Rand's in Jolly Ol' England this week, so I decided to share a preview from our upcoming DVD Training Series, "Tips, Tricks & Tactics: Volume 1," coming out in November.
We filmed this series during our recent seminar in Seattle and the response was amazing. One of the most popular sessions was Conductor CEO, Seth Besmertnik's, presentation on "How to Win SEO Budget and Influence Your CMO." In this week's Whiteboard Friday you'll get a sneak peek at part of Seth's presentation (one of 17 presentations on the DVD series) where he'll show you how to quantify the actual business value of SEO in a way that will get serious attention from executives and clients alike. Watch as Seth explains his surefire way to strike fear in the hearts of your C-suite, maintain motivation in pursuing an SEO strategy, and generate reports like a mad-man.
Keep in mind, this is just seven minutes of his 30-minute session, so it's really just a small taste of what Seth has to teach.
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Tips, Tricks & Tactics Preview: Seth Besmertnik on Winning SEO Budget
Quick Note: A couple of the slides shown in the presentation look a little washed-out. That's a result of the video compression for streaming; they're perfectly clear in the uncompressed DVD video.
It's great to see this and it was a great privledge to speak at this event, which in my opinon, was one of the best SEO events of the year. I have already got a few e-mails from folks who have printed up big market opportunity posters in their office - and started influencing key executives for SEO initiatives- it really works! The download page is still up if anyone wants access to the free tools and information we put together: https://www.conductor.com/seomoz - looking forward to Pro Seminar 2010!
- Seth Besmertnik (@besmertnik)
Many thanks for the link, it was a really informative and interesting presentation, wish I could have made the event :(
hey seth, great tool. I really like it. Do you use the broad match results for your search volume estimates? If so, do you feel like the exact match results might be more accurate, especially when correlating with rankings for particular searches?
Yes, I'll echo this...I typically use exact match to avoid over hyping the opportunity and artificially increasing expectations. But I'm curious to hear what you recommend Seth.
I'm currently a senior web analyst for a fortune 250 company and have recently been asked to develop an SEO plan and strategy that I will manage in house beginning in the coming months. This information couldn't have come more timely!
Setting expectations is huge! Having the dollar value for this will be amazing.
Too bad you edited out the part from Seth's presentation where Rand gets thrown off the "SEO Bridge to Nowhere". That was funny stuff. :)
I think I need to order the DVD so I can see that again.
Those slides are great - where is Rand by the way? Maybe down a river :)
Great presentation!
When is the DVD out? I'm buying it, so you guys better be shipping to Australia.
Ship to Australia or else Kenneth and I are sending Kangaroo's to come own you
Someone else who thought about this?
https://www.biofilm.nu/luke-vs-seth/
Great Tips, Tricks & Tactics for getting improvement and Winning in SEO Budget.
Thanks For Sharing....
What a teaser at the end!
"... what we find is a lot of companies manage SEO with paid search metrics - this is wrong!"
Looking forward to seeing more!
Good job, Seth. It's good seeing an SEO speaker who is capable and plausible to large public company boards. Keep it up.
What a great tool to help me close deals. Great info!
Great presentation. Very helpful.
Nice little "lead scheme" ;o)
Got my info...
One of my favorite presentations during the Seattle event. Excellent best practices and SEO reporting templates.
Chris (@searchingworks)
Thanks Seth for the presentation and insights. I do personally struggle with those issues on a daily basis, so I am happy that industry leaders are trying to educate both professionals and clients.
Great input, thanks again!
Great presentation and excelent tools! I was doing that oportunity research much slower and with much more work involved :) Thank you for the effort to make it simple!
If you are not using your own Marketing Opportunity Calculator to convince clients the importance of continuing SEO efforts then your really missing out on opportunity for your clients and revenue for your business.
Seth thank you for supplying your MOC for everyones review and you gave a great presentation on how to influence decision makers and quiet the critics of our profession.
Being pretty green to this whole SEO world, most of the analytics fly right over my head. But what I did pull from this Whiteboard Friday is that SEOs have a really hard time convincing their higher-ups and/or clients that SEO is a) important, b) worthy of time, and c) worthy of a budget. I had worked in an ad agency for almost 5 years and honestly had never even heard of the term 'SEO.'
Does anyone think this could be due to a lack of education and/or promotion to higher-ups and/or clients, i.e. the 'word' just hasn't penetrated enough?
And there are some clients/companies that absolutely refuse to change no matter what kind of data you put in front of them. (And they wonder why they can't keep up with their competitors who are taking advantage of this tactic.)
How do you convince these types that SEO is important and worthy of time and a budget?
5-8 years ago I would believe that some C-Level Marketing Executives may not have heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but as Search Engine Marketing has grown I would be surprised if 90%+ didn't know at least in theory something about SEM, PPC or SEO.
I have worked with many manufacturing companies who typically do not have a marketing department and still believe that word of mouth is the best way to generate leads. By using a custom program much like Seth Besmertnik's Market Opportunity Calculator we are able to show not only are people looking for their specific products online but using optimization to increase page rank / position can dramatically impact their bottom lines.
Another wonderful feature & my favorite selling point about SEO / SEM is results can be more easily measure than another other type of marketing (in my opinion).
For example consider direct mail you never really know your delivery rate, impression rate and measuring your conversions can be tricky. Explaining to the skeptics that they can invest X number of dollars and directly see how that money impacts the branding, marketing and sales of a company. This alone should help you sell the effectiveness and important so SEO, PPC and SEM.
These are some excellent tips.
I can see how Printing out the charts and showing your clients and/or organization the numbers can really get them motivated to allocate a budget ( or increase one for that matter). I have found that the more a non SEO savvy person learns about the process the more willing they are to get involved.
Would definitely like to see more or these videos.
Michael
Great presentation and tips. Very helpful for those trying to influence the CMO.
thanks for the preview i filled out your form lol :)