In my ongoing coverage of the upcoming SES conference in San Jose I wanted to share another interview with Mary BowlingSenior SEO, SEO Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. who will be speaking at the conference on the track: What’s Next
1. What is your background and what are you doing for Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc?
My background is as a serial entrepreneur. I got into Search Marketing about 5 years ago when I was looking for new and interesting work to learn. I was immediately attracted to the “game” of SEO and have been pretty much obsessed with it ever since.
I am a senior SEO at Blizzard doing research and development, creating best practices, training others and optimizing client websites. We specialize in the travel and hospitality vertical and concentrating in this niche has really allowed us to excel. We know what works for websites in these industries because we can test and measure results over a large number of similar businesses.
2. There has been a lot of discussion recently on the validity of a long tail strategy – what are your thoughts on marketing to the longtail?
Some clients have an enormously long tail of location-specific keyword terms that attract very qualified traffic to their websites. One example of this is Hilton Head Island South Carolina. The top 500 keywords for one client account for a little less than 50% of their traffic from organic search. That leaves 50% way out there on a very long tail.
For others, we use activity or attraction terms in their long tail marketing strategy. While these typically bring less targeted traffic that doesn’t convert as well, they still pay a relatively low cost for each conversion. It is usually quite easy to optimize for long tail terms. A well-optimized blog post about an upcoming concert, for example, can bring plenty of visitors to a nearby hotel’s website. At least a few of them are likely to convert into room bookers.
3. Should marketers always use secondary search engines? Why or why not?
I optimize for Google. When an agency is involved, that is where the client gets the biggest bang for their bucks. If I were working strictly on my own sites, however, I’d go after every opportunity I could find. Then I’d expand on what’s working and let go of what isn’t working.
4. What are some “best practices” when building out a long tail strategy?
Do very thorough keyword research and make sure you include the client in the process. They can help you to uncover many valuable terms that, as an outsider, you may not be familiar.
Building new pages is the easiest way to optimize for long tail terms, If a new page is well-optimized for a long tail term or two, it’s not unusual to have it ranking within a week, as long as your website’s internal linking is good.
5. What part does a global marketing plan play in developing a long tail strategy?
I don’t really have any expertise in global marketing. Sorry.
6. What is the latest “flash in the pan” meme in search marketing?
Being connected to everyone else all the time via sites like Twitter. Some people thrive on this kind of constant contact, but many early adopters have already tired of the noise and are filtering it out or even switching it off.
7. What are some SEM blogs and resources that you use?
I am very interested in Local Search and some of my favorite bloggers right now are:
And writing my thoughts down in my own blog http://www.marybowling.com/ helps me to think more clearly about SEO.
