The SEO company will put on a webinar every day from March 22-25, covering the gamut of SEO services.

SALT LAKE CITY – March Madness usually brings images of basketballs, full stadiums, raucous crowds, and athletes cutting down nets. Now, it could also be synonymous with online marketing.

For the second straight year, SEO.com is hosting its own March Madness: a daily webinar from March 22-25, that will cover everything needed to help boost your website’s search engine rankings, increase your presence on social media, drive paying traffic, and how to convert that traffic into sales. Too sign up, go here http://www.seo.com/march-madness-webinar-week/

“Last year we hosted a one-day workshop in our office,” said Ash Buckles, president of the SEO firm. “This year we’ve made it bigger and better. It will be available to more people through an online webinar, and we’ll have something for everyone, every day.”

The March Madness Webinar Week will include six presenters covering four topics:

• Greg Shuey, vice president of SEO.com. He will cover “Link Building in Real Time”
• Claye Stokes, director of SEO. He will cover “SEO’s Role in the Evolution of Advertising”
• Scott Cowley, SEO manager. He will discuss “Learn to SEO Your Blog Like a Pro”
• Boyd Norwood, director of SEO. He will cover “Life After the Farmer Update”

What: SEO.com March Madness Webinar Week
When: March 22-25, every day from 9-10 a.m. MTN time.
Where: http://www.seo.com/march-madness-webinar-week/
Topics: Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Link Building, Advertising, Content Marketing
Cost: It’s free, but to attend, you must fill out the form here.

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search engine optimization company that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.

SEO.com Hosts March Madness Webinar Week is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Key partnerships, record sales and high retention rate enabled the SEO company to double its revenue, double its clients, and more than double its staff.

SALT LAKE CITY – Ash Buckles settled in to his desk at SEO.com, opened up his laptop and discovered a spreadsheet with an ever-growing list of clients; nearly twice as much as the year before.

“To experience this level of growth during hard economic times, we’re very grateful and optimistic about the coming year,” said Buckles, the president of SEO.com.

In 2010, SEO.com helped propel 5,755 client keywords to the first page of Google, which delivered a return on investment for those clients of more than 1,000 percent. Client retention is currently above 90 percent.

“Those stats are the reason for our success,” Buckles said. “We’re thrilled to provide our clients SEO services that get top search engine rankings, increases traffic and provides a big return so they can grow their companies.”

In the last six months, SEO.com may have experienced its biggest success, including its highest client retention rate, its highest sales months, and the most profitable months in the company’s four-year history. SEO.com also received various awards, including being named to the Mountain West Emerging Eight and the Utah Business Emerging Elite.

“We’ve hired so much new talent that our staff meetings have become standing room only,” Buckles said.

SEO.com added 65 new employees in 2010. To accommodate the growth, the SEO company installed 64 cubicles, added 71 chairs, 73 monitors, 76 laptops, 65 keyboards and mouses, one microwave, one ping pong table, 1,000 garbage liners, 84 paper towel rolls, and 720 toilet paper rolls (about 29 miles worth of toilet paper).

“That adds up to nearly 10,000 pounds,” said Rod Lee, SEO.com vice president of finance. “It’s about the total weight of an elephant.”

If SEO.com continues this pace, it will be shopping for a larger office this year, which would be about a year ahead of the management’s predictions.

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search engine optimization firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit http://www.seo.com/

SEO.com Adds Combined Weight of an Elephant [infographic] is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Nose hair waxing. Oh, the pain.

As all true Internet marketers should be, we care about how we look and we do something about it. We won’t sit idly by and let the long hours in front of a computer turn us into grotesque creatures. To be good at our jobs, we have to be beautiful on the inside and out. We understand that. Our clients appreciate it. Our coworkers appreciate it. Our wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends appreciate it.

And appreciation makes for happy and hard-working SEO Champions. An example of our dedication to personal beauty:

The Ultimate Nose Hair Waxing Event 2011 (Video) is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

SALT LAKE CITY – Former Vice President Ash Buckles took over as president of SEO.com on Monday, while President Nelson James assumed a senior advisory position.

“SEO.com experienced tremendous growth over the last year,” said Mike Mann, CEO of SEO.com. “Ash’s new role will ensure we continue to provide our clients with world-class services and surpass the growth we’ve already undergone.”

As the vice president, Ash managed the entire search engine optimization team, led strategy for clients, and helped SEO.com’s clients achieve an average ROI of more than 1,000 percent.

In the last six months, SEO.com experienced its highest client retention rate, had its highest sales months ever, its most profitable months ever, created a successful small business channel, was named to the Mountain West Emerging Elite, the Utah Business Emerging Eight, and received other awards.

“My focus going forward is two-fold,” Buckles said. “First, by increasing our client’s revenue by ensuring top-page rankings in the search engines. Second, by growing our team with talented employees.”

James will stay on as a senior advisor and a part owner of SEO.com, a company he helped start.

“I love this company,” James said. “I have been here since its inception. I saw it grow from two employees to nearly 100, and I’m expecting to continue to contribute to its growth.”

“I want to thank Nelson for his dedication and the role he played in SEO.com’s incredible growth,” Mann said. “With Ash in place, SEO.com will continue as a leader in the Internet marketing industry.”

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search engine optimization company that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit http://www.seo.com/

SEO.com Welcomes New President is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Peter Shankman — the skydiver and PR guy who gained fame by founding HARO (Help a Reporter Out) — spoke in Salt Lake City last week about social media marketing and building trust around a brand. The guy has great ideas that can help any business thrive. Thanks to OrangeSoda for bringing him to town. The highlights:

Content First — Viral Can’t be Forced

Some guarantee viral campaigns. Truth is, nobody can. When it comes to something going viral, you are not in control. Everyone else is.

“If it’s good content, people will read it,” Shankman said. “You cannot make anything go viral. You can make something good and by default it will go viral.”

Of course, information is everywhere trying to grab your attention. Articles, infographics, videos, advertisements, Tweets, status updates and e-mails hit you as soon as you wake up in the morning. How do you get your customers’ attention from millions of daily messages?

“Learn to write,” Shankman said. “Bad writing will destroy America.”

Shankman pays his employees to take writing classes. Bad writing makes you look like an idiot. To stand out, “you just have to be 1 percent smarter than everyone else,” he said.

Transparency

There is no privacy anymore – especially online. You can’t hide. Everything is out in the open; every mistake, every decision, every action, every response, every success. To establish trust around your brand, your company needs to be completely transparent.

“Trust has never been more important,” Shankman said.

Transparency will disarm negative news or discussions. It lets you get in front of any potential crisis or problem before it gets out of control. To establish trust further, “small businesses must push the leaders and the individual personalities of the company.” People trust individuals more than a corporate image.

Relevance

Whether it’s developing a product, creating content, or defining your message, it has to be relevant to your audience.

It’s about “giving exactly what the customer wants when they want it,” Shankman said. To find out what that is, “ask them how they like to get their information. You never control the direction of your company. Figure out where your customers want you to go.”

Often, businesses don’t ask their audience. It’s easy to do, and ensures more of your customers will get what they want when they want it. And it will help you become more relevant to your audience.

Brevity

Be brief.

Shankman said (paraphrasing): The average attention span in the ’80s was about 3.5 minutes, or the length of a MTV video (if you are older than 30, you might remember when MTV actually played music videos). The average attention span today is 140 characters, which relates to about 2.6 seconds.

People are bombarded with messages every day and their time is pulled in various directions. They don’t have much time for length. Keep it short and sweet.

Top of Mind

Shankman says marketing and PR today is about connection and developing real relationships. He uses social media to become top of mind to his customers, so they will think of him first when they need his service. He credits a lot of his consulting work just by connecting with people through social media.

Every morning he opens up Facebook, looks at his followers’ birthdays, and wishes them happy birthday. It’s a small thing but it keeps them thinking of him.

“Eighty-percent of everything you do should be about your audience,” Shankman said. “The only thing you should focus on about yourself is breathing and eating.”

Treat Customers One Level Above Crap

Most people expect to be treated poorly by companies. That gives an advantage to any business.

“Treat customers one level above crap and they will do the PR for you,” Shankman said.

Don’t Put All Your Eggs in the Social Media Basket

Twitter and Facebook may be gone tomorrow. Each social site is just a tool to connect and share a message. That tool could change tomorrow, or be completely gone tomorrow, along with all your followers and fans. Sure there are a lot of people on social media, but social media doesn’t cover near the audience that we think it might. Shankman compared those who are active in social media to those who are text messaging.

“9/11 and American Idol defined the importance of text messaging,” he said. “Ninety-seven percent of people text message, while 4 percent of the country is on Twitter, and only 1 percent of those people are active on Twitter.”

Focus on building relationships and the principles of communication and public relations. Don’t focus entirely on a specific tool.

7 Rules of Social Media and Creating Trust Around Your Brand, via Peter Shankman is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

A growing list of new technologies and trends will join some old standbys to influence search engine rankings and generate more qualified leads and sales.

SALT LAKE CITY — The start of 2011 didn’t ring in shiny new strategies that will shock the online marketing world. However, specific tactics that emerged in 2010 will have a larger affect on the success of 2011 marketing campaigns.

“A lot of what worked in 2010 will carry over,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com. “But we are noticing a few trends that will build better links and produce more qualified leads.”

SEO.com, an SEO firm, identifies the top nine strategies in 2011 (in no particular order):

1. Video Marketing

Boyd Norwood, SEO.com’s director of SEO, has been doing tests on visitors that come from video sites like Youtube, Vimeo and other sites. So far, the results have been surprising.

“The conversion rate of visitors from Youtube was about 20 percent higher than from the search engines,” said Boyd Norwood, director of SEO for SEO.com. “Video will continue to be big in 2011.”

2. Social Impact (Ranking Factor)

2010 was the year social media marketing threw its weight around and affected search rankings. This will likely become more prevalent in the coming year. To increase rankings, SEO specialists will need to understand how to create valuable, shareable content and how to spread the word through various social sites.

“As the search engines put more emphasis on the popularity of links shared through Twitter and Facebook, social media will become a necessary tool for link building,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com

3. Blogging and Guest Blogging

Blogging continues to be an effective tool for thought leadership, link bait, and a way to leverage social media to drive website traffic and leads. Guest blogging benefits both the guest and the host. The host will get fresh content on its site while the guest blogger will received a link from the host. Both sides will be able to use each other’s resources to help share the blog and spread it online. It’s a win-win for both involved.

“Guest blogging will be huge this year,” said Greg Shuey, SEO.com’s director of SEO. “It’s a great way to obtain quality links, and to extend your network.”

4. Conversion Optimization

While this is not technically part of SEO, conversion optimization, the process of turning more visitors into paying customers, will determine the success of any SEO campaign. It will become even more valuable in the coming year as more become aware of the practice that tests different designs, call to actions and other details to find what converts the most website visitors into leads and sales.

“Before, marketers were only concerned with driving more traffic and being content with their conversion rate,” said Josh Summerhays, conversion optimization manager for SEO.com. “Now, some of those marketers are figuring out that it’s cheaper and more effective to tweak their website to get more revenue out of the same amount of traffic.”

“Conversion rate optimization will continue to be a difference maker for companies that embrace it,” said Scott Miller, CEO of Vertster, a company that provides tools to help conversion optimization.

Tim Ash, author and CEO of SiteTuners.com, said in a message over Twitter: “Doing more with less is at the heart of conversion rate optimization and landing page optimization. Landing page efficiency is the new black.”

5. Local Search Marketing

With 90 percent of shoppers searching Google before they head out the door, local Internet marketing and Google Maps are a must for any business trying to get people into their doors.

“Google has almost completely replaced the Yellow Pages as a place where people look for local businesses,” said Lori Gilson, president of PRMarketing.com. “If you’re not on Google maps, you may as well not exist.”

6. Mobile Marketing

With abundant smartphones, apps, widgets, location-based marketing through social media, discounts, coupons, QR codes, image and audio searches, and text message (SMS) marketing, mobile is poised to reach the big time. eMarketer’s “2011 Marketing Trends Survey” says 35 percent of businesses worldwide plan on increasing their mobile marketing spend. Performics projects that mobile search clicks could be greater than 16 percent of all Google search clicks.

“Mobile got big last year. It will get bigger this year. And will be huge the year after,” said Ash Buckles, VP of client services for SEO.com. “Search marketers will need to embrace mobile technology and make their products and websites mobile friendly.”

7. Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

This older Internet marketing strategy is still a key element of search marketing. Pay per click management creates awareness and produces qualified traffic and leads. eMarketer’s survey says 41 percent of companies plan to increase both their search engine optimization and PPC spend in 2011.

“Some of the main benefits of PPC to an overall search marketing strategy is keyword research,” said Todd Julien, president of PurePPC.com. “You can use PPC to help test what keywords deliver the highest quality of traffic to your site, while at the same time giving your business a boost in traffic.”

8. Email Marketing

This old standby has made a strong comeback. eMarketer says 65 percent of businesses plan on increasing spending on e-mail marketing this year, which beats out the forecasted social media spend by 8 percent. Adage also reported that e-mail marketing provides a higher conversion rate than social media.

“E-mail is still a critical tool to drive leads and sales,” James said. “It’s still the best way to remarket to those visitors that you’ve attracted to your site from SEO and PPC.”

9. Content Marketing

Content marketing (e.g. infographics, blog posts, press releases, whitepapers and articles) increases SEO through natural link building, establishes thought leadership, makes companies more interesting on social media, and drives traffic and leads.

“The future of marketing is not buying ad space,” said David Scoville, creative director for PRMarketing.com. “It’s in producing unique and interesting content and stories that attracts visitors and builds your brand. Companies must become journalists and storytellers.”

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a SEO firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization services, pay per click management, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through user-friendly design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.

SEO.com Predicts Top 9 SEO Strategies for 2011 is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

SEO.com releases whitepaper outlining a radical change in marketing spending across the country, and identifies the return on investment for search marketing.

SALT LAKE CITY – In this ever-changing digital age, marketing has made a momentous change. Companies of all sizes are shifting advertising and marketing budgets from traditional strategies to search engine optimization and other forms of online marketing.

“When we look at the numbers out there, it’s very revolutionary,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com. “What used to be the main strategy for marketers has taken a back seat.”

Forrester Research said marketers spent $26 billion in 2010 in Internet marketing, which rivals all spending on cable/satellite TV and radio. Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) said nearly half all companies have decreased spending on traditional areas and are investing more in online marketing.

“We started investing in SEO for the first time this year, and the payoff has been tremendous,” said Sarah Huizingh, marketing manager for Spillman Technologies, a company that specializes in public safety software. Huizingh said Spillman took money out of the print advertising budget to invest in SEO.

Traditional strategies that are taking the biggest hit include print and direct mail. A recent SEMPO survey reported that 49 percent of companies are shifting money from their print advertising budget and putting it toward search engine optimization services, pay per click management and social media marketing. In 2010, 36 percent moved money away from their direct mail budget and 17 to 24 percent of companies made a similar shift away from conferences and exhibits, yellow page ads, and TV and radio ads.

So, what are the reasons for this change in behavior?

“It really comes down to three things,” James said. “Especially in a poor economy, people are looking for marketing solutions that target their demographic better, are highly measurable and show how each spent marketing dollar makes money.”

Strategies like SEO and PPC target customers at the moment they want to buy. Social media has the potential to engage millions of customers. Through analytics, marketers can accurately track where customers come from, how long they stay on a site, what campaigns bring in the most sales and more.

On average, SEO.com clients that have been doing search marketing for six months or more, receive an average return on investment of nearly 2,500 percent – or the equivalent of receiving $25 for every $1 spent.

“Online marketing enables companies to track each spent penny and is proven to deliver a really big ROI,” James said. “It’s probably the biggest reason why more are shifting their marketing budgets. As a result, traditional advertising is getting the leftovers of the marketing budget.”

For more detailed information, images, graphs and statistics about this shift in the marketing world, and the average ROI of 2,500 percent, read the whitepaper “Shift: From Traditional to Online Search Marketing” here: Shift_Whitepaper

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a SEO firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through user-friendly design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.

Why Companies Made Major Marketing Shift in 2010 (free whitepaper) is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

To the chagrin of the rest of the office (and to their respective wives) seven of SEO.com’s best talent kept their upper lips away from the bite of a razor blade through Movember November — except for Christian. He’s the guy on the right with the weak-sauce ‘stache that he had to shave last week for some family photo. Seriously, priorities …

Anyway, the bold and brave souls called on their mustaches to power them for four weeks, and even made it through Thanksgiving without losing a turkey leg inside their grisly, nasty facial hair.

Nathan Blair (second photo down) won the Movember contest with his oily black handle bars. Cheers to you Nathan Blair, mustaches around the world are proud.

Few Brave SEOs Conquered 'Movember' is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Did you hear about the professor who lost 27 pounds eating Twinkies? It’s a prime example of how to create your own message that will resonate with the public, and how to better leverage your search marketing campaigns.

Here’s the basic rundown if you haven’t seen it:
Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State, lost 27 pounds and lowered his cholesterol by eating Twinkies and other junk food.

In just a couple days after this story broke out, it hit almost every big publication. Do a search right now on just “Twinkie” and you’ll find first page results on the guy losing weight.

A search for “Twinkie diet” gets 131,000 results. Search for “Mark Haub” and his Twinkie binge is all over the search engines. And the story is going viral all over Facebook and Twitter, too.

So what is it about this story that makes it resonate and stick with audiences everywhere? And how can we similarly create stories about our companies that can have similar effect? I’m sure this is big for Hostess and its Twinkies.

If you’ve read the book “Made to Stick” you’ll understand where I’m going. The Twinkie story fits each of the six ingredients that make an idea resonate. The acronym is SUCCES:

Simplicity

The message is very simple: You can lose weight by eating Twinkies. This is the core of the idea. Each marketing message should similarly communicate the basic idea so it’s easily understood.

Unexpected

The results of the Twinkie diet are extremely unexpected. Losing weight and lowering cholesterol by eating Twinkies? Nobody would believe that. This is probably the biggest reason this story has quickly reached a huge audience.

Concrete

This is about understanding, remembering and applying. If a CEO were to write the Twinkie story, he may have written it like: “Hostess Twinkies cultivated distributed portals and synergized integrated, turn-key schemas, and as a result, an industry-leading professor hit a benchmark of his mission-critical success and at the convergence lost 27 pounds.”

Instead, the story is: Professor loses 27 pounds by eating Twinkies. It’s more concrete and understandable. Strip down the corporate speak and leave a concrete message.

Credible

When talking about eating and losing weight, what’s more credible than a professor of human nutrition? What if it was a student instead? It would probably still be a sticky message, but not near as successful as a nutrition professor.

Emotional

Losing weight and improving health is near and dear to almost every one of us. And everyone would love to eat junk food if it wasn’t as bad for us. This story combines these things magically. Finally, I can eat Twinkies and be healthy! While that’s really not what the good professor recommends in the story, that’s the emotional tug that keeps us interested.

Stories

Stories by themselves are concrete and have emotional and unexpected elements. This is a story about an educated man losing weight in a surprising way. If it was just about the numbers of how you can lose weight by eating Twinkies and avoiding going over a certain calorie limit, then it wouldn’t have near the effect of telling a story about an individual doing it.

SEO, PPC, social media and all that stuff gets a customer to the door. But what really makes it all work is having a good foundation behind the marketing – a story or message that sticks. So, remember the Twinkie Diet when you’re creating your next marketing message.

Use 'Twinkie Diet' Example to Make Your Marketing Messages Stick is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

The MountainWest Capital Network named the SEO company among the top 8 Emerging Elite companies in the state of Utah for the second year in a row. SEO.com also helped 10 other companies in the Utah Top 100 grow their business

SALT LAKE CITY – For the second straight year, the MountainWest Capital Network named SEO.com as an Emerging Elite company in the Utah Top 100, an event honoring top Utah businesses.

“We hope to keep making other companies more money online,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com. “If we do that, we’ll keep growing, and maybe in a couple years be able to make the jump from the Emerging Elite to the Utah 100.”

This year’s Emerging Elite selected 15 companies less than five years old. Each organization was judged on its increase in revenue and potential for future success. The Utah 100 was determined by the percentage of revenue increase from 2005 through 2009.

SEO.com provided services or partnered with 10 other companies that made the Utah 100 list this year. Some of them include Extra Space Storage Inc., LatterDayBride & Prom, MasterControl Inc., Mindshare Technologies, Myriad Gnetics Inc., Nelson Laboratories, ProPay Inc., SolutionStream and Snapp Conner PR.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert addressed the Utah Top 100 crowd that gathered in the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. He referenced recent accolades the state has gained, including being ranked No. 1 for business and growth, and named as the “fiscally fittest state” by Forbes.

“Your success is why we are being recognized nationally,” Herbert said. “We are on the right track. I am very optimistic about our future. Thank you for your hard work, dedication and vision.”

The second Emerging Elite award comes after the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum named SEO.com the sixth fastest growing company in the state. In 2010, SEO.com has hired 45 employees and has nearly doubled its monthly revenue.

About MountainWest Capital Network
Founded in Salt Lake City in 1983, the objective of the MountainWest Capital Network – the real Deal Network – is to support entrepreneurial success and enable business growth by fostering the dynamic flow of information about capital formation and distribution, educating and mentoring excellence, recognizing and rewarding business success and performance, and fostering synergistic relationships through networking. MWCN has provided the Deal Flow Report since 1995.

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search marketing firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click management, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through user-friendly design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit http://www.seo.com/

SEO.com Grabs Emerging Elite Award for Second-Straight Year is a post by SEO expert Dan Bischoff. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.