There are three legs to getting found in today’s market:

• A clear brand message
• A Web site that’s differentiated from your competitors, and
• An online Web strategy that promotes search engine optimization.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the first leg of an effective online Web strategy, but SEO is a black box to most Web site owners. And guess what? We’re going to teach you just enough to make you dangerous because, frankly, you don’t need to know all of the ins and outs of optimization. You don’t want to know how sausage is made either.

Black hats and white hats
The rise of search is wonderfully chronicled in the book by the same name, The Search, by John Battelle, one of the original founders of Wired magazine. No one, except Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, had any idea that getting found on the Internet would either be so important or so challenging to businesses. Yet search has become a multi-billion dollar business. And it is vitally important to your business.

But that’s enough on the history of search. Read the book. What we want you to know is how to get found. In the short history of search, individuals have tried to game the system in order to beat Google’s famous algorithm for delivering search results. One of the first tactics Google gamers used was hidden keywords embedded in the site (think “white on white”) to trick search engines into ranking the site higher. As these tactics proliferated, Google fought back by banning sites that employed these “black hat” techniques from search results altogether.

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A new reason to act has emerged this month amid all the current buzz about social media adoption in professional services marketing—and we all have the folks at Google to thank for this prodding. The new development? Google search results will now contain real time content from across the Web (from sites like Twitter and Facebook). You can read Google’s December 7th announcement on its blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/.

Why should professional service marketers pay attention to real time search? To quote one search marketing analyst/pundit, John Ellis, “the simple fact is there is a direct correlation between social media and search rankings.” From now on, the work you do (or should do) to tweet, link or otherwise post activity and content surrounding your practice area, industry program or thought leadership initiative is as—if not more important—than the work you do on your Web site meta tags and keywords.

Bottom line, there’s more opportunity to climb organic search results, but there’s also more reason to figure out your social media strategy and tactics.

Much has been written by many about the shift from traditional to online advertising, including us. In previous posts, we shared the logic and Google-fueled numbers behind the trend, along with advice for what to do about it.

Amid all the understandable new media clatter, this article caught my eye the other day in The Boston Globe, “Google uses billboards to attract new clients.”

The Globe’s technology reporter looks at a four-city billboard campaign that promotes Google Apps to corporate IT managers. In addition to Boston, the billboards are also appearing next to major highways in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

And your point is? Google’s own advertising is an ironic and important reminder that old school media, like billboards, are still very much a part of the smart marketer’s mix of tactics. So yes, get on the new media train, but don’t miss an opportunity to get your message seen at a busy commuter rail station or in other traditional places your competitors are abandoning.

Final note: I was reading the print version of The Boston Globe when I saw the Google article. Call me old school.

Online advertising can help you reach buyers in ways that are more directly measurable. But navigating, choosing and bargaining within the mysterious world of online media can offer as much risk as reward. Last month we introduced online advertising in Part I: The Fifth Dimension. This month, we’ll share some ideas on how to implement your online campaign.

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