I have recently taken it upon myself to begin to preach the good word of “SEO” to others. I had a workshop on “SEO for Blogs” at Pittsburgh PodCamp3. I have addressed a group of attorney at a recent “The Best Of Legal Technology” aka. TBOLT in conjunction with the  Allegheny County Bar Association on the topic of applying web 2.0 to your current marketing. This turned out to be a Q&A session about what I techniques I use and some “holistic marketing” tips.

This may take some explaining why I was attending a legal conference. I have recently embarked on an entrepreneurial crusade. I am now working on Making Law Easy. Making Law Easy is a collaboration of different forms of web 2.0 media. I have applied an extensive library of Free Legal Podcasts. These podcast will serve our biggest client, the consumer. During our last market analysis of online legal lead generation 1-2-3 Law Group, a virtual law firm. We were able to prospect for online market share by practice area. We also uncovered the largest and most powerful demographic of clients, the “Free Legal Help”. There seemed to be a large amount of do-it-your-selfers going online to learn, or in some case mis interpret, the law. I was faced with a big traffic low revenue decision. In the mean time I had to give this legion of poverty something to help, Podcasts.

I now had the power of the “free legal help” traffic to propel my site to the top. I added some other techniques that loyal subscriber can figure out.

This all stemmed from an article I read on a flopped “Social Media” presentation at a legal conference. I agree with the author that there needs to be less BS and more real innovation. I myself have contributed to the growth of the legal industry with workshops and speaking engagements. Now I will provide a distinct few attorneys the privileged of riding the coat tails of Making Law Easy and provide a return more than money.

…….Give a man a fish, feed him for a day

Teach a man to fish and feed him forever…..

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In a recent article titled “Enough is Enough” the author points out the reponces recieved from new search prospects in this dire economic state. While I agree with alot of the insight provided, there is another way to look at it so I issued this comment.

All the above points are very valid. Most buyers are fearful of more work, rocking the boat and losing their current growth and rank. Lets think about how our market has grown from an unknown medium to the next “snake oil”. There has been far more horror stories published, than success stories. Clients who see positive results from an agency will not broadcast this info, in order to stay ahead of the competition. I work in one of the most jaded fields “Law”. Lawyers have deeper pockets than most small to mid-size businesses. Lawyers seem to believe whoever has the next great “mouse-trap”. Well now, these once Internet Marketing shopaholics, have put on the brakes for the exact reasons mention in this article and following comments. Blind, blind , blind! I can point out obvious weaknesses in their search marketing campaigns but they will not budge. In my opinion, the common denominator thats leading to this “stale’ search marketing is, lack of a search marketing strategy.

Strategy is the difference between throwing a couple of bucks at PPC or SEO and being happy with a high rank and visibility , to understanding the #1 isn’t always the best gauge of search marketing. Many agencies sell rank and position, rather than identifying “real” conversions. A click-thru doesn’t always = conversion or ROI.

To conclude, the current economic state has turned many search marketing reps into “set-it-and-forget-it” merchants. In coming months this type of marketing tactic will become transparent, and allow other agencies to make offers but, keep in mind that the perception of these once burned buyers will be a cautious one.

Until we allow some type of regulation into our lives, we will have to deal with the slew of “NO’s” . If we (search marketers) spend more time consulting and less selling we all will win!

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I recently posted about video optimization and how I came to find a worthy technique with real results. That seemed to spawn some interesting thoughts, could this method be used for images as well as video?

To explain a little deeper, I found that during times of economic strife many businesses seem to tighten budgets and abandone creative thought and methods. Try selling a video or press release to a company, who is trying to figure out how the economy will effect them. Or better yet, how the economy has already effected them. It doesn’t sell.

Well it is now time to leave no drawer unopened and no paper unturned, to find our next piece to optimize on your site. This method is very cost effective. Many businesses have old commercials laying around and power point presentations of goods and service that they have used in the past. All this media can be used to build site visibility. You do not need to buy more mouse traps to get your site seen, you need to unearth the gold in your office right now.

I started with presentations, because I could convert these to video as well as images. The video can be put through the video optimization process I mentioned before. As for the images well pay attention. By submitting an image to 8-10 image directories (Snapfish, Flickr, Picasa …), you have created 8-10 keyword rich profile pages that have preferential treatment with regard to indexing over your current web site. Use the same title for all submissions and the same keyword set and description. This will ensure that this specific image will be indexed when the core keyword used is searched. This technique is still in its beta theory but, It has just been started. Now that you have found all the presentation s you could and optimized them in video and image, look around some more. Use screenshots from your site as images and optimize them as well. Scan any and all pr and media flyer’s and newsletters into images and repeat the process. You will begin to see how “displacing content” is a very viable and cost effective means to an SEO end. Now that I have you thinking add the number of profiles for 1 image and the number of profiles from 1 video or presentation = a lot of stuff.

So, we have talked about video otimization and how to do it. We have now laid out the process for image optimization. Where else do you think that you can submit text based content too, press release sites?

Press Release+Video+Image+Free Local biz listings= total local Internet saturation!

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