**This article outlines a personal experience with a client, leading them from search marketing success into social media and word of mouth marketing. To respect their privacy, I will only refer to them as 'The Client'.**

Five years ago, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising were only beginning to take shape as legitimate lead generation and marketing strategies. At the time, SEO and PPC were cutting edge marketing strategies - many brands and companies had heard the buzz surrounding SEO and PPC, but were unable to pinpoint strategy or purpose behind it.

Today, SEO and PPC have evolved into common marketing strategies for brands to place their marketing budget. Companies understand the huge opportunities that exist within search marketing for return on investment. Social media, conversely, exists much like SEO and PPC did five years ago. Companies and brands are keen to explore the social media space, but are often unable to define social media marketing success or execute a defined strategy.

Within our niche in the industry, we execute both search marketing and social media marketing for clients. As such, there exists a unique opportunity to take learnings and success from search marketing efforts and transition into the social media space. This is what happened with an opportunistic client of ours.

We were initially hired to restructure The Client's AdWords account and increase conversion volume. They had managed their PPC efforts internally, and reached out to us to take their account to the next level. After much research and testing, we were able to determine what converted within their account - what calls to action best resonated with users, what keywords and themes were most effective, and what landing page variations were most conducive to converting. We branched out their PPC efforts into Yahoo! and Bing with continued success. Eventually, The Client began asking, "what next?" - their PPC accounts were converting in record numbers at the lowest cost per conversion yet.

Moving forward, we thoroughly researched The Client and their presence online and saw a huge opportunity for them to improve their organic search rankings. Therefore, our next step in their overall strategy was an SEO overhaul. We were able to construct an SEO blueprint based upon their PCC successes and laid out a clear strategy with actionable goals. This SEO strategy is still being executed, but we have already seen important gains in organic search results for several search terms. Recently, The Client again asked "what next?" with their sights set on entering into the space of social media.

The next phase in the overall strategy for The Client was taking the business intelligence learned from successful PPC and SEO implementation and applying it into the space of social media. Sometimes, depending on what industry you are looking to engage with, simply setting up a Facebook page or a Twitter handle is not a priority for a client. After all, you cannot fit a square peg into a round hole. With The Client being in a niche industry, there simply was not enough chatter or interest on Facebook or Twitter to warrant developing a strategy. Therefore, we researched alternative, more relevant opportunities in the social media space for The Client to engage with.

After meeting with key stakeholders and discussing goals, we were able to conclude that the next logical step was for The Client to begin a blog. A blog strategy presented the best opportunity to base conversation in the social media space around learnings from search marketing. Why? Because through search marketing, we are able to pinpoint what inspires potential customers to engage with the company. The Client will be able to create engaging conversations based around these learnings through a blog. They will be able to reach their target audience, reach industry influencers who act as information-hungry word of mouth propellers, as well as comment on other niche blogs, message boards and forums.

As it was with search marketing five years ago, social media marketing today poses a conundrum for brands - they realize that they should probably participate in the space, but are unclear how to enter in and achieve success. For a company like The Client, calculated steps and a logical progression from search engine marketing to social media marketing proved to be the best strategy. The calls to action that have worked best through SEO and PPC now act as a road map for content creation we know will be relevant to prospects, customers and influencers in the social media space.

Has anyone else had success transitioning learnings from search engine marketing into social media? Have any questions or comments? Leave them here!

Why is this valuable? In a nutshell, using Google's Webmaster Tools is a basic but important part of optimizing your website for high search visibility. Not only do you gain insight to how Google crawls your pages, but also how search queries are driving traffic.

All of our Seach Visibility clients have a Google Webmaster account we access through a central location. Giving hosting customers a direct way to do this through an area where they already administer email, stats and other functions was a smart move by GoDaddy.

We get into the link building conversation quite frequently as it is still a major factor in how Google ranks a website, BUT and it's a big BUT, we don't like anything that has to do with a link exchange, buying links or any auto-generated link building programs.

Our advice is simple: get active in publishing great content (blogging, podcasting, syndicating press rooms), syndicate your content through RSS, track the conversation online, post comments on other's blogs and actively participate in discussion groups.

I will admit, when I first came across this post, I was a bit skeptical. The first items listed were ones that I've seen ad nauseum on many other sites such as "write well" and "be an expert". While those are indeed important things to have in order to create and maintain a successful site, I wonder how many people out there think "I'll just write really poorly about things on which I have little interest and even less expert knowledge"? But then, in a stroke of refreshing originality when it comes to such lists, author Tony Hung goes above and beyond the other lists I've seen. He starts with the obvious, which are indeed important and a good foundation for success, and builds upon it with many, many (40 total!) other suggestions--a good number of which I haven't seen on other such lists.

Among his many suggestions, some of them require a bit of work on your part--such as doing research to be the first to break those big news stories. The payoff for accomplishing this task is huge, however; if you are the first, you have a good chance of being linked to by those coveted A-list bloggers. I also like his suggestions to interview other bloggers, invite guest bloggers, participate in contests, create your own giveaways, and make social networking work for you.

Mr. Hung goes into greater depth than I will here, so if the above sounds interesting (and it should--there is ALWAYS something more you can do to increase blog quality and traffic), I urge you to check out his post and take advantage of as many of his suggestions as are applicable/feasible. I think the biggest thing to take away from how-to articles of this sort is that persistence pays off. If you take the time and make the effort to better your blog, it will show. It's easy to say and not as simple to do, but success must be earned, and your readers will know if you take pride in maintaining a great site.

This list will undoubtedly prove useful for anyone looking to start tracking the latest online marketing buzz or simply to augment their own lists with a few hidden gems. I'm not telling you to download the OPML simply because our Capture the Conversation blog made the list (although it did), but because by providing this list, Lee has made a great contribution to the online community.

If you find the list to be overwhelming in terms of information overload, you can take Lee's suggestion and import the file and then weed out blogs that aren't as relevant for you. It's a whole lot easier to filter out what you don't want than it is to search for some of the lesser-known blogs on these topics.

1. Having a keyword in your domain is critical, but don't overload it. (We also like to incorporate keywords in each page url when possible.)
2. The age of the site is very important to the search engine algorithms. Older is better, unless you are a new site that can generate a lot of buzz.
3. Consistent and simple source code is important so search bots can easily crawl through your site, grab a few keywords and index them.
4. A good amount of quality content is very important, especially for new sites without a lot of inbound links.
5. Make sure you have good copy on your homepage. A lot of companies just want cool looking graphics but having quality content and keywords on the homepage is critical.
6. Look at page cache trends and know when Google last cached your site so when you make SEO changes you can monitor the results.
7. Experiment with title tags, place keywords toward the beginning of title tag, then the company name, then try without the company name and see what happens to your rankings.
8. The meta description formula - 1 or 2 keywords + company name + a sentence on why you are so great = all you need.

While much of the above list deals with on-page SEO techniques, it is important to include off page SEO as well, such a link building. In fact, there is currently a lot of debate around the importance of inbound links versus website content. The consensus seems to be that with the current search engine algorithms, quality inbound links are equal or more important in determining rankings. A good article marketing strategy is a great way to help generate these important links.

In our experience working with companies trying to improve their web site experience, we find that only about 10 percent of their website gets updated on a frequent basis, and a majority of the time those updates are made in the press room area.

So one of the first recommendations we make is to get that press room working for them. Crank up the RSS feed and start syndicating. You can't expect people to remember to periodically come to your website and scan through the pages to see if there's any new information. And it would be naive if you think your press contacts are habitually combing your press room for new info.

Since a syndicating press room is built on a blog platform, every time new information is posted into the press room, it syndicates through an RSS feed which pings the search engines and notifying feed subscribers of new content. So it serves a dual purpose of driving search visibility and notifying your followers of new content.

There have been instances of "pure bliss response" when our clients have let their press contacts know that they now have an RSS feed and will take them off the email distribution list. Making your press contacts happy and keeping them current goes a long way.

Now, to say that this is free, is assuming that you have the skill sets internally to design and develop the syndicating press room on a blog platform. If you're seeking a do-it-yourself approach we recommend MovableType and WordPress as blog platforms.

What does a syndicating press room look like? Here are some samples of news rooms we have customized on blog platforms:
http://www.quistfinancial.com/press-room/
http://www.organicnewsroom.com/
http://www.tensorcomm.com/press-room/
http://www.smartsearchmarketing.com/news/

As you can see, Google has indexed 49 pages with links to the Room 214 homepage. This is a great way to gauge ongoing SEO, SMO (Social Media Optimization) and link building efforts. However, this is only showing the number of incoming links indexed by Google so you will want to consult other search engines for the most accurate number.

Another interesting alternate query type is the [cache:] query. Using this query will show the version of the webpage that Google has saved in its cache. You will also see the cache crawl date, which gives you the last date the Googlebot has crawled your site and indexed your latest content. Even if a webpage has not changed, Google will still show you the date that it checked your page for new content. Here is what the [cache:www.room214.com] results look like:

This can be handy when a website is lost due to computer failure, or if a co-worker happens to overwrite recent updates you made to a website. More details can be found on the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

If you want to get really fancy, check out all of the alternate query types in the Google Help Center.

• Forces the search engines to choose which page is the most "authoritative" or relevant to that subject on your site.
• Creates additional competition for rankings - you're vying against yourself for position in the SERPs.
• Dilutes the potential ranking ability of a single phrase by spreading link power, keyword targeting, and anchor text on your site across multiple pages.

Speaking of keywords, an interesting new service called HitTail was recently brought to my attention. This free service (for low to medium traffic sites) tracks every search hit that leads to your site and then pulls out the keywords. The underperforming, or long tail, keywords are given to you as suggestions to incorporate in your editorial content, such as blogs. The idea is that the collective demand for the less popular keywords (the long tail) can exceed the most popular terms added together. By using these under performing keywords, you can help out your natural search results and bring more qualified traffic to your site. These less competitive long tail keywords could also be very beneficial to a PPC campaign and likely result in a higher click through rate, lower cost per click, and more pre-qualified traffic.

Of over 2,300 people surveyed:
1. 62% of search engine users click on first page results, and a total of 90% click on results within the first three pages.
2. 82% begin a new search query using the same search engine if they don't find what they are looking for with the first search term used
3. 41% of users who continue their search after not finding what they were looking for will change their search term and/or search engine if they don't find favorable results on the first page.
4. Now here is the BIG ONE: 36% believe that company websites that are ranked in the top search results are at the top because they are leaders in that field.

Point number 4 is interesting indeed, suggesting that over a third of the population believes that search engines somehow determine who are industry leaders - and then rank them accordingly. Wow. Any companies out there willing to take advantage of this proven perception? No wonder SEO services continue to be a larger part of marketing budgets across the board.

Sitemaps also give you an array of valuable statistics such as how Google crawls and indexes your site, and problems Google may be having accessing certain pages. You can also learn which search queries drive traffic you your site and the keyword terms used in external links pointing to your site.

Search Engine Watch highlights some of the new features in Google Webmaster Central such as the ability to choose a preferred domain and improved crawl/sitemap error reporting. By keeping your website fresh and offering valuable site stats, this free service is a great complement to any well rounded SEO plan.

Be sure to check out the video tutorials section of our website in the upcoming weeks for an easy step-by-step guide on how to create and submit a sitemap to Google.