Organized by GetListed.org co-founder David Mihm, the seminar featured a great line-up of experienced Internet marketers as well as Google and Bing representatives.  The Local University seminar will be heading out to other cities in 2010, bringing a fantastic wealth of information for any business or organization looking to improve their online marketing knowledge.

In just a 4 hour session, attendees took part in detailed presentations, real world case studies, Q & A sessions, how-to’s, do-it-yourself tips, resources and more.  Overall it was some incredible search, social and local/maps information, from talented presenters, all for $129. A complete steal to get a ton of  basics, the best practices and the baseline to market online.

The panel of speakers form left to right were Mikko Ollila of Bing, Ryan Hayward of Google, Matt McGee of Small Business SEM, Mike Blumenthal a local search expert, David Mihm of GetListed.org and Mary Bowling of seOverflow. Not pictured above was Spokane SEO expert Ed Reese.

Local University is a must for any business that wants real answers, real examples and access to grasp the opportunity to succeed online.

In addition to attending the seminar it was a chance for me to finally connect in person with other search marketers I have read, done business with and interacted with for some time.  I had a great time meeting a few new ones too like Mary Bowling, Mike Blumenthal (aka Professor Maps) and Mike Ramsey as the presenters took in dinner the night before.

Minneapolis In The Local University Future?
The one last piece that put me on a flight to Spokane was to attract the Local University offering to the Minneapolis area later this year.  The amount of information, the level of expertise and the complete offering would be perfect for the local business community here in the Twin Cities.

I can tell you that the event left Spokane buzzing, satisfied and hoping for another one.

Hopefully I’ll have some good news soon, but don’t hesitate to let your voice be heard with a comment below.

The Details Matter
A successful Google AdWords campaign involves the right research, configuration and tracking to get you anywhere near the perceived pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.

When done right, pay per click marketing produces a marketing formula of sorts, a map of numbers that lets you evaluate the investment it takes to land a conversion.  Depending on your business and website, this conversion might be an e-commerce sale, a specific download, visitors to a specific page or just getting users to your website.

While this post is just an overview, the following main items are key to a solid AdWords PPC campaign:

1. Research – You must understand your audience, the keyword terms they will be searching for.

2. Configuration – The correct set-up of an AdWords account, campaigns, settings, budgets and tracking tools are all key elements.

3. Copywriting – What your ad says matters! In many cases you will want to test different ads and text to see what performs best.

4. Landing Pages – The most overlooked item is landing pages. You need to understand that when a user clicks an ad, you have this small window to convert them. Sending your ad link to your home page is not going to cut it, take them right to the conversion point and make it easy for them to buy, download or contact you.

5. Evaluation – The ability to track and review data is one of PPC’s biggest assets. Having Google Analytics and your AdWords configured correctly to track each movement is a must. Without it, your flying blind.

6. Adjustments – The best campaigns are reviewed and assessed weekly and even daily. Just setting it up and letting it run is a bad idea.  You want evaluate and make decsions on the right adjustments to find your strongest results.

We hope this quick overview is helpful.  If you have been wanting to explore Google AdWords or have tried it the wrong way in the past, Five Technology is here to help you with the right strategy to get results.  Give us a holler!

Ranchline Network is a national real estate listing website, focusing on high-end land and ranches for sale. The website features hundreds of listings from brokers and agents all across the US and even Internationally.

Ranchline was founded by real estate broker Paul Taylor III who has achieved incredible success in the industry.  Paul and the Ranchline team saw a great opportunity to bring their marketing and Internet success to others in the Real Estate industry as a tool for them to market their properties and homes for sale as well.

Ranchline Network – A Better Website
At the core of the Ranchline Network website is a focus on making real estate research easy for the consumer.  The website offers the ability for a user to create an account to save properties and searches.  The layout is clean and offers clear navigation in multiple formats for any user to find their desired property.  These include:

• Type Navigation like Ranches For Sale, Land For Sale & Waterfront For Sale
• By State Navigation like Montana For Sale, New Mexico For Sale, Texas For Sale
• Search filters for land type, location, price range, listing ID# or keyword
• Visual map search with listing population numbers by state (see below)

In moving through the real estate listings users are presented with both strong visuals, clear navigation and over property details. Once into an exact listing the page consists of a variety of images, content, details, maps and more.

Content Management System To The Extreme
Our web platform is extremely flexible, scalable and capable of some great custom features. This project offered us the chance to program some great features for the updating and adding of listings.  The back-end offers a great feature and tool set including:

• Online creation of client accounts
• Online payment of one-time advertising & membership fees
• Uploading of listings, data, photos, video and more
• Listing statistics for agents to view stats on searches, impressions, views, clicks & contacts
• XML feed capabilities to automate listing population & updating process

Overall Website Project Details
The Ranchline Network project was a very expansive project and the client is not engaged in online marketing strategies with Five as well.  As an overview, the web design project involved:

• Custom web design
• Content management system integration
• User accounts and agent accounts
• E-commerce & merchant account
• Multiple search & filter features
• Banner ad network
• Photo gallery features
• Google maps
• Various XML data feeds
• Search engine optimization
• Pay per click marketing
• Web analytics

Check it all out for yourself, we’re proud to work with Ranchline as part of their team and business success.

Visit the website: http://www.ranchlinenetwork.com

The events other presenter, Cindy Cofer Evert offered great insight and tips on press releases and PR.  Her info made for great web content ideas and distribution via a business blog. The group was very interested in Internet marketing, engaged and had great questions following my presentation.  Below is my slide deck from my social media talk.

Thank you to the ICBM for having me, it was a great event.

Thanks to @jonasPK of ICBM for the photos.

With all of the complexity in SEO, we offer this simple question to help clients get a better grasp.

Is Your Website Worth Being Found?

Does your website answer questions?  Does your website provide service or process examples?  Does your content educate or provide insight? Does your website offer tips? Is your content well structured and linked?

The fact that you want more leads, does not make your website a good resource for others.  Rankings are not determined on how badly you want visitors and new business opportunities.

View search rankings as an evaluation of your website as a resource, a trusted resource.  If your website isn’t a resource for people searching Google, Yahoo or Bing for answers or information, then you won’t rank well.

3 Tips To Become A Resource Online & Improve Search Rankings

1. Be clear with your content on what you offer.  Stay away from marketing speak and deliver the concise message of what you offer/do.  Simple beats sexy … “We are a trusted Minneapolis air conditioning service and repair company.”

2. Develop better content ideas than “About Us”, “Products” and “Services”.  If you have a process, outline it.  If you have satisfied clients and experience, put together case studies.  Build a list of “10 things to know before selecting your car insurance provider”.  The more you help a website visitor, the more trust you create.

3. Web content that is easy to understand and valuable attracts links from other websites.  Links act as votes of trust for your website.  Getting back to #2, do you think your “About Us” page is worth linking to?

So the next time you head to Google to find an article on SEO tips, consider changing your approach.  Give some thought to how valuable of a resource your website is and what you can do to improve it.

The line-up of speakers featured some great Internet minds.  Kicking off Friday morning was Jason Fried of 37signals.

Jason stressed getting away from failure (it’s not cool), the value in eliminating interruption, focusing on the  day at hand and not a 2 year or 5 year plan, putting the most effort into the things that don’t change in your business (service, process), and the value of your by-product.  I had a ton of interest in finding the by-product of your business, not just the specific service you offer, but the knowledge in the process of it.  This can translate into books, speaking events and more.

Another speaker I really enjoyed was Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless Tees.  His time on stage focuses on transparency and accessibility.  He outlined how these things contribute to success of his company.  Jeffrey hit upon the message of spending time with your community of customers/users and listening to them, reacting to them and acting on the right moves.

Gary Vaynerchuk closed out the presentations with his “loud” presentation (loud in a good way).  His passion for getting people to hustle, work hard, build a brand and deliver your expertise in any way possible is a great message.  Gary definitely let his feelings be known on how the Internet will squash everything … newspapers, TV and possibly high education. Gary also did some great Q & A with the crowd as well.

Other attendees recapped the conference as well, so check out Shane Adam’s blog, Read Write Web and Silicon Florist.  Check out Managing The Edge, it has a decent video segment of interviews from the conference as well.

It was a well put together conference, crazy successful for a first time conference.  I was encouraged by the fact I hold some of the same value in transparency and making things happen.  I also picked up some great ideas on other theories and ideas to strengthen the Five brand and business of web design.

In such an evolving industry it’s great to listen to great Internet minds and also interact with others fighting the good fight daily.  Overall, I give Big Omaha an A- and look forward to next year.

Number One: Who’s The Crazy One?
The first was reading a great Internet marketing article from Andrew Eklund on MinnesotaBusiness.com.  The article easily outlined why Internet marketing is a dream (and reality) for any marketing team/person.  Eklund had some great points that anyone could understand and my biggest takeaways were:

1.  Reworking old and tired traditional marketing is not the answer.

2.  Ignoring the medium (Internet) where prospects are, customers are and that allows for complete tracking of your marketing to sale process is plain crazy.

3.  Internet marketing is not risky, not marketing online is risky.

Give the article a read and you’ll hopefully find a spark to push yourself into investing more time and strategy into leveraging the great benefits of Internet marketing. You’re crazy not too.

Number Two: Ignorance Is Bliss? No.
The second thing that happened was a scenario that unfolded in my email inbox.  I received an email from a business development person I know that contained their newsletter in a PDF attachment.  I froze.  They had a great email subject headline on a topic that I wanted information on but … they would never know that.

I couldn’t believe that the company would ignore the fantastic benefits of email marketing after all that hard work.  They put together a well designed PDF, it had compelling and educating content … yet it was only doing half of its job.  It wasn’t going to clue the business in on its relevance, performance and its outcome.

If they had sent this information via an email marketing program they would have gained these valuable marketing benefits:

1.  Who opened their email newsletter

1b.  Better yet, they would have reduced effort (clicks & time) to get to the goods

2.  What links users clicked on to get more info or take action

3.  The ability to fully track users from email to website to conversion

4.  They can still include the PDF version AND see who downloaded that

This marketing campaign could have been so much more.  Don’t just go half way, take advantage of the simple opportunity to get everything you want from your marketing efforts.

So to get to my title question, what is holding your company back from Internet marketing?  As Ecklund’s article pointed out, it offers accountability, sustained progress, sales, leads, return-on-investment, and deep business intelligence.  Let’s add to that affordability too.  Email marketing is an extremely low cost.  Consider though, at any price, the ability to track and measure makes any number realistic when you know what it produced.

So get rid of your fear (or ignorance), make the move, take the right steps, ask questions, get answers and find the ways Internet marketing can improve your business.  There are many.

There were some great Buffalo and Wright County businesses / organizations in attendance and I enjoyed the 45 minute presentation. Getting to share my knowledge and passion for the web is one of the best things I get to do at Five. Thank you to the Chamber for the invite to speak and present!

Speaking of presentations, we will be announcing a business blogging seminar soon for late May.  We should be getting the details out next week.

Thanks to Five web programmer @travisneids for taking the photos.

A New Top Keyword
I thought I would update that post with how this new Google search feature has effected our search engine traffic.  Prior to this local feature, our top terms of referral traffic were our company name and then “web design MN”, “Minnesota web design” and other variations.

In the past week we have a new top term for bringing traffic to our website, “web design”.  Prior to the Google change, we would have never even dreamt of competing for the term of web design without a location or another term attached. In doing just some minor research, we appear in the local search results for 11 different zip codes.  With our office being rurally located, we bleed into other areas results from as far as 20 miles away.  If we were right in Minneapolis this wouldn’t be the case, but the search volume for “web design” would be much higher.  Not too bad of a trade off.

This new local search feature creates a lot of opportunity for small businesses to attract more buisness from Google.  It also shines a much brighter light on local search, a focus we will see increase in the coming months for sure.

As a recent Washington Post article pointed out, online advertisers are hoping that bigger and bolder ads can save display and banner advertising. There was no doubt I couldn’t miss the Apple ad as the iPod Touch device jumped out of the ad frame and exploded the ESPN main navigation bar into pieces. In fact I refreshed it twice just to see it again. Mission accomplished for Apple this time.

Brands are working hard these days to get noticed online and also putting some new twists out there as well. Obviously the Skittles social media twist gained big attention and buzz over the past few weeks. It will also be interesting to see how far new, edgy and different can go before pushing users away too.

Let me know if you have seen an ad or concept online lately that jumps from the norm, looking to grab more attention.