We touched down in San Antonio and booked it to the convention center so that we didn’t miss the session, “How to Increase Online Visibility and Drive Traffic at No Cost.” Erik was involved in the development of this session’s content. He spoke with Moderator Philip St. Jacques and provided some background and tips on how franchises can manage local map listings. You’ll be happy to know that we made it to the session in plenty of time! The panelists were senior-level franchisors, offering real-life experiences and tips on developing online franchise marketing programs.

Philip St. Jacques, moderator
Our new friend Phil provided some background on the topic and explained what elements of online franchise marketing are free; however, he noted that while no money is exchanged for these strategies, they do require time and effort. You must determine if the effort is truly cost effective for our franchise. Phil also explained how to update maps for single-unit and multi-unit businesses through Google Local Biz Center.

Deb Evans, Pres/CEO, Computer Explores
Deb Evans spoke about social media and explained the toolkit that Computer Explores developed: “Guide to Establishing Your Social Media Footprint in 10 Days.” This portions of the session was essentially a 101 on social media with some great best practices and principles. She asked the audience how many were afraid that social media is going to suck up all their time. Many people raised their hands. Everyone’s afraid of the unknown; it’s really not that scary!

Deb said to concentrate on a few social outlets, typically Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. She said corporate and franchisees must work together to make it effective. She recommended putting links to your social media profiles on your email signatures and even business cards (just get rid of that street address, no one snail mails any more!). Phil asked what types of increased traffic or results she’s seen. Deb said they aren’t necessarily concerned with numbers. Rather, being aware of conversations about your brand is the most important result.

Bill Zinke, CMO, Tasti D Lite
Bill also spoke about social media; he explained the actual social media program that Tasti D Lite is running and the significant results he’s seen. He explained their social media mantra: Monitor, Mingle, Measure. That’s very similar to Location3’s MOM approach to social media: Monitoring, Outreach, Measurement. Looks like we’re all on the right page!

Bill said that Tasti D Lite uses Twitter more than other networks; it makes sense and works for them. He urged that the audience decide what makes sense and works best for them. He recommended connecting with influencers, including celebrities, mommy bloggers, food bloggers (or other niche bloggers that fit your product/service), media outlets and local bloggers. He recounted some great results that Tasti D Lite has seen, including concrete numbers and even some great celebrity endorsements (that they didn’t have to pay for, the celebs just really like their product!).

Grant Kreutzer, Jack in the Box
Grant discussed three aspects of online franchise marketing: SEO, website optimization and analytics. First, though, he said you must establish a concrete franchise program with clear branding and franchise marketing messaging. For SEO, he discussed site structure basics–titles, metas, alt tags, keywords–and link development fundamentals. He revealed some tools for checking the quality of site structure elements and measuring link quality. The benefits are threefold: increasing ranking, branding and establishing expertise. For website optimization, he discussed long versus short contact forms. The best form length depends on what types of pre-qualification your franchise needs. He briefly explained tracking capabilities for forms: you can see where users exit form path using analytics.

Jack in the Box uses Google Analytics. Grant provided a brief overview of GA, briefly explaining how to implement, the capabilities and features you should look at, and he walked through some of Jack in the Box’s metrics.

The search industry is constantly changing and growing. To stay at the top of our game, we need to attend industry events to share ideas with our peers and get insider info on the hottest trends and innovations. That’s why we’re headed to SMX Advanced next week in Seattle. But we’re not just there for the parties, ferry rides and sunny weather (I kid, I kid), we’ll also be presenting during two sessions.

“Proving Social Media’s Value” – Everyone knows that social media is the buzz word right now, but many aren’t sure how to quantify all of the time and effort they put into it. Tarla Cummings, our resident social media expert, will help you put a dollar sign on social media campaigns and ensure that you’re actually seeing a return on your investment. This session takes place on Tuesday from 1:45 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Harbor Dining Room. If you’re doing any social media or thinking about it, you can’t afford to miss this session.

“How Much Do I Charge for SEM, Especially Now: Search Marketing Agency Pricing Models” – Regardless of the economy’s state, we all want to get the best bang for our buck and see the highest ROI possible. But what’s profitable for the client may not be profitable for the agency, and that goes both ways. In this session, Andrew Beckman discusses several pricing models that we use at Location3. He explains the advantages and disadvantages for each and how to create a model that is beneficial for both agency and client. This session takes place on Wednesday from 1:30 to 2:45 in the Harbor Dining Room. Whether you’re agency folk or a business that outsources to one, you won’t want to miss Andrew’s speech.

We look forward to reconnecting with old friends and meeting a bunch of new ones. Stay tuned to expertSEM and our Twitter accounts (@Location3 and @AngieL3M)—I’ll be blogging and tweeting throughout the show.

We’re busy bees this week, buzzing around the country to speak at PubCon and the Google WOAC Summit. Andrew and Alex will be in Vegas tomorrow and Wednesday giving presentations on several topics.

Andrew will be discussing Yahoo!’s Advanced Match Type tomorrow from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in Salon B. Alex is giving two presentations–one regarding local search and the other about post-click optimization. Both of his speeches take place on Wednesday in Salon B. The local session is at 10:15 and the post-click session is at 4:10. If you’re attending PubCon, you don’t want to miss any of these sessions!

Tomorrow, I will be presenting a case study at the Google WOAC Summit held at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View. The presentation is part of their session, “The Search for the Most Interesting Implementation.” I will be discussing the multivariate landing page experiment we conducted for a client. Check out an online version of the case study, which received a Bronze AMA Peak Award earlier this year.

We’re wrapping up our conference tour at PubCon Las Vegas again this year. PubCon is one of our favorite events. Besides being a great opportunity to learn from some of the industry’s top search marketers and webmasters, we also have a great time meeting and networking with new business contacts.

Andrew is speaking on the “Navigating the Complex World of PPC Engines” panel. This intro- to mid-level panel will look at pay per click management on each of the major search engines. The panel takes place on Tuesday, November 11 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in Salon B of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Alex is also a panelists on two different topics—“Local and Mobile Search” and “Increase your Post-click Conversion Performance.” The local search session takes place on Wednesday, November 12 from 10:15 to 11:30 a.m. in Salon B. The second panel is also on Wednesday from 4:10 to 5:30 in Salon B.

We hope that you’ll join us in Vegas to see our presentations and learn from other industry experts. To help get you there, here’s a coupon for 20% off the cost of full PubCon Registration. Just visit http://www.PubCon.com and use this discount code: be-82120.

See you in Vegas! Again!

We won last year, see if you win this year! Visit Location3 Media at Booth 1447 at DMA08 to learn what we’ve been up to since winning the 2007 ECHO Award for Search Marketing Excellence and try your luck at winning a $250 gift certificate to National Jean Company. National Jean Company is a designer apparel website that stocks Seven Jean, Splendid Sweats and other high-fashion items; they have been a long-time client of ours and the work we did on their campaign helped us to win a SES Award earlier this year.

We are currently exhibiting at the annual DMA Conference, which is taking place in the Las Vegas Convention Center. We have a few team members at the show—they may not be your typical booth babes but they know online marketing and are eager to help others get the most from their budgets!

Andrew and Alex are also speaking at DMA08. Andrew is leading an Ask-the-Experts roundtable today (Monday, Oct. 13) from 12:30 to 1:30 in Room C-5. The topic of his roundtable is how to manage affiliates in search marketing. He’ll discuss ways that companies can balance their affiliate relationships so that both parties win. Alex is also leading a roundtable tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct. 14) from 8:15 to 9:30 a.m. in Room N240. Alex’s session is titled, “Extreme Search Marketing”—he will discuss ways that businesses can enhance their search campaigns with advanced tactics and supplemental services, including time/day parting, local map listings, post-click optimization, social media management and many more. Don’t miss either presentation—both allow you to get up close and personal with two experts, where you can ask questions and get answers about your current search marketing efforts.
We’ve also got some big news that we won’t post on expertSEM until Wednesday, but if you want the dirt early, stop by booth 1447 at DMA08 today and we’ll fill you in. Hope to see you there!

Concerned about an impending recession and what it means for you? Every savvy business owner knows that marketing efforts cannot be abandoned completely. However, avoidance is not the answer either—you cannot continue to operate as if nothing has changed. How can you effectively prepare for an economic slump without missing out on opportunities? Attend “Search Marketing & Surviving a Recession” at SMX Advanced in Seattle to find out.

On Wednesday, June 4th at 9 a.m., Andrew, along with fellow search marketing experts, will be discussing why search is your best defense against a recession due to its ability to accurately track spending and measure success. Andrew will provide strategies and tactics that can help you prepare for this worst case scenario and get the most out of your search budget. Here is a small sample of what you can learn in this session:

• Use affiliates to your advantage. Create a robust and balanced affiliate search marketing program—offset high cost of highly-trafficked, general keywords through affiliate bidding practices, push affiliates to engage in SEO, level out paid and organic efforts for affiliates.



• You don’t always have to spend a lot of money to make money. Take advantage of affordable services such as local map listings. Update and enhance your listings on the leading search engines, directories and IYPs to increase exposure and drive traffic to your physical store locations.
• If you build it, they will come. Put time and effort into link building—write blog posts and comments with anchor text links, develop additional content on your website to increase keyword saturation, make phone calls to relevant, credible websites to request links and drive traffic using social medial techniques.



• Memorize your ABCs of post-click optimization. Use web analytics to understand your site’s click stream metrics then make necessary changes to increase usability. In addition, use multivariate landing page tools to determine the best converting layout and content for your website.
• Trim the fat. Remove mildly-performing keywords and focus on only those that convert well,then bid more aggressively on these keywords.

Any company, no matter what product or service they offer, will benefit from this session. And audience members are assured an enlightening and entertaining speech—Andrew’s presentations always receive rave reviews for the helpful advice he bestows and his superb communications skills.

Won’t be able to catch this session because you’ll be in Miami for ad:tech? Then stop by booth 215 to chat with the Hispanic Targeting crew and learn more about Hispanic search marketing. If you won’t be attending either show, don’t worry—you still have plenty of opportunities to hear Andrew and other Location3 team members give rousing presentations. On May 14th, Andrew and Alex are holding a search marketing workshop at DMA headquarters, educating attendees on how to take their search efforts to the next level. Andrew is leading an Ask-The-Experts table at DMA08 regarding affiliate search marketing and Alex is leading a breakfast roundtable on advanced search marketing strategies. In addition, both Andrew and Alex are presenting again this year at Webmaster World’s PubCon. Subscribe to expertSEM to stay current on the many educational events lead by our search gurus and all other newsworthy items.

Need to develop a search marketing campaign for your business but don’t know where to begin? Learn from the experts—Andrew and Alex will be leading an interactive workshop for the DMA SEM Council in New York on May 14. The session, “What You Didn’t Know to Ask About Search,” is a four-hour educational workshop designed for the search novice—those with a basic understanding of what search engine marketing is, but do not have experience developing their own campaign. The session will touch on several topics:

• PPC management
• Search engine optimization
• Local search marketing
• Affiliate search marketing
• Post-click optimization
• Any many more

The session is broken down into two sections with a brief networking opportunity sandwiched in the middle. In the first session, you can discover how to strengthen and enhance basic PPC and SEO techniques and how to optimize the relationship between the two. You also learn local search strategies for both paid and organic search, including how to manage the increasingly-prevalent local map listings. Cross-channel integration—combining online and offline efforts to create a comprehensive marketing message—is discussed in the first part as well.

The second part of the workshop kicks off with tips on affiliate search marketing—how to construct a balanced relationship between your business and all affiliates. Next, the focus shifts to the second half of search marketing, the post-click process. You learn best practices for the design and optimization of landing pages, creating a better user experience and increasing conversions. The workshops ends with one of the most important aspects of search—data. You discover how to analyze your site’s click stream metrics and how to measure results of each aspect of your search program.

With more than sixteen years of experience in search engine marketing combined, Andrew and Alex have an in-depth knowledge of the search industry. They have established close relationships with every available search channel, developed best practices that can be applied across the board and created innovative approaches for crafting the most successful search programs. The two have delivered speeches at numerous industry conferences and events; both are masters at simplifying search principles and making complex strategies manageable for any skill level.

Come learn from these experts first-hand—visit the DMA website to register for this invaluable session today.