I came across an intriguing job ad recently that shows just how important data scientists will be. The role of a data scientist isn’t new but now it’s hotter than ever. American Express is looking for a whole team of data scientists, including a senior leader for a role that sounds pretty darn critical to the future of the $32.3 billion financial services company.

She poses the million dollar question:

What I wonder is whether CIOs will make data scientists out of existing IT staff members, such as analytics and database experts, or hire new people. Huge demand for data scientists is driving compensation up, according to market researcher Ovum. Dice.com shows salaries of up to $160,000 for the jobs, though who knows if that’s really what companies will pay. But it’s nearly always less expensive to train and develop the people you know and like than to find, vet and hire new ones. Do CIOs have the patience? Do their bosses?

Great read-stop by and read her entire post! I followed up on the job posting for data scientists by American Express and the position was no longer available after a week-Data Scientists jobs anyone?

Possible devaluation of thousands of links
prior SEO company was putting 9,000 links a month on their site. The company said the links went away or were devalued after the Google update. 

My take: 9,000 Quality links a month-I don’t believe it! They sound like they were purchased from spammy sites.

Duplicate Content on other websites
They have 5 other websites that are in different geographic areas with the same content and no inter-linking.

My take: Google demands unique and authoritative content for each website that you own-this is SEO 101

Disallowed Keyword
Their Google Ad Words account was permanently suspended. But, one of the clever companies they hired was able to do a workaround and got the account unsuspended. Of course Google found out and they’re not allowed to use Google AdWords

My take: Really, you went along with this scheme? FYI Google sends out to emails to you warning of your ilegal behavior before they suspend your account!

If you are a small business owner in the Denver and Front Range area; you now know what you don’t want to do when it comes to your SEO efforts! We can help you by consulting with you on your SEO, Google Places and Social Media efforts. We consult with you and find the most appropriate Internet Marketing firm for you to work with based on your budget, time frame and how competitive the heading.

We don’t do the work ourselves so, we don’t care which firm you use. If this sounds like a solution to your Internet Marketing please free to contact us and we’ll try to cater a plan that best works for you!

If you have been considering using Facebook as part of your advertising program; these figures are pretty sobering! So far, it looks like good organic SEO will continue to deliver the bottom line results for small business owners.

Have you used Facebook as part of your advertising program? What were your results?

Be Good or Else...

Most people have been tempted to find out just exactly where the line in the sand is according to Google. You want to be on page 1, number 1, but you don’t want to get spanked on the way. Well, a friend of mine, who is also a blogger, found out just where that line is….

She has a very active blog, with a great Moz rating and (had) a PR of 4-it’s now 0!! How did this happen to my little entrepreneurial friend? She put together a little advertising program for companies. She would write articles for you and in certain of her blog posts, shoot a link to their site for their keywords.

Her endeavor was fairly profitable, bringing in about $12,000 a month-a true American success story! Then one day she got the nasty from Google-this looks illegal etc and we have de-indexed your site etc…

So, FunSeekers, before you become too aggressive with your advertising business; remember my friend and be prepared to pay the Piper!

Photo Credit: stateofsearch.com

You Need a Killer Landing Page

I recently was talking with an attorney here in Denver looking to target specific groups of individuals. For our purposes let’s say he was looking to target folks for class action status on securities fraud. He wanted to target potential clients with specific ads on Facebook and linkedIn. That is the first piece of the equation and fairly straightforward. 

The next step is where many advertisers make a very expensive mistake. Keeping with this example, suppose I was a holder of the stock called Accretive Health (AH) that got massacred yesterday. Let’s further suppose that I then clicked on the hypothetical Facebook/LinkedIn ad and was taken to this landing page: Harwood Feffer LLP Announces Investigation of Accretive Health, Inc.

This ad would be analogous to your SEO optimized landing page on your website. It gets right to the point, answers my questions and I’m not forced to read a bunch of superfluous information. Most importantly, there is an immediate call to action!

Too many ads I see on Google AdWords, Facebook and LinkedIn bring the user to the home page or some page that has nothing to do with the reason I clicked on the ad in the first place. By having a killer landing page you can increase your conversions dramatically which goes right to the bottom line.

If you need advice on great ad copy or making killer landing pages you have found the right site! Notice if you will, that you do want to include social media such as Twitter and Facebook-to drive additional traffic to your landing page. Call or email me for a free consultation on the best way to reach your target market.

There were approximately 200 general contractors from the Denver area in attendance. The presentation got around to the topic of Social Media and blogs. The presenter was urging the contractors to embrace and use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging to generate more awareness by potential clients and to help their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. When the audience of 200 were asked if they thought this was a good idea only 2 people raised their hands in approval! WOW…why wouldn’t you take advantage of Social Media?

If you live in the Denver area and have not explored the bottom line results that social media can generate for your business-call the Denver SEO and Social Media Experts for a free consultation and learn how this medium can generate some of your biggest ROI’s!

Here are some high lites of the article:

• A survey released earlier this year by the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth says the percentage; of companies that maintain blogs fell to 37% in 2011 from 50% in 2010, based on its survey of 500 fast-growing companies listed by Inc. magazine.
• Blogging requires more investment. You need content regularly. And you need to think about the risk of blogging, accepting comments, liability issues, defamation. says Nora Ganim Barnes, a professor at the university who wrote the report. One benefit of a blog: It’s a tool and content you own.
• Lee Hoffman, a communications consultant, says many corporate blogs fail to attract readers because they exist solely to pitch products and are badly written. Companies don’t understand that the content on a blog shouldn’t be about me.
• Engaging blogs can serve crucial marketing goals-especially executives out to establish expertise in their industry, says Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor.

All of the above points are very valid based on my experience and companies need to find the right mix of blogging and social media. However, the primary reason that I always set up a blog with a company’s website is for search engine optimization (SEO). When a company is trying to get traction with the search engines; blogs can be the perfect tool. Well written blogs serve two masters: Google and potential customers. The most important visitor is still Google. If Google isn’t regularly coming to your site and indexing the blog posts-clients will never find the site.

What has been your experience and most effective use of time? What has provided the most conversions for your company?

If you are a small business owner trying to climb to page one of the Google searches-take a hard look at your current domain name. Does your domain name have any keyword rich phrases, does it give any clue as to what you do? If not you may want to consider a few small tweaks that can only help you in google searches. Let’s revisit the domain name of BOAAAA, at first I thought maybe it was a division of Bank of America (BOA)….

Come to find out BOAAAA is a construction company here in Denver, and they have been around for 40years! If I were going to tweak their domain name I would take the following steps:

• For the domain BOAAAA I would put a redirect (301) on it to a keyword rich domain name such as Denver Residential Construction, or a variation thereof.
• By having a redirect on the domain name they would not lose clients who actually know them by their domain name and search for it.
• I look at their site and i don’t see any mention of social media….come on, let’s dip our toes into the pool Why not get a Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter page going. It’s a great way to generate more traffic to your site and hopefully send more cash to the bottom line!
• My personal favorite would also be to add a blog to this website. Remember, every time you write a keyword rich blog post the search engines come to see what you have written.
• Focus some attention on Google Places. If you do a search for Denver Construction Company you will see the magnificent seven who appear there on the Google map. Being there can significantly increase your business and is well worth the effort.

That’s it for today; a few simple tweaks and the rest of Denver would know what this company does. Questions or comments? Please feel free to comment here or send me an email. Happy Monday, Steve

You may also want to see these posts about SEO and domain names:

SEO and Domain Names

Being Number One in a Google Search

More Tips for Google Places

Do Not Speak to the Police Before You Call Us!

The majority of Criminal Defense Websites say this-and it’s just not Denver; it’s coast to coast. I think many individuals who have faced criminal charges would agree that this is excellent advice. Let’s put a different spin on this situation that I recently experienced first hand-When Attorneys Dissolve the Partnership and the financial consequences of your Internet Marketing Program!

If you are involved in a breakup with your partner-Don’t agree to anything until you call Steve Mertz for a consultation!

Here are some specifics of this case study.

I build the original website for the two partners. We had original and authoritative content that Google recognized with time. They were on the first page of Google searches for terms such as Denver Criminal Defense Attorneys, Denver Sexual Assault Attorneys, Denver Drug Attorneys etc. They were also in the magnificent 7 of Google Places-what do you think this kind of Internet placement is worth?

Now, let’s consider some specifics:

Who owns the domain name?

They’re partners, do they both own the domain name? Well, the two partners negotiated a settlement. They decided that partner A owned the domain name and he would license the domain name to Partner B for a stipulated time. However, Partner A decided to remove all the content that was spidered and was showing up on the first page. Before you decide on your new domain name  remember the significance of having a domain name with keywords in it. Unfortunately, a new domain name will take time and effort to start showing up in the searches-be sure you know what your SEO strategy is to jump start this process. What do you think the consequences were?

The website dropped like a rock in Google searches because there was no content! Worse yet, if someone was doing a search for say, Denver Sexual Assault Attorneys, and they clicked on it-they got the ugliest message in the world; Error 404-Webpage Cannot Be Found. Do you think partner A might be liable for negligence and loss of business? A brief reminder: Call the Internet Marketing expert before you agree to anything!

Who Owns the Content?

Partner A claimed that he developed and refined the content for Google searches, but why would he remove all the content? He thought he would take all of this content to his new site and everything would be Wonderful…and they lived happily ever after-Dream On! I got my client’s website up first and all of that copy is now on his site. Too bad Partner A hadn’t planned on this outcome.

Who Owns All of Those Great Backlinks to the Website?

All those backlinks that you spent hundreds of hours on and maybe thousands of dollars-they’re no good to either one of the partners. If you don’t understand the significance of backlinks-Speak to an Internet Marketing Expert before agreeing to anything!

Who Owns any Articles Written and Paid for by the Partnership?

There could be an article that was written for the firm and showing up in the searches for say, Denver Criminal Defense Attorneys. My take is this: the article was written for and paid for by the firm. So, first come, first served, my client now has a majority of those articles on his website!

Who Owns or Controls the Google Places listing?

This is huge, being in the top 3 of Google Places  can bring a huge ROI to your business. What happened in this case? Partner A went in and changed the name and the phone number to his firm. This was further complicated by the fact that for now, they both have the same address. So you think this could confuse Google? Here’s what happened-Partner A was gloating that he had out manuevered Partner B; after all, they showed up in several categories for Google places. Unfortunately for partner A, Google received about 6 to 7 emails showing that Partner A had no rightful claim to the Google places listing-Google removed Partner A from Places and partner B is having his Citations diligently worked on-he is very close to sliding into a top position with Google Places.

The gloves are off and both of the partners are suffering from loss of business because of these missteps and questionable actions by Partner A but Partner B is on the way to Internet success-more later!

If you have a partnership and have questions about a partnership dissolving-call the Internet Marketing Specialist  before you agree to anything!

This topic is now one of my most requested when I speak to Associations and Organizations. Please contact me if you would like me to give you specifics on how I can make this Internet Marketing topic the most talked about presentation at your convention!