The audio on this interview is pretty low, so you’ll need to turn it up a bit.  The one downside to a Flipcam

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Mike McDonald of WebProNews and his trusty videographer Travis, caught up with Odden after the session for the following interview. In it they discuss examples of how social media can be used to advance search engine visibility goals and how SEO can be used to grow social networks.

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TopRank will be conducting a 2-day social media and SEO workshop in New York Dec 1-2 in conjunction with the national Direct Marketing Association. The following week, TopRank will be presenting on a panel at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago on how companies can optimize their blogs for better search engine traffic.

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There’s a lot to be said about the topic of marketing real-time including the fact that in many ways, marketers have been marketing “in the now” through search and other types of online advertising for years. What’s new are efforts to leverage insight from connections between social media networks to deliver relevant ads. The notion of leveraging the social graph for delivering relevant ads was highlighted recently in an excellent article by David Berkowitz in Media Post: “The Social Graph Ad Targeting Buyer’s Guide“.

Technorati, Meebo, YouTube and Twitter all offer options for reaching new customers real-time, either through content or advertising as do an increasing number of other companies like Klout. The challenge is, like with all emerging digital marketing channels, to get a handle on what makes the most sense, what delivers value and results.

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TopRank CEO Lee Odden Interviewed by Jiyan Wei of Vocus on WebmasterRadio.FM "Cover Story"

Public relations is enjoying both an evolution and a renaissance.

While traditional media outlets have been steadily shrinking, sources of online news and information have been exponentially growing.

Digital public relations, which has developed from this interesting paradigm, is an inclusive blend of both traditional push PR tactics and pull marketing tactics inherent with search engine optimization.  In a very real sense,  digital public relations can serve both a PR objective of securing coverage, and a marketing objective of achieving inquiries and sales.

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank® Online Marketing, was recently interviewed by Jiyan Wei of PRWeb for the Webmaster Radio program, “Cover Story” on Push and Pull Public Relations.  

In the interview, Odden described how businesses can leverage digital public relations to both build exposure with online and offline journalists as well as generate inquiries from directly from end consumers.

Via optimized press releases, businesses are able to distribute their news via wire services to the media and also reach journalists, analysts and reporters conducing online research via keyword queries on various types of search engines.

In TopRank’s Journalists’ Use of Search Survey in 2008, 91% of respondents cited using standard search engines to do their jobs. 95% use search for researching past news stories and 82% for story ideas. According to Neilsen Online, Yahoo News receives nearly 35 million monthly visitors/searchers. The opportunity to optimize news content for a seeking audience is substantial.

Through news search engines, or even traditional search engines such as Google or Yahoo!, optimized press releases and other news content can be found by both enterprising journalists researching a story or consumers seeking products or services.

“When you look at news search, a lot of the content you find is optimized press releases,” states Odden in the interview.  “Businesses can draft and optimize theses releases, distribute them through wire services, and reach consumers and journalists directly with their news message. “

Businesses who master digital public relations through optimized news content are able to reach elusive journalists AND consumers who are using search engines to find news and information. The result can be increased media coverage, brand awareness and ultimately, sales.

Wei’s full interview with Odden may be found at WebmasterRadio.FM.

TopRank® Online Marketing provides Fortune 1000 companies holistic Internet Marketing services, including search engine optimization, online public relations, and business blog consulting.

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At last month’s SXSW Interactive conference, a component of the legendary music, film and interactive festival dedicated to the coolest new media technologies, Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank® Online Marketing, detailed the benefits of strategic social medial in a podcast with Susan Bratton, CEO of Personal Life Media.  You can listen to or read full transcribed interview with Susan here.

In the interview, Odden coupled his strategic social media recommendation to Bratton’s listeners with a warning to avoid jumping directly into social media tactics.

“[Many businesses] will read in an article or hear at a conference, oh, Facebook’s a hot thing, Twitter’s hot, so, hey – somebody go set up Facebook and Twitter accounts,” states Odden. “Unfortunately, this siloed and segmented approach doesn’t tie into the overall brand objective.”

Odden recommends for businesses, and helps implement for clients of TopRank® Online Marketing, the construction of a Social Media Roadmap.  This structured approach helps ensure businesses identify their audience, objectives and relevant supporting tactics prior to diving into the social media landscape.

Lee Odden and Susan Bratton Discuss Strategic Social Media at SXSW Interactive

In what Bratton described as the “gem” of the interview, Odden detailed how, by following this structured approach, clients of TopRank® Online Marketing are already leveraging the opportunistic power of social media to experience a richer, more complete online marketing program.

“We look at topics that are buzzing in social media, and we bring this information back to a client and go, ‘Look, people in your category are talking about this.  Let’s create content so that you rank for it highly in the search engines.’  By the time that buzzing topic hits mainstream media, they’re already there – they have a first mover advantage,’” states Odden.

Clients of TopRank® Online Marketing and businesses who take this strategic approach to social media are already experiencing the benefits that come along with becoming a first mover in their industry.  And for most, it began with a Social Media Roadmap.

Discover more insight on social media from TopRank® Online Marketing in the Social Media Marketing category of the Online Marketing Blog offering numerous articles on social media strategies and tactics.

TopRank® Online Marketing provides Fortune 1000 companies holistic Internet Marketing services, including search engine optimization, social media marketing, and business blog consulting.

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Lee Odden and Chris Brogan Discuss Social Media for Business at PubCon South

Webmasterwworld PubCon conferences are among the longest-running educational and networking events dedicated to search engine marketing.

PubCon South, which was held this month in Austin, Texas, featured sessions focused heavily on social media best practices, including numerous sessions on Twitter. Social media topics were equally mixed with cutting edge insight on pay per click, search engine optimization and public relations.

Deeply ingrained in the social media marketing mix was TopRank® Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden who presented on three panels, two of which centered on social media related topics.

The last session of the day featured a keynote panel, or “Super Session” moderated by conference organizer Brett Tabke and including Chris Brogan, Lee Odden, Wayne Sutton and Reem Abeidoh.  Odden joined Chris Brogan to offer further detail on how to leverage social media tactics to achieve business objectives. Watch Lee and Chris’s video interview with WebProNews here.

Among the advice offered by Odden to businesses seeking to integrate social media into their marketing mix, is the construction of a Social Media Roadmap.  Approaching commercial social media participation in a structured format encourages businesses to identify the audience and specific business objectives of any social media initiative, as well the development of a game plan and relevant supporting tactics.

The benefit of spending the time to develop this roadmap is not only to identify the tools and tactics that will help a business achieve its objectives with social media, but ultimately, to most effectively measure outcomes.   Social media participation takes a substantial time commitment, and now more than ever, companies have little marketing budget for waste.  This strategic approach helps businesses venturing into social media to stay on track with marketing initiatives and manage resources efficiently.

Discover more insight on social media from TopRank Online Marketing  on our Social Media Marketing category from Online Marketing Blog offering numerous articles on social media strategies and tactics.

TopRank® Online Marketing provides Fortune 1000 companies holistic Internet Marketing services, including search engine optimization, social media marketing, and business blog consulting.

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Website Magazine recently published an interview with TopRank CEO Lee Odden on blogging, microblogging and the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose:

TopRank, a Minneapolis, Minnesota search marketing agency is truly one of the best when it comes to natural SEO, social media marketing and new media PR. Website Magazine contributor Dante Monteverde quizzed TopRank’s CEO Lee Odden recently (a sample is below) on the keys to driving blog readership, the efficacy of micro-blogging, and what attendees of SES San Jose can expect from his session titled “SEO Through Blogs & Feeds.”

Why should a website start a blog? Would you justify starting a blog for purely SEO reasons?

“As for adding a blog to a web site in the commonly understood definition, it really depends on a number of factors: Does the company have something useful/meaningful to say? Are there staff within the company that actively read industry blogs? Can resources be dedicated to the blog on an ongoing basis? (IT, writing and editorial, monitoring, marketing, PR). A company should not bother with a blog if they answer no.”

The key to gaining readership with a blog is developing fresh usable content on at least a weekly basis. What if you don’t have time to write blog posts? Is it ok and/or when should I consider using and employee or hiring a 3rd party to write and/or manage my blog?

To keep consistency and frequency of posts on a blog, it makes sense to create an editorial guide. This can be reflected by the blog categories as well as a document that outlines types of posts to be published on a regular basis. For example, readers will appreciate knowing that every Wednesday there will be some kind of poll or every Monday there’s an interview or list of practical tips.

Recently there has been a shift toward sites like Twitter.com that promote micro-blogging. What kind of effect do you think this is having on blogs and more importantly SEO?

I think tools like Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, etc do distract people from blogging. I also know that there are a number of smart people who use them together. I don’t mean auto publishing blog posts to Twitter with Twitterfeed, as that kind of micro content is ignored. But personally recommending resources to a Twitter network can generate tremendous exposure if it’s done right and relevant to the audience. Twitter can also be a great tool fro sourcing content to put on blog posts

How much SEO value do you put on the syndication of your blog? Other than getting traffic and exposure from your blog can you derive any SEO value from your blog through RSS Feeds?

For us, the SEO value from RSS distribution comes in part from syndication with embedded links back to the blog. For blogs that publish feeds using their domain name in the url, links to the RSS feed can drive some link popularity.

Can you give us some insight to how your run your blog: www.toprankblog.com?

Actually, we started as more of a news blog but changed a few years ago to focus on original content. With the help of Jolina, Thomas, Jessica, Mike, Ashley and Julie from Toprank, Online Marketing Blog covers conferences such as Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, Pubcon and other events put on by PRSA and the DMA.

You can see TopRank’s presentations on “News Search SEO” and “Blog SEO” at the Search Engine Strategies in San Jose this week on Wednesday. Read the full interview at Website Magazine.

A leading Minneapolis Internet marketing agency, TopRank provies holistic online marketing solutions to Fortune 1000 companies in the Twin Cities and cost to coast in the U.S. and Canada.

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The social media space is becoming quite saturated as companies begin to introduce social networking platforms and corporate blogs. How does the increase of activity in this space affect someone’s online strategy?

“At first glance, the array of options can be very intimidating to a company that wants to get into the social media space as a way to grow brand awareness and revenue.”

“The important first step is to get involved as a participant and work to understand the way social communities and blogs work from a user perspective.”

Additional questions focused on SEO, social media, Twitter and sage advice for Incisive Media’s Kevin Ryan. Read the full interview, “Search Engine Optimization: TopRank CEO Shares Tips and Tricks“

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Adriana: From your experience, what are the biggest mistakes you come across when it comes to PR online? Lee: Thinking that optimizing and submitting a press release all by itself is enough to get covered by the media, because it’s not. There is an expression, in the US at least, doing something to only see if it works it’s like “throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks”, it’s kind of a silly thing to do.

Read the full Lee Odden interview at Avangate. TopRank provides a holistic mix of SEO, PR and social media marketing services to Fortune 500 companies.

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Wiley, a publishing house, recently announced the launch of a new book, “Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus”, in which TopRank has an entire chapter on the subject of social media marketing for SEO and PR.

The list of Internet marketing experts interviewed for the book include consultants, agencies, CEOs, PR professionals, client side bloggers and marketers. Topics range from paid search to online copywriting to online PR and social media marketing.

Read the full article at the TopRank Online Marketing Blog.

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The CEO of TopRank Online Marketing was interviewed by local ABC affiliate KSTP Eyewitness News on Starbucks’ decision to close its stores for 3 1/2 hours to conduct training. Odden cited the event as a publicity stunt and indicated the closure would give competitors an opportunity to attract Starbucks clientèle with discounts and free offers. KSTP’s report showed exactly that as competing and regional coffee houses were much busier than normal during the Starbucks closure.

Additionally, Odden provided insight into the reaction of the blogosphere to the Starbucks closing by showing the increase in blog posts, links and comments using a real time social media monitoring service, Radian6. Not only did the use of the Starbucks brand name and phrase, “Starbucks closing” increase, but competitors offering discounts such as Dunkin’ Donuts increased as well. This sort of opportunistic piggybacking can be detected quickly with social media monitoring tools such as TopRank’s partner Radian6 allowing brand managers to react accordingly.

Watch the full interview at KSTP

TopRank offers tier one online public relations and social media marketing services including online reputation management for brands, companies and executives.

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At the Search Engine Strategies conference in London February 21st, TopRank’s CEO Lee Odden was interviewed by Greg Jarboe on blog and news SEO for Incisive Media, parent of the SES London conference.

“Odden discusses his panel on blog search engine optimization (seo) and online reputation management as well as his panel on news search optimization”

Odden gave presentations on the news and blog optimization panels and moderated the reputation management session.

Watch the full Lee Odden SES London interview on YouTube.

TopRank has worked with companies across the United States to develop solid online marketing programs focused on increasing sales and brand visibility. Expertise ranges from digital asset optimization to SEO to online public relations.

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On October 20th, 2007 Eric Schwartzman of On the Record Online interviewed TopRank CEO Lee Odden about Search Engine Optimization and Public Relations at the PRSA International Conference in Philadelphia, PA.

Show Notes:

• 3:16 – Odden gives examples of the benefits of SEO.
• 4:07 – Odden on the role of SEO in a media relations.
• 5:52 – Odden on the search engine optimized press release.
• 7:00 – Odden on keyword placement within a press release to secure an optimal search rank.
• 7:58 – Odden on the usefulness of mentioning competitors in press releases to increase page rank.
• 8:50 – Odden on the impact of media data for search rank.
• 9:56 – Odden on developing separate press releases SEO and media relations.
• 11:55 – Odden reveals the strategy for managing a client’s reputation by placing positive content as the primary link on a search rank.
• 13:50 – Odden on the ethical considerations of using inbound links to determine page rank.
• 15:54 – Odden on Google’s shortcomings.
• 17:50 – Odden on recommending SEO to clients more interested in traditional public relations.
• 19:27 – Odden on developing an SEO marketing strategy to increase client visibility.
• 20:15 – Odden on why his PR strategy appeals to clients.
• 21:18 – Odden shares his single, biggest SEO mistake.
• 22:13 – Odden on his single, greatest SEO accomplishment.
• 23:09 – Odden on the challenges of learning to SEO content.
• 25:10 – End

Listen to the full Lee Odden podcast interview here.

TopRank Online Marketing provides Fortune 500 companies a holistic mix of internet marketing consulting services for improved online sales and brand visibility.

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