Building your In-house Team.

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Building your In-house Team.
Building Your In-house Team
Jessica BowmanDirector, Search Engine
Optimization Email jbowman_at_business.com Blog
http//www.SEMinhouse.com
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Directory
Built and organized for business.
PPC Network
Our Audience
Our Site
Our Audience
Our Clients
6,000 Advertisers count on us for access to the
webs most concentrated group of business
decision makers from a wide variety of industries
3.5 million monthly users turn to us for
lightning-quick access to business-related goods
and services. Weve organized the world of
business into 26 industry categories and nearly
65,000 subcategories that make it easy for
professionals to find what theyre looking for.
Decision Makers use Business.com to make informed
business purchase decisions. Our audience of
at-work professionals count on us for access to
the goods, services, news and information that
help them get their jobs done more efficiently.
Our Network
Through carefully chosen partner sites, The
Business.com Network reaches 32 million
professionals per month, delivering quality
distribution to our advertising clients.
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B2B Distribution
Quality Distribution
The Business.com Network
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B2B Zeitgeist
Vertical vs. Horizontal Search
Our Audience
Horizontal search engines deliver results on
everything from Britney Spears to NASCAR.
Business.com, the vertical search engine for
business, offers content strictly for the goods,
services, news and information that are important
in the B2B sector.

• Top Searches in Feb., 2006
• 1) Shakira
• 2) WWE
• 3) Daylight Savings Times
• 4) Chris Brown
• 5) IRS
• 6) NeoPets
• 7) RuneScape
• 8) Fall Out Boy
• 9) Panic At The Disco
• 10) NASCAR

Top Searches in Feb., 2006 1)
Olympics 2) Michelle Kwan 3) Walmart 4)
Iran 5) Xbox 360 6) Kiera Knightley 7)
Jessica Alba 8) Madonna 9) Paris Hilton 10)
Britney Spears

Top Searches in Feb., 2006
1) Email lists 2) Software applications 3)
Currency converters 4) Sample resumes 5)
Commercial real estate 6) Sales lead
generation 7) Foreclosure listings 8) Display
cases and racks 9) Office furniture 10)
Starting a small business
Business Barometer http//www.business.com/info/
knowledge_center/barometer.asp
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The leading business search engine and business
directory
Building Out the Team

1. Create demand.
2. Build allies by thinking beyond site SEO.
3. Go hire your team.

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Create Demand

• Create and peddle your Dog and Pony Show
• Meet with other groups
• Public Relations
• Legal
• Recruiting
• IT
• Learn a manager/departments biggest challenge.
• Find an SEM tactic to help with their biggest
  challenge(s).
• Make them salivate over the potential of SEM to
  relieve their pain.
• Make it about their needs.

BUZZ MARKETING Get everyone talking thinking
about SEO
Never Forget Search Rankings/Traffic are not a
worry for other departments.
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Think and position yourself beyond traditional
SEM.

• Tell people the other benefits of high rankings.
• Position search as an asset for their
  departments goals.
• Being in the search rankings increases brand
  awareness.
• SEO can help with reputation management.
• Optimizing press releases can increase press
  release visibility.
• Etc.
• Scenario Conversation with Public Relations
  Department
• Biggest Challenge Needs to work on building
  brand awareness. Said under his breath during a
  discussion. (I barely heard it)
• Response Did you know that press releases can
  be optimized for higher rankings in Google News
  and Yahoo News? I have a tool that will tell me
  what people type into news search programs, such
  as Google News. Does that sound interesting to
  you?

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Get strategic allies to push for your growth.

• The Ultimate Goal Get others to champion
  your teams growth.
• Get other departments to
• See the value.
• Recognize how it will help their agenda.
• Speak up and say, We need another person on the
  search marketing team to do XYZ for us.

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• Now its time to hire your team.

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The Reality

• You cant afford a Michael Jordan.
• But, you can build a winning team.

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Building a winning team
Look at SEMPOs Job Description.

• Hire a Strong Leader
• Proven successes in multiple disciplines,
  including search.
• Success in getting things done, in-house.
• Amazing political savvy.
• Someone that will become your search marketing
  poster child.
• Under the Strong Leader
• Hire people with
• Attitude and aptitude for the job.
• Strong communication skills and tact.
• Train them to do SEO.
• You get to have a team that does it your way.
• You dont have to break bad habits.
• Engage Outside Council
• Even corporate attorneys consult with outside
  council.
• Your often busy getting things done and not
  staying on top of industry details.

Talk to other In-house SEMs
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When hiring people with experience

• Use experienced new hires as consultants.
• Theyre fresh eyes.
• Its like bringing in a consultant.
• Let them take an unbiased look and audit your
  efforts.

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Encourage your team to do side work.

• Let your staff do side work.
• Theres big money in search.
• Enough companies will let it happen that you will
  loose great talent opportunities without this.
• Benefits of side projects
• Your staff will learn from these side work.
• Knowledge gained will make it into your site as
  well.
• They begin living and breathing search.

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Be prepared

• People leave.
• You may not always get 2 weeks notice.
• Keep centralized information.
• Logins. (Sitemaps, Directories, etc.)
• Any/All directory submission details

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Be prepared

• When you start working with other departments
• Youre lucky if they call you.
• Theyll forget all about search.
• There will be missed opportunities.
• You will be frustrated.
• Dont get discouraged.
• Stay in front of them. (Happy Hours, Lunch,
  Drop-ins, Articles, FYIs, etc.)
• Spend time walking the halls.
• When you hear about missed opportunities, we
  could have done ABC and it would have also given
  us XYZ.
• Look for small, hidden successes.

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Be prepared

• Management will question your need to attend
  conferences.
• Push back.
• You absolutely need to be here.
• In no time, you get corporate tinted glasses.
• Conferences keep you in check.

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• The In-house SEM team can have amazing visibility
  and influence.
• Youre in for a ride, and its going to be good.
  Enjoy!
• Questions?
• Jessica Bowman
• Director of SEO, Business.com
• Email jbowman_at_business.com
• Blog http//www.SEMinhouse.com