The SEO Blog

Come out to The Karcher Group office on Wednesday, July 1st to meet local tweeters from the Canton/Akron area.  Come and spend some time with your tweeps and enjoy food & drinks - TKG is picking up the tab!

Follow @NEOtweetups on Twitter for the latest info.

YouTube.com is quickly becoming the fastest growing resource for online searchers.

Internet searchers are looking to video sharing website, YouTube to provide them with the information they’re looking for. Gone are the days of soley using Search Engine’s to find what you’re looking for.

I know, this is old news….but some companies have yet to connect the dots.

Years ago, being at the top of Google’s search results was the #1 goal for most companies regardless of the phrase.  Then, it was getting to the top of the heap for the phrases that would increase sales/leads. Over the last few years, with the emergence of social media, companies are finding that “SEO” doesn’t just include optimizing for the Search Engine’s anymore, but rather optimizing where your customer base is…

If you need to fix a leaky sink, searching in Google could provide articles that you’d have to  read — OR, a user could just as easily search YouTube and watch a DIY video! Understanding the need for this type of marketing is vital to any company’s web marketing initiatives.

The shift for some searchers to YouTube versus the other Search Engines requires a need for YouTube users to be employing optimization efforts in this space (as well as on all other domains). It’s now just as important to show up at the top of YouTube’s search results as it is to be visible at the top of Google’s results for those targeted converting phrases!

Want to read more about the shift to YouTube? Check out:

TechCrunch & DMNews

Corey & I are excited for our social media presentation this Thursday to the Leadership Akron Alumni Group, which is being held at the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank! Unfortunately, this event is closed to the public; however, if you’re interested in learning about how your business can leverage social media marketing, request a free social media analysis today.

The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank has been helping people in need for 26 years. Serving Carroll, Holmes, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit, Tuscarawas and Wayne Counties in Northeast Ohio.

Help the Foodbank help those in need by donating today.

Guest Blogger: Corey Hammond

I wanted to do a follow up to my post Embarrassment with these 4 Employment Strategies. I just read an article that Andy Beal mentioned on his blog called One in five employers uses social networks in hiring process. CareerBuilder.com did a study of more than 31,000 employers and 20% of them say that they will use social media when looking for job candidates. Here are some of the top concerns that stood out to me from the article:

• Information about alcohol or drug use (41% of managers said this was a top concern)
• Inappropriate photos or information posted on a candidate’s page (40%)
• Bad-mouthing of former employers or fellow employees (28%)
• Inaccurate qualifications (27%)
• Unprofessional screen names (22%)

Wow. It makes you want to go to your social network profiles and search through all of your wall of comments to make sure that someone hasn’t said something that could be taken the wrong way or tainted the image you are trying to portray to an employer.

I have a short and interesting experience from a couple weeks ago. The Karcher Group belongs to a lot of the local chamber of commerce groups here in Canton, Ohio and we did a company bio plus an informational session on social media to the Young Professionals Network. I would say the group is all between the ages of 20-35 and is currently in the workforce. A bunch of the group has Facebook or MySpace and a couple have LinkedIn profiles. Out of a group of approximately 20 people, only about 2 people at most knew much about social media and its relationship to their reputation management. I would have figured that a group of that age would know more about this stuff. Sure they use social networks everyday and they never think twice. The fact they never considered was those same social media profiles could potentially hinder or prevent them from getting a job. Here are a couple quick tips to help manage your online reputation:

1. Use social media - Don’t be scared of it just because people can find you. If you are setting up the profiles, you have control of what shows up on them. This control allows you to dictate your image online and can help you. The article says that the “study did find that 24% of hiring managers found content on social networks that helped convince them to hire a candidate. Hiring managers
   said that profiles showing a professional image and solid references can boost a candidate’s chances for a job.” That leads right into the second tip…
2. Network - Everyone has heard the phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I’m not saying that I agree with this 100% but I think there is a lot of power and influence that comes with strong references. Social networks allow you to network and meet people that in some cases you would not be able to get to know. These connections could benefit you in some way down the road.
3. Actively monitor and interact - It’s good to have a profile on a social network to help with your online reputation management but creating it and “friending” some people is not good enough. To get the best return on your social media profiles you have to interact with the other people on the network. It is also important to monitor what gets posted and what you, yourself post. Imagine this; A couple years down the road you are looking for a new job. You start doing some research and find Company XYZ. You are about to apply when you realize that John Doe, a friend you went to high school with, works there. Now, have you really kept in touch with John over the years where you can ask him for a referral or reference, or did you just befriend him because you went to high school with him? That relationship now could make all the difference and you probably never took that into consideration when setting up that social network profile.

Being in the search engine marketing industry, sometimes I forget that most people don’t know everything about social media and the implications it can have. There is so much information out there and so much that I am still learning about it as well. Hopefully through articles like this and other publication outlets, others will be able to learn more about social media and be able to manage their own reputations online.

Guest Blogger: Corey Hammond
Even though I consider myself fairly skilled with utilizing the web for marketing and information gathering, I am still amazed about the incredible amount of data that is available. With companies under even more pressure to make good hiring decisions, in addition to investigating current employees, there has been an emerging trend of employer’s using the web to research prospective or current employees via a variety of web tools. So what can employees do to make sure they are getting a fair look? Here are 4 things to look at to avoid some potentially embarrassing situations that could arise from your online activities.

Search Engine Results

Who has ever Googled someone or yourself? I’ll admit, I do it all the time! Just like my credit report, I monitor the search engine results pages for my name. The last thing I want is something to show up that isn’t accurate or could potentially hurt my reputation. Online reputation management is a huge thing right now. People have the ability to quickly get information on companies and people. Outside of Google there are specific people search engines like Wink and Pipl. Employers can use Google and these other search engines to potentially find information about you. So how do you take control of this? Check out these suggestions:

1. <!–[if !supportLists]–>Buy a domain name, that is your name - You could use the site as an online resume or profile or even start a blog
2. Start a blog! Even if your name domain name is taken, you can still use a free service like Wordpress.com to create your own blog.
3. <!–[if !supportLists]–>Be social online! Social network profiles can easily come up in the search engine results for your name. There is more information on them in the next section.

Social Profiles and Social Networks

Social networks like Facebook and Myspace are great places to keep connected with friends and family. When it comes to your current and future employers, it can be a different story! These social networks can give employers a great feel for who you are that they may not get in the office or in an interview. Here are some tips to keep in mind if you have social network profiles:

1. Don’t bad mouth your company where people can see it - At some point in everyone’s life there comes a point where you’re not happy with your current employment situation for one reason or another. The best thing to do is to keep it private. The last thing you want is for your current employer to see you speaking about them negatively. On the flip side, it probably won’t look too good to a prospective employer if you are speaking badly about your current employer because they may think you’ll do the same about them.
2. Watch what you put on your status - Almost every social network allows you to update your status to tell people what you are doing or where you are at. There is even a fairly new social network called Brightkite that allows it’s users to “check in” and give people their current location. You can have this network change your Facebook status and update your Twitter as well. It would be pretty embarrassing to “check in” to a competitor’s office that you are interviewing with when you requested the morning off for “personal reasons” and that status gets spread across multiple social profiles.
3. Keep profiles “clean” - Keep stuff off of your main profile page that could be misinterpreted like “drinking pictures”. Even though they are personal, it’s a lot safer to not let people’s minds wander. Another solution may be to check your profile’s security or privacy settings and keep your profile private until you accept a friend request. This way you can keep a tighter lid on who is actually viewing things.

Resume and Job Boards

It’s great to have a good resume but be careful on where you put it. There are sites like Monster and CareerBuilder that help people find jobs by allowing people to upload an online resume. These services are also used by companies to search for particular people with skill sets they are looking for. The problem is that your current employer could find it too! Depending on your job and career, it might be a better idea to submit your resume directly to different companies. Another option might be to work with a recruiter that has connections and can be discrete with your identity.

LinkedIn

I decided to give LinkedIn its own section because it is fairly unique. LinkedIn essentially IS your resume online, which is ok! BUT, LinkedIn is also a social network where you connect with people.

1. Be careful who you connect with and when - If you are interviewing at places it probably isn’t the best idea to connect with them before you have the job. You company could potentially see your connections and be like “hey, Corey just added recruiter so and so from Competitor XYZ to his LinkedIn connections”. This can be a pretty big red flag that you may be interviewing with them. The same could work with adding too many connections from the same company. If all of a sudden, you know 3+ people from a competing company, it could look suspicious.
2. Build your profile out - It’s good to at least have the basics on your profile and ensure the information is correct. If you are really gearing up to find a new job, it might be a good idea to start building out your profile more. You can “beef up” certain areas like your summary and specialties. You could also participate in different groups and associations. Another good way to increase your presence is to start answering questions related to your industry that could showcase your knowledge and help others out. You never know, one of these questions might be posed by someone from the company you are looking to work for!

Guest Blogger: Emily Croskey
Back in May, as part of one of our client’s SEO strategy, I posted 8 of their video clips onto YouTube. The client was a little nervous about our strategy, thinking that YouTube might not be the right direction to go. I chose to put up some of their video clips to help give their name and products more online exposure by focusing on a targeted audience interested in their video products. This type of web marketing completely makes sense for this client because they have tons of videos on their site that have the potential to gain real online popularity. The chart below indicates the increases from when we first started.

So far, some YouTube users have subscribed to the channel and commented on several of the videos. Now, I realize that for some, this is not that much, but this was just my small scale strategy to create some additional online visibility for the client.

Guest Blogger: Corey Hammond
Last night I attended a great presentation by Authentic Films in their loft in Cleveland, OH. The event was put on by The Web Association who is a group for the Northeast Ohio internet community. Authentic Films presented a case study of a viral video they did for PC Live. PC Live is an online tech support company with similar services as Geek Squad. They were looking to launch their brand and specifically wanted to try and create a viral video. Authentic Films and the PR company they were teamed with took us through the process of how they did things. It was really interesting to get the a film production company’s take on how to do everything. What stood out to me was the preparation that went into everything. There was the initial idea creation to character outlines to scripting to casting. All these elements went into it before they even tried to produce the video. Here is the video they shot that went viral.

Dude Flips Out In Coffee Shop

From what the PR firm and Authentic Films estimated, the video got about 2 million views online plus some TV exposure. Viral video isn’t a new thing. A lot of major brands like Doritos and Dove are doing viral video these days. These viral video can be leveraged and become even stronger with things like social media. All in all it was a great look at the production process involved in creating this video and the results from the time and effort they all put in.