I started this series looking at the differences between print readers and web readers. This is critical to understand before moving forward with your online public relations material. We cannot expect to reach online readers the same way we reach those that are offline. We can't just do the old-world methods in a new-world medium.

The differences between the two readers is vast, and, without that understanding, there will be no way to hit the goals you are trying to achieve. But once you have a firm grasp on who your online audience is, and how they react, you can begin to set attainable goals for your online PR.

Goals of Online PR

Every piece of content you create should have a goal in mind. What is it trying to achieve? What do you want people to do? How is this going to benefit your company? These and many other questions need to be answered before you even begin writing.

Being online, we have to look at specific set of goals that are unique to the web. As we noted at the end of Part 1, there are three things we have to keep in mind: Search, Social, and Conversions. What goals do we need to have in place in order to be successful in each of those areas?

Let's look at four goals of your online PR. These should help you in crafting better pieces of content designed for the internet audience.

Goal 1: Get Noticed

The idea of generating any piece of content is to get noticed. What's the point of writing if no one is going to see it, right? I mean, this isn't just an exercise in futility... we want people to read what we write, dang it!

What you're looking for is the double take. Imagine driving down the highway and suddenly you spot a purple cow. What the?! You're going to do a double take. That's what you want your online content to do, to stand out in a way that people go, "Holy purple cow, Batman, did you read that!"

Now be careful. You don't want to lead people down a false path here. Don't pull a bait-and-switch. Once they do that double take, make sure the second take is every bit worth it.

So, what happens next? What should your piece of content do once you get some eyeballs on it? That's brings us to goal number 2.

Goal 2: Get Traffic

Traffic is essential to having a successful PR campaign. Your content may do a great job of getting noticed, but is that translating into traffic to your website? If not, then your "hot" piece has utterly failed.

You want to make sure that people don't just read your single piece of PR then move on to something else. Your content should only be the teaser. It should act as a doorway into the real content: your website. Speaking in terms of food, you want people to move from the appetizer to the main course.

Is your content interesting enough to keep people engaged with your brand? Is it creating traffic beyond the piece itself, or is it just a (dead) end unto itself? No content should be the end. Heck, even after an order for a product is placed, the goal then is to bring the visitor back to start the purchase process all over again.

While your PR piece may be designed to inform, it also needs to have a reason to be informative. Information for the sake of information is what we call "useless knowledge." I already have plenty of that!

Once you start moving people through the process from reading to engaging with your site, you have to then look at whether you are delivering the right traffic to your site. Which brings us to goal number 3.

Goal 3: Get Customers

Getting customers is one of the key goals of any online business. Now I use the word "customer" loosely. That can be whatever is meaningful to you. A customer could be someone who buys your product, or someone who downloads your white paper, or engages with you in Facebook. A customer can be anything you determine it to be. It really depends on your industry and what you are trying to accomplish with your business.

If you're not getting customers, whatever those are to you, what are you getting? Traffic? Hits? Page views? A round of applause?

Is that enough for you, or do you want more than that? What is the content delivering for you, and how do you use your PR piece to bring new customers into the fold?

"You mean I actually have to produce something that produces something?" Well, yeah. Content just for the sake of being read is nothing more than a bunch of words on the page. Every piece of content should speak to your potential customers, encourage them to engage, and ultimately lead them to that conversion point.

Of course, not every visitor can turn into an instant customer. But there is a way to get them to become an evangelist for you, which leads us to goal number 4.

Goal 4: Get Links

The web is fueled by links. If no one linked to anyone, how would you find any content? Search engines? Well, they use links to find the new content. So, if they can't find it, then your audience can't find it either. That means your content not only has to produce customers, but it also has to get customers, and non-customers alike, to pass it on via links and social shares.

So, how do you make link-worthy content? Well, there are three steps. 1) Get noticed. 2) Get traffic. 3) Get customers!

Huh. Those look familiar.

If your content is doing those things, and the visitors that read each piece find the information in it valuable, then it is more likely to be passed, linked, or shared. And that's what you want. Why? Because the more your piece of content is linked or shared, the bigger potential it has of reaching more customers.

More links means better rankings and more traffic from your target audience. More traffic means more customers. More customers means more links. It's a magnificent cycle to be in!

Every piece of PR may have a different set of immediate goals, but the four goals mentioned above shouldn't ever change. These are your universal constants in the online marketing world. If your content isn't hitting these four goals, you need to rethink what you're doing. It's not that there is anything wrong with the writing itself, but perhaps you're not writing with the right goals in mind.

Refocusing your content onto these new goals will help ensure that your online PR strategy lines up with a search and social world, which really just means it's doing the job it was intended to do.

See all posts in this series:

Part 1: Intro / How Print Audience Differs from Web Audience

Part 2: Goals of Online PR

Part 3: Background Research

Part 4a: Crafting the Story p1

Part 4b: Crafting the Story p2

Part 5: Broadcasting the Message / Conclusion

Follow me at @StoneyD and @PolePositionMkg.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Google Instant Preview: A Game-Changer for Landing Pages

Until now, the only information a user had on a search results page
to decide where to click was the 135 characters in the ads.  This led
to many advertisers getting away with bad post-click marketing as long
as they wrote great ads.  Not any more.  Advertisers can no longer hide behind the click.
Now, users can hover over an ad and see a preview of the landing page
with snippets of real text to see how closely it relates to what
they're looking for.

You see that call-out box inside the preview frame?  That's text from
your page that acts like a second ad.  This changes the game because
now searches can not only compare ads, but landing pages as well BEFORE
they decide where to click.  This makes design and message even more important on landing pages. It also affects CTR, and therefore quality score and cost.

US Lawmakers plan "Do Not Track" bills

This legislation would allow Internet users to block companies from gathering information about their online activities. It
was inspired by controversy over tracking technology present in iPhones
and Androids, as well as some recent data-theft incidents.

Google AdWords Can Now Target Tablets Separately

Tablets were considered "mobile devices" until now.  Now AdWords
considers them as separate devices from both computers and cell phones. 
So, you should organize your campaigns accordingly.

Google Call Metrics Pricing: What PPC Advertisers Need to Know

Google now charges if someone places a phone call from your ad. 
Google's phone tracking is essentially a cost-per-action model that assumes all calls are leads.
Therefore, you should pay attention to the types of calls you get from
PPC campaigns by isolating them and noting the types of calls you're
getting.  If there are lots of calls for non-lead reasons, it's likely
eating up your PPC budget that could be used on more qualified
audiences.  If your target audience is more likely to pick up
the phone than complete a conversion online, consider using a call
tracking vendor.

Showing Domain URL in Headlines

On the heels of showing the first description lines in the headlines
of top placement ads, now Google is going to show your display URL if
you get placed in top positions on search results pages.  This will
feature your brand more prominently and help users identify the site to
which they'll be taken more easily.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Several weeks ago I was asked to speak to the Cleveland, Ohio chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). In all my years of traveling and speaking in different venues, this one is near the top of the list of great experiences (SBMU still holds the top spot!)

I don't know much about public relations, but I do know SEO and Social Media. My task was to communicate the value of SEO and Social Media to this group of public relations experts. What follows is the result. I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Jennifer Evans Laycock, as she worked with me on parts of this presentation. If any particular slide is valuable (or pretty), it's probably due to her!

How Print Audience Differs From Web Audience

There is a big difference between reading things online versus offline. We often want to think that reading is reading is reading. But reading here isn't the same as reading there. The mindset between on- and offline is vast.

Think for a second. When you grab a book, a magazine, or even a printed piece of material, what do you do? Most of us find a comfortable place to sit, have a tasty beverage within reach, and our feet kicked up on an ottoman or coffee table. We're settling in. But, when reading online, we generally don't get that luxury. We're at a desk with a keyboard and a mouse, probably piles of paperwork within eye shot and our list of tasks is fighting for our attention.

Two experiences, two different mindsets. Before we dive into some of the PR specific issues, let's look at some of the differences between print readers and online readers:

Print Readers are Purposeful

As I alluded to above, print readers tend to be more purpose-oriented. We go out of our way to make sure our setting is just right. Maybe we turn the TV off, maybe we grab a blanket to cozy up under or maybe we take our reading material outside or to the park to enjoy a bit of nice weather.

Many of us have our "reading time." We wait until the office is quiet, the kids are in bed, or a time of day when the distractions are lower than normal. We generally set out to accomplish something. "I'm going to read 50 pages in my book." You want to read the daily paper, or that weekly magazine before the next issue arrives. Or maybe you've got a pile of work papers you want to get through before going into the office tomorrow.

This is the mindset of print. It's goal oriented. You're going to get through this and be done with it. It's completed. Web readers, on the other hand, think very differently.

Web Readers Have a Lack of Focus and Intent

When we read on the web, many of us are sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen. While mobile devices are getting more popular, I don't think this is doing anything to focus our reading. In fact, it may even be less focused as we're on the mobile device only because we are doing something else at the same time. Hence the "mobile" part.

But either way, web reading on any type of computer tends to be much more haphazard. It's not like a book or a magazine. It's more about finding small snippets of information, quickly digesting it and moving on. Our intent is usually more about immediate interest rather anything else. We may read a blog post, scan our twitter stream, scroll through our RSS feeds, or follow some links to a piece of content that looks like new information. And sometimes doing all these things at the same time!

Ultimately, we're not settling in to read. We're searching or scanning and we're reading just enough to get what we need before we move on to another task or another piece of content. And that's where it becomes a battle for those of us that produce content. We're struggling to get the attention of a goldfish!

Internet Readers are Highly Distractable

One of the issues with people reading the web is that it's usually a secondary activity. There is something, or often many things, going on around them at the same time. While reading a piece of content, an important email might come in to their inbox (or an interesting piece of spam, for that matter!) Or maybe their kids are throwing a football in the house and they need to be talked to in a nice, calm, rational way. Or perhaps someone IMs them and they start up a conversation.

When I'm on my work computer, I'm distracted by four monitors. Email, tasks, IM, Twitter, facebook and who knows what else is open in front of me at any given (or more likely, all the) time. Most people don't have that many things open in front of them, but there is still plenty of distraction happening.

When on the web, our attention spans are shorter than normal. We don't invest time to reading web content, and we're often doing several other things at once. This makes it ever more difficult to get the attention of our audience. Bizy, bizy, bizy!

Internet Readers are Usually Multi-Tasking

Not only are we easily distracted when reading, most web readers are doing multiple tasks at once. That IM conversation that starts up may be going on simultaneously as we are reading. Or the article content we are writing leads us to research the topic to gather some thoughts and ideas. Or maybe we're planning a vacation and reading up on locations and things to do.

This is the nature of the web. We go read (or search) not because that's what we're settling down to do, but because we're doing something else and we're using the web to accomplish that goal. Frequently, web reading is the secondary activity to the primary activity or goal we're working on.

And since we're using the web to complete a primary task, we go out looking for information that helps us achieve that goal. But instead of finding a few resources, we find, well, millions of pages of content at our fingertips, all clamoring for a piece of our divided attention.

The Internet is Highly Competitive When it Comes to Content

Billions of new pages of content are being added to the internet every day! Think about every new website, blog post, product page, twitter stream, facebook profile, or Google Place that gets created, and it quickly adds up. Billions of pages! That is a lot of new competition on a day-to-day basis.

Imagine turning your TV on one day and finding a billion new channels! Try channel surfing that! But that's what we do on the web. We surf, search, follow and "like" our way through new content on a daily basis. The competition for our attention isn't only endless, it's growing!

This means we have to treat web content differently than print content. We have to write for the online audience. Taking into consideration all the things above, we have to know what our goals are and write in a way that enables us to not only get our audience's attention, but to also make sure our content fulfills our intended goals.

Three Major Considerations for Online Content

When writing content for an online audience, there are three primary things we have to consider: search, social and conversions. Content that is designed for any one of these can succeed greatly at the one, but fail spectacularly overall.

Search Engines: Is your content developed with searchers and search engines in mind? If not, then you're losing out on a significant portion of your audience. You need to make sure your content can be found, spidered and that it uses the phrases your audience is using. More on that later in this series.

Social Media: While not all content needs to be social content, social content has the ability to reach a much bigger audience. The question becomes, how do you turn "meh" content into "yay" content that gets passed around the social sphere. We'll look at how to build content that gets noticed as well.

Conversions: Conversions is just another way to say "goals." But on the web, the goal is to get your reader to take some kind of action; to "convert" from a reader to a subscriber, purchaser, communicator or whatever else you need them to do. If you know what your conversion points are, you need to make sure your content does more than inform, but drives each visitor to that point of taking action.

Good content accomplishes all three of these. Not only will it be well-optimized for rankings, but it will also be content that people find valuable enough to pass around their social profiles. On top of that, it'll convert them into customers!

In the next post, we'll look at the goals of online PR and what you want your public relations pieces to achieve on the web.

See all posts in this series:

Part 1: Intro / How Print Audience Differs from Web Audience

Part 2: Goals of Online PR

Part 3: Background Research

Part 4a: Crafting the Story p1

Part 4b: Crafting the Story p2

Part 5: Broadcasting the Message / Conclusion

Follow me at @StoneyD and @PolePositionMkg.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I get completely overwhelmed with the sheer amount of time, energy, and raw hours that go into properly marketing a website online. The thing that gets me the most is that, with SEO and other forms of online marketing, there really is no situation when you can sit back and say "we've arrived." Once you optimizea site, there are still so many things that can be assessed, analyzed, uncovered and corrected that you never really can say, "It's Miller time!"

This is what I envy about web designers. They get to produce a finished work, then go and collect awards for their work. But, online marketing - that's a different ballgame all together. Sure, we can celebrate top rankings, but tomorrow there is another keyword that needs improvement!

Making a Smart Purchasing Decision

Ninety percent of the online marketing services my company provides are based on the amount of time we guesstimate the job will take to get results. There are a few expenditures the clients may have to buy into (directory submission fees, requested analytics tools, etc.), but most of the cost associated with SEO services comes down to determining how many hours are needed on a month-to-month basis.

We look at time needed for researching, writing, analyzing, tweaking, optimizing, communicating, reporting and linking, just to name a few. Sometimes I think it's difficult for clients to fully appreciate the time invested in doing a job properly, especially when they see "less expensive" options floating round. Sure, you can hire some kid down the street to mow your lawn, or you can hire the gardener to take care of your lawn, garden and flowerbeds and to get rid of unwanted rodents, weeds and other pests while making sure everything is properly fertilized and pruned each week. The time difference between the two is substantial.

The problem comes, in SEO at least, when many people are expecting to hire the gardener at lawn mower kid wages. There is just no way the gardener can do their job effectively in the time it takes for the kid to mow the neighbors lawn across the street. Can't happen.

How Much Time Does a (Good) Job Take?

When it comes to purchasing an SEO or SEM strategy for your online business, there are two things to consider: How many hours does it take to meet your expectations, and how much are you willing to pay for each hour that goes into meeting those expectations?

Many SEOs charge a pre-determined package price. That just means they have pre-determined how many hours they will be providing you for their service. If you purchase an SEO package for $3000 per month, you can get anywhere from 30 hours ($100/hour) to 10 hours ($300/hour). The question you have to ask yourself is - can the $100/hour guy get the same results as the $300/hour team?

If you can confidently say yes, then maybe that's your guy. If not, maybe you need to consider the more "expensive" option. But we all know, cheap and ineffective usually turns out to cost a lot more than the expensive option that gets results!

Ten hours per month on SEO or SEM doesn't seem like much, but in the right hands, a lot can be accomplished. Here is a simple breakdown of what I would consider the average, high-quality SEO campaign:

• Site Architecture and Site-Wide SEO: five to 10 hours needed at the onset to analyze the initial site architectural problems and create a concatenation schema to make all pages "search engine friendly."



• Keyword Research: initially, up to five hours to research the site's core terms, determine which pages/keywords are a top priority for optimization and create an optimization plan moving forward. An additional 30-60 minutes of keyword research can go into each specific page being optimized.



• On-Page Optimization: one to two hours per page to optimize keywords into the text, streamline the code (if necessary) and implement onto the site.



• SEO Maintenance: two to four hours each month to review past optimization efforts and implement tweaks and changes designed to improve site performance. This also includes reviewing site usability and conversion issues.



• Link Building/Social Media: five to six hours each month, at a minimum. New or competitive sites can, and often do, need much stronger link building or social media campaigns.



• Analytics and Testing: three to five hours per month. No SEO campaign is complete without some way to analyze the overall performance of the optimization, usability and conversion improvement efforts that are being invested. The better the analysis, the more hours that must be invested.

That's the key question. If you're looking solely at pricing and not factoring in the actual work, you're bound to make a bad purchasing decision. The real question is, will the price you're paying (or willing to pay) give you the ROI you need to make a profit? It's probably not a good idea to purchase SEO until you can answer that question affirmatively.

Stay tuned. In my next post, I'll discuss your options for hiring in-house vs. outsourcing, and making sure you're spending your SEO budget wisely in an uncertain economy.

Follow me at @StoneyD and @PolePositionMkg.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Over the years, I've come to realize I'm not a very good sales person. I'm not good at self promotion or pushing the hard-sell techniques that "convert" leads into customers. Despite all that, I have been my company's best (and only) sales person over the past 12 years.

I've tried to hire sales people in the past, but it has never turned out well. It seems that I know our products and service far better than anyone else can learn them.

I'm knee deep in this stuff. I'm not just giving lip-service to what we do; I live it. I experience it every day, in the trenches with our clients, overseeing their campaigns.

I love my project management role, but I've never felt entirely comfortable with the sales role that I also play. Over the years, though, I've gotten better at it. But, every once in a while, I still find myself getting off a call thinking "Oh, I should have....!" I'm still not a natural.

The Availability of Persuasion

What I find most interesting is that I am in the same position as many of our clients. That is, I can't rely on our SEO, Social Media and PPC strategies to convert customers. They play a role in bringing people to the door and starting the conversation, but where the SEO stops, the persuasion has to begin.

If you're not available to your customers, then there is really no opportunity to persuade them. You can't rely (totally) on your website, your content or your shopping cart to do the job. When running an online business, people still want to feel connected. And, to make that connection, you have to be available for one to be made, should the customer so choose.

You can't persuade a customer who can't reach you. When your phone rings, does it get answered? By a real person?

If a customer sends an email, does it get a reply? Promptly?

Being available to persuade is critical to the persuasion process. This isn't just sales, this is customer building. It's making sure your potential customers know they can turn to you to get their questions answered, their fears eased and their desires pampered.

You might be surprised what a prompt response can do. If I'm looking at products or services provided by two different companies, more times than not, I go with the company with the quicker response time. This has borne out on the other end as well. I can't count the number of new client's I've gotten because I responded quickly to an inquiry. Sometimes we even get a contract signed before another SEO company even returned the prospect's call or email!

The Conversation of Persuasion

I know that high pressure sales work. If it didn't, there wouldn't be so many people out there putting the screws to potential customers. But, I think one of the values of social media is that it has turned the sales process on its ear. Instead of a convert-at-all-cost mindset, we now have a converse-at-all-cost mentality. A "this isn't right for me" today can often turn into a "this is exactly what I need" tomorrow, but only if you're actively engaged in the online conversation.

Through that conversation, you can often keep a more honest dialogue going than if you're pushing for the sale. The conversation can allow you more opportunity to explain how your offering is different from your competitor's. Or to discuss your philosophy and how it translates into quality. Or who your team is and the experience they bring to the table. Or... well, anything, really. The point is, if you are engaged in a conversation, things like this occur naturally.

Your Social Media efforts and your website are the starting points for the conversation process. If you are not using them effectively for this, there isn't much chance of keeping the conversation going.

The Honesty in Persuasion

I have a strict "No BS" policy. This can make sales difficult, because I don't tell potential clients what they want to hear, but I tell them the truth about what they can expect. I don't make promises that can't be kept, and I let them know, up front, what the situation is going to look like. It's all about setting proper expectations.

Actually, if I'm going to be "dishonest," I'm going to err on the side of caution. Basically, go by The Scotty Principle. I would rather under-promise and over-deliver than the reverse.

In my "No BS" approach, I always try to present my clients and potential clients with likely and worst-case scenarios. I try to make sure they fully understand that the process of optimization is not a short-term, quick fix solution, but a long-term investment. I've probably lost quite a bit of business over the years by taking this approach, but a happy client is much better to work with than an angry one.

Following Through to Persuasion

Follow through and conversations go hand-in-hand. If you have or are establishing a relationship, following up and continuing the conversation is natural. And, as much as possible, try to follow that conversation to the conversion. It might take days, weeks or even months, but the relationship is worth the time and effort.

Whenever I send out a proposal to a new prospect, I let them know that I'll be calling again in a few days to follow up and answer any questions they may have. That gives them a chance to read our proposal and be ready with questions. This keeps the conversation and the conversion moving forward.

There is a lot more that goes into any persuasion process, but these are a few key points to consider first. The goal is to have a seamless persuasion process that starts with your SEO, PPC and Social Media campaigns; melds perfectly into your website persuasion and conversion process; and carries over into the off-line conversations that potential clients need to have before they pull the trigger.

SEO can only take you so far in achieving new business. In fact, it can really only get people in the door and help with the online persuasion process. But, you still have to do the heavy lifting, making sure your site meets visitor expectations, gives them the information they are looking for and walks them to the conversion goals.

Follow me: @StoneyD and @PolePositionMkg

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

For a lot of people, running a business is about making money. But, for me there is so much more to running my company than that. Sure, I love the opportunity to create profits, but I also love that I can do what I love, set my own schedule, and work with some of the best people in the industry.

I also enjoy trying to build the very best business possible. I want to see my clients succeed. I always tell them, it's in our best interest that the work we do for them is profitable. If it isn't, we lose a client!

As a manager, I want to see my team succeed. I want to give them the opportunity to build their strengths, and explore new areas, all while trying to create an environment where they do not dread coming to work on Monday morning.

Very few people are an island amongst themselves, and even fewer have succeeded solely on their own. I admire many of the sole practitioners in the SEO industry, but frankly, I don't understand how they do it. It is a very difficult role to be an expert in SEO, link building, copywriting, analytics, PPC, social media, conversion analysis and coding all at once. Not to mention the time spent blogging, reporting, reading, analyzing, testing, and keeping up with the latest industry changes. That sounds like several full-time jobs to me, so kudos to those that can do it all!

I figure they either have more hours in the day than I do, or they are getting paid an hourly rate which I have yet to attain!

But, the job I particularly enjoy is the role of Project/Client Manager. As much as I love everything about SEO, I love running the business even more. As our company has grown, it's taking quite a bit of an effort for me to let go of the old jobs and delegate those responsibilities to others. But, I can't do it all. This, after all, is the purpose of having a team.

A Cord of Three Strands is Not Quickly Broken

D.L. Moody once said, "You can do the work of ten men, or get ten men to do the work." For a business owner, doing the work of ten men yourself has its advantages. It puts more money in your pocket while also building feelings of pride and self-accomplishment. You have no one to blame for mistakes, and you can make sure the job gets done right the first time.

The gains with such a do-it-all-yourself mentality can be substantial. But, what you lose is often far more valuable than what you gain.

I used to not mind working 10-12 hours a day, but over the past couple of years, I realized that I wasn't leaving much time for my kids. Not as much time as they would have liked, anyway.

Several years ago I talked to a very successful business woman about her company. She told me that she decided early on that she was not going to work more than eight hours in a day. Today she flies all over the country and performs seminars for business owners looking to capitalize on their wealth, but is still determined to keep her workload to something that can be managed in those 40 hours each week.

This flies in the face of the mentality of most small business owners, including mine at that time. We're told that you have to put in 50-80 hour work weeks in order to succeed. Maybe this is true for a lot of small businesses, but unfortunately, once most start down that path, they find it hard to slow down and start delegating responsibilities. This, I believe, hinders their growth potential and leads to stress, burnout, and, in many cases, a lot of problems in their personal lives.

I think the goal of any business owner should be to grow their business to the point where the business operates effectively without their involvement. The owner continues collect a paycheck from their investment, while doing very little of the ongoing work.

I know this is my goal, at least.

That means that I have to focus more on growing the company and less on doing the work of the company. I make it a point to find good people that know (or can learn) more than I do about key service areas we offer. I might be able to be really good at any number of things, but I can't be an expert in all of them. So I'll find someone who is.

Learning the Art of Delegation

I never read the book Robin Hood, but years ago a friend of mine who did told me something interesting about the story. Robin would never let anyone into his gang that couldn't beat him in a fight. If Robin could kick their butt, they were out. But, if they could kick his, then they were welcomed in.

I try to use that same principle with my business. I want to hire people who do (or are capable of) knowing their area of expertise better than I do. Hiring this way ensures I get quality people and I have less to worry about when delegating responsibilities to them.

Unfortunately, too many business owners and managers are unable--or unwilling--to delegate responsibilities, despite the fact that this often holds them back from greater success.

There are four main reasons people don't delegate:

Fear of losing authority

One of the greatest fears managers and bosses have is that their employees may end up knowing more about something than they do. Once this happens, they fear, the employee will leave the job for greener pastures, demand more pay, or worse, take their job title from them.

Poor managers combat this by holding on to certain jobs and over burdening themselves with busy work that would best be handled by someone else. By being fearful of losing position, or power, the inadvertent result is a sabotaging of the business.

Delegation requires trusting others to make important decisions and allowing them to gain the knowledge and the skills necessary to do that without your input. That can be a scary thing.

Fear of work being done poorly

It's often very true that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. But at the same time, if you don't want to have to do everything yourself, you've got to delegate tasks to others.

Will they ever fail? Yes. Will they cause delays, loss of money, and even lose a client or two? There is certainly that risk. But, there is no reward without a bit of risk attached. Properly implemented delegation can take small risks and turn them into far greater rewards.

Fear of work being done better

Pride can be a very strong inhibitor to doing the right thing. Smart business people surround themselves with people that have potential to shine, and help them achieve greatness!

While he was president, Ronald Reagan had a plaque in the oval office that read, "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." People in leadership positions often want the credit for their leadership capabilities. However, delegating means that somebody else might be recognized for a job well done that you may have had a strategic hand in.

You can see that as someone else taking credit away from you, or see it as a credit to yourself for helping this person get such accolades. Instead of being afraid that someone below you will get rewarded for a job well done, you can take credit for finding, training, and building a team that is extraordinary.

If you're worried about losing your position, then chances are you're not doing what you need to do to keep it.

Unwillingness to take the necessary time

I'm a very task-oriented person. I know what needs to be done, know how to do it and can do it faster than anybody else I know. (I'm humble, too!) That means I have little patience when others I've delegated tasks to are not as quick as I am.

Therein lies the difficulty in delegating. You usually only do it when you can't handle the workload any more and, by that time, you're so swamped you don't have the time to bring someone new up to speed.

But, this is also why delegating early is so important. By delegating, each task may take more time individually, but collectively you get a lot more done in the same amount of time. Doing the work of ten men may seem noble, and give you a nice boost in pride, but it's been said that nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they had spent more time at work!

Whether you're running an online business, are a marketing manager or perhaps managing an SEO firm, delegating your SEO responsibilities isn't just about freeing up your time to do more things outside of work (clearly a benefit), it's also about freeing up your time at work to be the brains rather than the brawn. Letting others do the "important" operational tasks frees you up to provide more oversight, develop new ideas and make your company more profitable.

Theodore Roosevelt said, "The best leader is the one who has a sense to pick good people to do what he or she wants done, and enough self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it." Good SEO delegation creates a business far greater than the sum of its parts.

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If this scenario is true its because Google determined website #2 to be less likely to result in a conversion. So, they discounted the cost per click to advertise on website 2 to make up for this. But, as you can see, you are performing relatively well on this site because they've discounted your price enough to make your cost per conversion 25% lower than website 1 despite your lower conversion rate. Therefore, website 2 is working better for you despite the lower conversion rate. So, you can see how smart pricing changes the game and make cost per conversion your most important metric.

Once you run a Placement Performance Report, you will have data that you can use to make decisions about your ad's exposure. You will find sites that are both performing well and not performing well for your campaigns. If you want to block your ads from being shown on specific sites, you can use the Site and Category Exclusion Tool within your AdWords account to block these sites.

With the sites that are performing well, you may want to have more control over your bidding and targeting flexibility with them. In this case, you can take that placement and use it in a Placement Targeted Campaign, which we will talk about in my next post.

Here are some ways that you can block your ads from being shown to specific web traffic using this tool:

1. Blocking Domains - You can block top-level domains, subdomains and directories. Blocking one doesn't block the others, so you will need to enter them separately.

2. Undesirable Content - There are six types of content that you can block if you are concerned about brand protection.

3. Video Sites - You can block your ads from being shown as content ads within video.

4. Page Types:

a. Error Pages - these are displayed when a page does not exist. If someone attempts to navigate to a domain that does not exist, a page can be shown that has ads based on the mistyped URL instead of a "not found" error page.

b. Parked Domains - These domains are owned, but they have never been developed. So, all you see is ads when you navigate to these pages. This traffic comes from users mistyping a URL or using a domain name that does not exist.

c. User-generated sites - forums, image-sharing sites, social networks, video-sharing sites

In my next post, we'll take a look at targeting specific sites on the Display Network that you find through your gathered data and/or through a little research to take your online business to new heights...

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One of the most important things business owners often fail to do is to make their website remarkable. It really doesn't matter what industry you're in or how many other websites you're competing against, making your site stand out from the pack is absolutely essential.

Take the movie Avatar.

Plot: Tired.

Story: Been there, done that.

Acting and directing: Nothing special.

Special affects: Absolutely outstanding.

Worthy of a "Best Picture" nomination: Not by a long shot.

Worthy of a "Best Special Affects" Oscar: Without a doubt.

So, how is it that a story we have all seen played out in 100 different movies and "message" Star Trek episodes turns into one of the most popular movies of all time? It's because James Cameron took a great heaping pile of "Meh.", and made it all, "Oooh, shiny!". It's uniqueness overshadowed the complete and total hollowness of everything else on the screen.

A lot of business owners out there feel that their business is just the same old, same old. Nothing special there. But in reality, they can take what they are doing and turn it into something remarkable. And the easiest way to do that is through the content.

A vast majority of internet searches are informational. That means people are not looking for your products or services, they are looking for information about them. They want to learn something new. And, you can be the one to give it to them.

The key to creating unique content that searchers are looking for is keyword research. Let your keyword research become your idea generator for blog posts, articles, e-books, and whatever else strikes your fancy.

When perusing your keyword research here are a few things to look for:

Easy to Rank Phrases: When looking for good traffic, you can always start with phrases that have little or no competition. Find queries that match what you provide that others have not yet optimized for. This gives you a chance to build up some rankings and traffic for good (yet lower traffic) phrases. You can immediately start siphoning off traffic from your competitors and start building a loyal audience that will keep coming back.

Niche Areas: Look for an area within your industry that your competitors are not covering or not covering very well. Find obscure topics that people are interested in, but, after conducting a few searches of your own, show that the available content on the web isn't sufficient. This creates an opportunity for you to fill in the gaps and create authoritative information of your own.

Highly Targeted Phrases: These are long-tail phrases that are very targeted for your audience, addressing specific areas of interest. Highly targeted phrases are generally pretty easy to get ranked but they also bring in an audience that has a very specific need. Write information that targets these searchers by providing new information, a new spin, a new take on, or a new way of looking at things.

Info Queries: These often fit into the categories above, but are queries performed by people looking for information and nothing else. They are typically the queries with a question that answers questions, such as "how to..." or "what is...". These queries provide a great opportunity to provide content beyond simple text. "How to" videos, diagrams, flash animations, and podcasts are all great ways to provide this type of content in a way that people find valuable. Telling someone how to do something is great, but showing them how to do it is even better.

Just because you are providing a product or service that someone else is, that doesn't mean you have to provide content that someone else has. There are plenty of ways to step outside of the box and provide valuable information that nobody else is providing. Look for these opportunities, and take advantage of them . . . before someone else does.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx's Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert's Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for "inconceivable content" on this blog to find them all.

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Finding keywords is easy. Finding the right keywords, organizing them into optimizable groups, and determining where and how they get optimized into the site is another story all together. Generally, keyword research is done at the hands of the SEO. Taking those keywords and integrating them into the content is the job of the Copywriter.

Under most circumstances, you want defer to the person who has the strongest skills for each particular task. Let the SEO determine which keywords are best, and let the Copywriter work them into the page. But, when it comes to actually deciding which chosen keywords make it into any particular body of content, the Copywriter needs to have final say.

The SEO often chooses keywords based on things like popularity, importance, and ability to convert. All very important factors, and very likely the keywords that the site needs for optimization. But, sometimes keywords are chosen incorrectly. Sometimes the keyword selection process is circumvented by someone else. Perhaps a boss has a "pet" keyword they want to rank for because they said so. Don't laugh, it happens.

One of the most common ways to choose a keyword incorrectly is based on competitor usage. While you may want to analyze your competition to see what keywords they are targeting as part of their SEO efforts, you don't want to automatically use a phrase or keyword that they did, just because they did.

I've seen this time and time again. A client says, "We need to rank for "x" because my competitor is." A little research will show that this particular phrase gets little to no search volume, but none of that matters to the client. Getting good rankings for that keyword may work, but there may be others that would work better. So, is it worth taking the focus off of other keywords that are likely to be more effective to focus on others just because a competitor is using them? The answer is no, it's not.

Choosing single-word terms is tempting due to the search volume those terms have. Clients often choose these words on that basis alone. Single-word terms are not only difficult to rank for, they generally produce very poor conversions as well. Still, they are tempting targets for business owners who see dollar signs in every potential visit. But, instead of creating dollars, these keywords steal profits away through efforts that are better invested in other places.

I mentioned above that the ultimate decision of a keyword being worked into the page should be that of the Copywriter. Sometimes a keyword can hit all the right criteria, but when it comes to actually working it into the content, it simply doesn't work. This can be for any number of issues, such as it containing a poor qualifier (which depicts a benefit that isn't offered), or it's simply an industry term that just isn't a match for the rest of the user-focused content.

The Copywriter's job isn't to force every keyword given to them into the page. Their job is to make sure the keywords they are given do work and to leave out those that don't.

The Copywriter might have to do some research of their own, looking at the products, features, benefits, term definitions, etc. If, when all is said and done, the keyword doesn't work on a page, it needs to be deconsidered. (Ooh, new word... I like it!) The Copywriter may have to pull rank and tell the SEO and/or the site owner what's what.

The key here is that the keyword research process doesn't end with the SEO. It needs to continue all the way through to the copywriting process. Don't let the keyword selection and optimization process be derailed by people picking keywords for all the wrong reasons. Make sure all of your targeted terms work on all levels before demanding they get used on the page.

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