This infographic, quite literally, has many of the tricks for search on Google that I use on a daily basis:

• Site:
• Intitle:
• Define:
• Calculator
• Keyboard shortcuts (I love those)
• Ctrl-L (in the infographic they use Command which is for Mac users)

Enjoy.

This incident, however, was unusual in a couple of ways. First of all, the form had been completely filled out. Typically, the contact person will fill out a few sections like the required fields and that is it – they hit Submit and send their information to us hoping we will call back. But this form had every single field filled out in detail – including a list of competitors.

But there is more!

The email address of the contact person ended in @dell.com. As I mentioned the Contact Us form on our website is filled out often but, sadly, not very often by a company the size of Dell. I’ll admit my first reaction was disbelief. To give you an idea of how large Dell is, it ranks 41 on the Fortune 500 list. Revenues are $61 billion. To give you some perspective Google ranks 92 on the Fortune 500 and has revenues of $29 billion. I suspected that this was a hoax or someone playing a joke on us. In fact, we were originally contacted in April so this could have been an April Fool’s joke.

But it wasn’t.

I called Jeff H and asked him how we could help out. He said that he was responsible for sales to small and medium sized business in the United States. He mentioned that they spend a lot on paid ads on search engines which made sense because I see their ads all the time on Google. They weren’t looking to reduce there budget but they did want to increase the profile of their website pages on the natural or organic side of the search engines.

I mentioned a  few of the advantages of search engine optimization (SEO) which Jeff H seemed to appreciate. The list below is similar to what I told him:

1) Free Targeted Traffic
The primary advantage of SEO over any other type of internet marketing is found is that once your website is listed on the first page of results for your keyword phrases, you get clicks to your site for FREE. This means that you can receive traffic from prospects 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year at no cost. And here’s the kicker – they are looking for the products and services that your company has to offer! Wow – that is beautiful.

On Google.com search for “business laptops”. Dell.com should be on the first page – probably at the top of the page.

2) Excellent ROI
A return on investment is one of the major advantages of SEO. It may take a few months for your website to rank well for the targeted keywords but once ranked, the ROI is excellent because you are getting free traffic to your website. Nice!

I can’t say how much Dell paid for our services but they have re-cooped their investment many times over.

3) Cost Effective
SEO is one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing. The initial work of keyword research, optimizing pages, and improving inbound links takes some effort and investment. But if the site is powerful (read lots of high quality inbound links) and properly optimized then the rankings on search engines should stay in place for months and sometimes years. Brilliant!

We optimized this page http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/laptops a few years ago and it is still working very well for Dell.

4) Increased Brand Visibility
SEO leads to the increased brand visibility for your website. Your business will start showing for strategically important keywords, and more and more visitors will be there to look for the services you are providing via your website.

You can try a variety of other keyword phrases and Dell.com is on the first page of results. Try: “business computers“, “servers“, and “workstations”.

5) Credibility
Your company will get a boost in credibility and reputation because the search engines are ranking your website highly for specific keywords related to your industry.

The end result for Dell was free visitors, excellent ROI, at a low cost, with increased visibility on a variety of keywords and excellent credibility. The screen capture below was taken today. Dell is still ranking well for “business laptops” and beating out over 34 million other web pages.

Last November we hosted our first seminar on Online Marketing Strategy in 6 Hours. It was sold out and a tremendous success. So much so that we are offering this seminar again – re-titled as Social Media Strategy in 6 Hours.

The topics and dates for these new sessions are:

• Quickinar: Tweet Like a Pro in under 3 Hours on January 21
• Quickinar: Social Media Strategy in 6 Hours on Monday, January 31
• Quickinar: Lights, Camera, YouTube Action in under 3 Hours on Thursday, February 10
• Quickinar: Facebook Business Page in under 3 Hours on Thursday, February 17
• Quickinar: Kick Your Blog Up a Notch in under 3 Hours on Thursday, February 24
• Quickinar: Social Media Strategy in 6 Hours on Friday, March 25

As you will notice we are calling these sessions, Quickinars. This is a name that we came up with to emphasize that these are short, intense seminars that focus on relevant topics. Right now we are focusing on providing social media training for the Calgary market – we may expand.

We hope that you find these seminars useful and valuable. For the entire list of seminars and more details look at our Quickinars page on Eventbrite.

If you have questions please email me, jeff.nelson@anduro.com or call me (403) 410-3803.

Hope to see you at one of the sessions.

Troy is a writer who focuses on helping businesses tell their story and impress their clients. You can find out more about Troy and what he offers on his website, www.troywhite.ca.

Today Troy told me about 2 websites that are interesting and worth mentioning. The first is www.simplyamishedmonton.com. This company sells Amish Furniture – part of a franchise. A long time ago my Dad showed me how to build Shaker furniture which is similar. I love the simplicity, the lines and wood grain. Years ago I made a blanket box and a 2 step stool. But enough of me. If you are looking to buy simple, well made furniture, have a look at the site.

The second site is www.saddlebackleather.com. Obviously, this company is selling leather satchels, bags, and luggage. As Troy pointed out to me, what sets this site apart is that it is chock full of stories – a dog named Blue, a list of competitors, a small travel case in the middle of Serengeti Park (I’ve been there), and of course their story. What a fantastic way to tell people about your company – what you do and what you offer. I love it.

The article was written on October 25th, titled, “Put social media to work for you” by Rick Spence.

Here is an interesting statement from the article, “(By election day, Nenshi also had more Facebook friends than Toronto’s three front-running mayoral candidates combined.)” This is Spence’s calculations not mine.

Have a look at the article and let me know what you think.

One of the topics that I cover near the end of the course is business ethics . For this session I use a round table discussion and have each person present a situation where they had to make a decision that involved ethics – choosing right or wrong. I typically start the discussion by describing a time when our company ordered a new ink jet printer from Dell. We received the printer, all the cords and the discs with the printer drivers. The issue started shortly after receiving the printer when we changed computers and found that we had misplaced the discs. As a result, we couldn’t print. Normally, the printer drivers would be online for download but the printer was so new that this option was not available. I called Dell and they said they would send us replacement discs. We waited a couple of days and to our surprise a rather large box was delivered. Inside was a new printer, the same model as previously sent, and the discs we required. We loaded up the drivers and our original printer worked perfectly.

At this point, I stop telling the story and open up the floor for discussion. As you can guess the ethical situation is what to do with the second printer: keep it or send it back. On one hand, Dell is a huge company and likely won’t miss a tiny ink jet printer. Why shouldn’t we keep it? This assumes that Dell has made a mistake and can’t trace the fact that they sent us two printers. The issue with this option is that Dell may figure this out and then send us a bill for the second printer. We could always use a second printer but we didn’t want to pay for an extra one. On the other hand, we never paid for the second printer. So why should we keep what we haven’t paid for.

The framework that we use in class for analyzing ethical situations is offered by Santa Clara University, The Jesuit University in Silicon Valley. This framework identifies Five Sources of Ethical Standards:

• The Utilitarian Approach
• The Rights Approach
• The Fairness or Justice Approach
• The Common Good Approach
• The Virtue Approach

What I like about their framework is that each approach is integrated into the decision making process:

• Recognize an Ethical Issue
• Get the Facts
• Evaluate Alternative Actions (using each of the approaches listed above)
• Make a Decision and Test It
• Act and Reflect on the Outcome

Ethically, the decision about the printer is simple. Don’t keep what you haven’t paid for. And that is what we did but it took an hour of calling numerous departments at Dell to figure out how. By the way, we had no complaints about Dell’s service, they even paid to have the printer picked up.

However, the lingering question with most ethical situations is “What if I could get away with it?”. As one smiling student said, “If the value is low and the risk is high, then it is easy to make the ethically right decision but if the reward is huge and the risk is low then everything changes.”

An ink jet printer is about $250. And after making calls for an hour I felt that the risk of getting caught was reasonably low. I think we could have kept the printer and not paid for it. The class was about 30-70 on this issue. Some would have kept it and most would have returned it.

But what happens when the stakes are higher?

After discussing my ethical situation, I offer students in the class the opportunity to describe their situations. They use the same format, stopping before the conclusion so that we have time to discuss various options and the ethics involved.

One student described how while working overseas he could have made lots of money by collecting “gifts” from the companies to whom he awarded contracts. He didn’t make any collections but has since wondered if he would have the need for a class studying business and ethics if he had accepted those gifts.

Another student, working in Calgary, found $3,000 in an unmarked envelop by her car in a parking lot. She had no way of knowing who the owner was. What to do?

I jokingly said, “Next” and everyone laughed. I’m not exactly sure but I had the feeling that most of the students would have kept the money. The student, however, told how she had taken the money to the police. The police found the owner within 30 days. The owner was a bakery and they gave the student a reward – a loaf of bread, sliced. Ironically, the student is allergic to wheat!

While working in developing country, another student witnessed an accident where a man was hit by a car late at night. The student went over to the man who was injured and sadly found that the victim was already dead. At that same time another witness came to examine the body and agreed; the person was dead. The second witness, older than the student, quickly looked for a wallet to obtain the person’s identification. During the search the second witness found a stash of cash. What would you do?

The student and the second witness left the scene with $7,000 each. His rational was that the victim was obviously involved in some type of crime by having the cash and by the way he was dressed. The other witness was bigger and older than him, so he wasn’t about to argue. The driver was in hysterics and screaming. When and if the police did arrive they would have had no hesitation claiming the money for themselves. I’m not sure what I would have done but I don’t think I would have “given” the money to the police.

The final situation was the best. The student is well educated and currently works for a non-profit organization in Calgary with an outstanding reputation. She is originally from an African country (I can relate since I was born in Uganda). She has 2 children and impeccable manners. She told of a situation in her country of origin while bidding on a huge construction project for a large telecommunications company. Two other companies were bidding on the project and competition was fierce. She prepared her companies bid delivered it personally. When she arrive at the office to submit her bid the official was not at the desk and the bids for the competing companies were on the desk – bound but not in envelops. What to do?

As a group we laughed because although the information on the competing bids would be tempting to look at, looking was clearly unethical. To our surprise the student threw up her hands and said, “I looked at the bid, ran back to my office, lowered our bid and quickly went back to submit it.” Although we were all shocked we were won over when she explained that the livelihood of many families were at stake. Many people including herself would be unemployed if her company was not awarded the contract.

By the way, I told this last story to a few business colleagues and they agreed – they would have done exactly the same thing. Their rationale was that “reviewing” the competitor’s bids was part of gathering information for “business intelligence”.

In this case, it seems that the stakes were so high that the common good outweighed fairness and personal virtue. What would you do if you were in her situation?

1. The importance of the tail varies tremendously
2. People search differently for different types of services/products.
3. The importance of the tail does not depend on the size of the search spend.
4. The tail is most important for SKU-based commodity retailers.
5. The tail is critically important for some advertisers.

I love the way Damon James in our company summarized the article. His conclusion is, “For bigger websites (lots of pages) and companies with lots of discretionary funds, the long-tail is a good thing. For smaller websites (limited real estate) and companies with limited dollars, (unless they want to do it themselves), not so much.”

One of our strategies is to use SEO techniques to go after keywords that are in the middle of the tail and pay-per-click campaigns to catch keywords on the long tail.

The bottom line is that most companies have to look at the value of keywords in the long tail and determine the value. More often than not setting up a pay-per-click campaign is the best way to go.

Simple diagram. Great descriptions. Easy to navigate. Clear. Well put together.

Enjoy!

The first email was related to an interview that CBC did with me. Dave Simms from CBC Television wanted my opinion on the Bing-Yahoo search story. The crux of the issue is whether or not the alliance will have an impact on Google search volume. My answer was No the merger will have minimal impact. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter will have more of an “impact” but realistically Google as a search medium will be with us for quite a few years. 70% of the searches worldwide go through Google. Actually, that is incorrect – my figures seem to be out of date. Market Share by NetApplication reports that Google has over 80% market share. Statcounter agrees. Wow.

We also sent out an email to announce our preview event on Wednesday, September 2 for IMC Vancouver. Avinash Kaushik from Google will be the keynote speaker. The conference will be fantastic and Anduro is helping to promote the conference by hosting an event here in Calgary a few weeks ahead of time. More about this in a future post.

Maybe we should have waited a bit before sending the second email. Today I received an email from a person I met a couple weeks ago at a business networking function wondering if it was “commonly accepted courtesy” to send a newsletter to someone without formally “opting-in”. This is an interesting question so I did some research and some thinking about what is ethical. Keep in mind that this event is explicitly a “networking function”.

One point of view by FutureQuest is that companies should have prospects opt-in if the email address is obtained from a business card. Technically this is probably correct but I’m not sure that this is practical or that it really makes a difference.

Another point of view that I like is expressed by Chip House. His post is titled: Business Card in Hand Doesn’t Mean Opt-in. Chip makes a differentiation between receiving a business card along with a handshake and receiving a card in a fishbowl. The former implies “opt-in” and the latter requires formal opt-in permission. I agree. Meeting someone, shaking their hand and getting a business card leads me to assume that I can phone the person, mail them a letter (even direct mail), fax them and send them an email – assuming that all those points of contact are on the business card.

Practically, I’m not sure how much difference it makes to get “opt-in permission”. Technically, we don’t have formal permission to send out the first email asking the person to opt-in.

My conclusion is that when I meet people at networking events I consider them business contacts who are interested in me, our company and what we are doing. I know I’m definitely interested in them and their company. So if you don’t want me to phone you or email you (tailor made or eNewsletter), then don’t give me your business card. But if you want to gain value from all the business contacts that we have in our company then we would love to have your business card and start a dialog with you.

Even within Anduro there are two camps: the more enthusiastic adopters of Web 2.0 and my own cantankerous self. I am pleased to state however that within Anduro we almost always meet in the middle with our discussions and debates.

Though it must sound remarkably so to many that I have just evolved from the Crustacean period, it is really more about aligning myself with the primary principal that has kept Anduro in good stead through the years: by sticking to the core fundamentals and adapting carefully and deliberately to new things, rather than hitching our wagon to every new flighty whim that comes rolling down the T1 cable.

By inhabiting the bleeding edge, I have seen many companies indirectly force their clients to also become beta testers for each new fad that comes along: to me, this is egregiously unfair to the client; unless the client knows and is aware that the platform is still in its formative stage and there is a risk involved. There is something said about being cutting edge and taking risks, it simply has to be stated and accepted ahead of time.

I should also clarify that I do indeed see benefits from the information sharing, synergy, and interoperability that Web 2.0 offers via its robust video sharing, wikis, social networking and blogs (I would not be writing in one if I did not) – but I do stress for any company out there to stick at least somewhat with the core basics and be judicious in their adoption.

So far, Anduro does a good job of this – to the benefit of our clients.

So lest it be misunderstood, let me state again for the record that I am infinitely thankful for technology – heck, one day I reckon I may even venture out to buy my first cell phone. Baby steps first though, baby steps first.

Damon James
Anduro Marketing