with my online marketing peeps, and have a great time. Regular blogging will likely help me grow my network so I can see more familiar faces in the crowd. Maybe I’ll even meet Dev at my next conference.

2) My website traffic jumped

There’s a pretty huge caveat here. I have very low traffic. It just hasn’t been a goal of mine. And with my infrequent blogging, let’s just say I haven’t exactly grown a large following. While I don’t put much merit in overall traffic increases, I am pleased with the increase in referral traffic and brand search traffic driven by my recent post. While it hasn’t translated into business this past week, I believe that putting out good content on a regular basis will put me in the right position to earn new business. I had a comment from Matt McGee that sums up this thought very well:

And if this increase in referral traffic (shown in my Google Analytics data below) continues it will likely lead to good things down the road, just like Matt says.

When you examine the referral traffic in detail you can see that this traffic comes from my business network in Spokane (Facebook & Twitter), industry peers (Twitter), my Get Listed University faculty friends, and my Mom.

3) It drove searches for my brand

And while my brand search traffic is low, there is certainly a nice increase compared to the previous week (as seen below). This is probably the biggest take-away for small businesses in my opinion. By providing good content to your audience they’ll be looking for more content from you. And in time, you’ll have the possibility of earning their long-term business.

4) Search isn’t always the big dog

My blogging failure post started ranking quickly for, guess what,… blogging failure.

Within two days it was ranking 2rd on Google for “blogging failure” (4th on Bing/Yahoo). And for a second I was lured into thinking this would be good for business. It won’t (for a variety of reasons). My point is that people tend to place too much emphasis on rankings (myself included at times) and not the bigger picture. For example, here’s a success story I was touting at Get Listed Spokane last February.  My wife’s nonprofit Bloom Spokane has ranked 5th for “birth advice” and 1st for “hospital birth advice” since her blog post was published in February. What has it gotten her? Fame? Fortune? Free t-shirt? Nope. Just thirty four visitors via organic search traffic.

Don’t get me wrong. I love long-tail organic search traffic. It can be really important to a business. But it’s important to see the bigger picture. Three months of searches for all things “birth advice” does not represent a game changer to her nonprofit.

But the 122% increase in overall traffic since her blog post went viral makes a difference. That’s 5,772 more visitors than the previous period. More importantly, those 5,772 visits represent social media influencers, industry experts, potential speaking opportunities, and increased national exposure.

5) There’s Always Some Risk

There’s always some risk when you put your neck out there. You could offend your audience, not research a topic thoroughly enough, or inadvertently drive Twitter traffic to the wrong Ed Reese.

Sorry other Ed Reese. I’ll do my best to keep my business major, marketing frat boy douchebag friends at bay. We’ve got some kegstands to do, anyway.

Yeah, that’s quite a gap in blog posts. What makes this even worse is that I’m constantly preaching the virtues of blogging to clients as well as attendees at Get Listed University events. In fact, my wife’s blogging for  Bloom Spokane is part of my Get Listed analytics presentation.

In fact, I talked about her recent blogging success so much at our last few events that Matt McGee started calling me Ed “My Wife’s Blog Post” Reese. But she wrote an amazing article / interview that went viral in her niche. Talk about the power of blogging. It quickly boosted her to a national level and nearly doubled her average readership. Here’s a look at the timeline:

And not only did it help grow her audience, but it helped her search engine optimization efforts as well. Thanks to the new inclusion of social media signals into the search engine ranking algorithm (chronicled very well by SEOmoz here, and then tested on Twitter here, and detailed in amazing fashion here ) she is now ranking very well for a pretty broad phrase that’s often searched in her industry.

Nearly everyone I respect in the industry blogs on a regular basis and makes it part of their business practice. They’ve also told me in person (or publicly at conferences) how it has positively impacted their business, reputation, and careers. So whether it’s Rand Fishkin, David Mihm, Mike Blumenthal, Matt McGee, Lisa Barone, Neil Patel, or any of my awesome Get Listed compadres, they’ve all told me the power of words. In sequence. Online. That says stuff. Cool stuff. Insightful stuff. On a regular basis. It’s time to get back on track.

But if blogging is so dang effective, why doesn’t everyone do it?

• Writing is hard. I liken it to golf. I may get better but it will always be a challenge.
• It takes time. Life often gets in the way (work, kids, clients, etc.)
• It’s not a direct payoff. It nearly always gets bumped for client work.
• Consistency is hard. The ideas for posts don’t necessarily come on a regular basis.

So what am I going to do about it?

• Follow Matt McGee’s advice and blog regularly. For me, that’s going to start at one post a week.
• Create a blog publishing schedule to stay ahead of the game
• Invite my team as well as guest bloggers to participate and provide a richer forum & perspective.
• Create a process for publishing blog posts effectively.

Photo courtesy of Anthony Productions

Time for this epic blogging failure to come to a close. At least at the next Get Listed University event I won’t have to hide my head in shame when Matt McGee says “Would you trust someone (that has a blog) who hasn’t posted in six months?” Hey Matt, it was almost a year. But I’ve finally taken your advice