John S. Wolfe

In the Valley of the Sun, one individual constantly in demand to speak is Sheila Kloefkorn, president of KEO Marketing.

Fresh off her talk last week to the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association, Kloefkorn had the dais to herself July 20 in an afternoon presentation to the Business Marketing Association’s Phoenix chapter at SkySong in Scottsdale. (Co-presenter
Fionn Downhill, CEO of Elixir Interactive, was ill.)

For 90 minutes Kloefkorn provided a “state of search engine optimization” address for about 50 media professionals. She led the group through recent changes in search and the top 10 facets of on-site and off-site search to embrace.

“SEO is not just meta tags, titles and keywords,” she said. “Now it’s find, index, categorize, and rank web content.”

Search has also moved beyond the “universal” search users are most familiar with. For example, searches are now being personalized based on the individual’s prior searches, she said.

“Google is tracking your searches,” Kloefkorn said, noting that one user’s mention of COBRA may turn up a piece of electronics, not the health-care option, if he had previously searched “CB radios.”

Similarly, Microsoft’s Bing considers itself a “decision engine,” anticipating what the user means when using search, to streamline the experience.

Bing has effectively grabbed the travel-arrangements segment in search and has its eyes on education, she said.

Google Caffeine is a new infrastructure the company is using to index web pages. Thus, if your page is a slow-loader because of images or volume, you may be penalized, she said.

Then there are the “big three” of 2010: Local search, mobile search, and video search.

Search results based on the user’s location – providing convenient and local products, services and businesses – is becoming more common. Google features such local results toward the bottom of its results pages.

“Google wants to provide relevant results,” she said.

Video search is booming, while social search (of social media websites) is also gaining.

KEO Marketing’s Sheila Kloefkorn was the guest speaker at the July 20 meeting of the Business Marketing Association Phoenix chapter. Al Maag of Avnet is its president.

Kloefkorn emphasized that web-page builders need to optimize their work for search engines.

“Google sees a bunch of text,” she said. Fancy images, graphics and pieces in Adobe Flash can’t be read by search engines.

She suggested visiting www.webconfs.com to test what search engines see on your site.

She offered a SEO primer on the “top 10″ elements to address on your company’s website:

1. Keywords or phrases in the title tag (the words at the top of the web page)
2. Keywords or phrases in the H1 or headline tag (the first words on the page)
3. Internal link/external link to anchor text on the page (repeating the full keywords in links, not just “click here for more information”)
4. The first 50 words in the HTML on the page
5. Meta description tag (the site’s name and information like phone numbers and forms, but remember to include a call to action, she said)
6. A URL structure with keywords (i.e. www.johnswolfe.com/socialmedia/3-facets-of-effective-non-profit-websites)
7. Other headline tags
8. Image Alt text
9. The number of repetitions in the HTML text
10. Keyword use in image names (labeling an image with specific names or companies, instead of “pic3″ or “event photo7″, and use dashes, not underscores)

Sheila Kloefkorn speaks at SkySong on July 20.

Kloefkorn then noted that your SEO effort also has to include “off-site” strategies, ways to tie your site to others, so search engines are impressed by your vitality. This is where engagement with customers through social media like Facebook and Twitter creates a network that boosts your site’s prominence.

The second “top 10″:

1. Use unique content (not syndicated or “re-freshed” content) on the page; search engines like original content
2. Employ keywords used by individuals in their searches in the article or video title or description
3. Be fresh; search engines like “recency,” which is why blogs have soared up results
4. Create internal links on your site to other pages on the website
5. Change your content frequently
6. Use external-pointing links, like back-links from other websites like media or trade associations
7. Use keywords in the URL
8. Minimize the amount of code showing up within the text in the HTML
9. Make sure there’s a meta description tag
10. Seek HTML validation from W3C standards

The Google vs. Yahoo search fight has a new look, now that Microsoft’s Bing has been connected to Yahoo. Kloefkorn noted that in June Google saw its first decline in market share for at least five years.

It went from 65% of all searches to 62%. Yahoo’s 19% and Bing’s 12% gave the partnership new weight – and a legitimate option for businesses looking at paid search advertising. (Ask.com‘s 3% and AOL‘s 2% were the other choices.)

“It’s important when you consider that 1% market share equals about $100 million a year,” she said.

She noted that this week the Bing/Yahoo is taking shape.

“You will start to see different results on Yahoo because they will be coming from Bing,” she said.

Why is search so important? Because studies show that 92% of purchases are made by consumers who use it before the sale. Kloefkorn guessed that the remaining 8% of purchases are likely groceries.

And paid search is valuable because companies may not have the resources to generate fresh content and optimize web pages to move up the “natural” search results.

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The BMA’s next event will be a sports marketing discussion at Chase Field on Aug. 17, prior to the Diamondbacks’ game against the Cincinnati Reds.

The second annual Technology Marketing Summit will be held Sept. 23 at the Phoenix Convention Center.