Nicolette Beard

Searchlight Marketing

As a Web marketing consultant, Nicolette is responsible for applying strategic insight to client’s online initiatives utilizing search engine optimization, social media and online publicity. She works to educate clients about the changing landscape of search and how to best use technology to achieve their business goals.

Pinterest Wields Marketing Chops

0 comments 2,086 reads

Posted on 2012-05-26

Living in a hot tourist destination, like Southwest Florida, opens up online marketing strategies that are much different than marketing a B2B website. Recently, Pinterest, the latest social media darling, brandished its marketing chops to the travel industry. Jetsetter recently held a travel contest (reports Mashable) that increased their metrics considerably: 100% increase in referral traffic, 150% boost in page views.

I see a number of tourist businesses who could benefit from Jetsetter’s success by understanding the following:

Know your target audience....

Read More »
SEO Fundamentals: How to SEO Your Website

0 comments 1,225 reads

Posted on 2012-01-20

Off all the definitions for “fundamentals,” the one I like best is “down to bedrock.” It’s not commonly used but, for this SEO fundamentals post, I think it fits. The phrase is defined as meaning “Down to basics or fundamentals; down to the essentials.” Bedrock is literally a hard, solid layer of rock underlying the upper strata of soil or other rock. By extension, it’s any foundation or basis.

So the question then becomes, “How do I lay a rock-like foundation for my website that will provide a solid base from which to grow?”

My first website became a house with many rooms added...

Read More »
Want Better Search Results? Write Better Page Titles.

0 comments 900 reads

Posted on 2012-01-17

One of the hardest things to convey to people outside the search industry is that SEO, in addition to requiring some technical proficiency, also encompasses research and writing skills. Your Page Title will almost always trump any technical ranking factor, unless the page URL lands in your robots.txt file. Then, even the most laser-focused page won’t be crawled.

Matt Cutts, Google Webspam Team, recently wrote about Page title tips on Webmaster Central. Essentially, he shared what most of us in the industry have known for a long...

Read More »
Social Media Framing

0 comments 1,512 reads

Posted on 2012-01-13

I’m a big fan of the people at Forrester Research and devoured the book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, when it was published in 2008. I think they, well, wrote the book, when it came to defining a social media strategy.

The one thing that’s changed over the course of four years and, in the wake of Google’s Panda update, is that website owners must now all be “Creators.” At the time, this profile ranked the second lowest for U.S. adults online at 18%. Most of us still...

Read More »
Brand Bias & the Thought Police

0 comments 1,030 reads

Posted on 2012-01-10

A search and social opinion piece has been incubating in my mind for several weeks, first instigated by one of my favorite instigators, Aaron Wall.

In May 2011, Aaron pointed out yet another Google hypocrisy; Google admitted to brand bias in search results. He also details Google’s pro-brand history from 2003 to present.

For months, I’ve let this simmer, wondering how this would fit into any SEO strategy since my client roster doesn’t include any big consumer brand.

Then a month...

Read More »
Blogs Are the New Black

0 comments 1,092 reads

Posted on 2012-01-03

I’ve been blogging since 2005 and have been advocating blogging as the single best SEO tactic since 2008 and suffered a lot of push back from clients.

Thanks to Brian Solis, who named 2012, The Year of the Blog, I may be vindicated. He generously published The State of the Blogosphere to bring you up to speed.

When social media, or more accurately, social networks, became the online darling, the “digerati” quickly forgot about blogs. I mean, what a boring word, b-l-o-o-o-g. We like snappy words with...

Read More »
Ins & Outs of Local Business Listings

0 comments 1,089 reads

Posted on 2011-12-13

I started to write this post on local link building and, and when I went to check my link building resources, I became distracted and actually started building links to my own website. It’s a common complaint among online marketers and SEOs that we hardly have time to market and/or optimize our own sites let alone keep up with client websites.

So I took advantage of my wandering attention span and got to work!

I now have up-to-date practical hand’s-on experience to tell you how you can claim your local business listing in a handful of top-tier directories in about two hours....

Read More »
Is Your Site Truly Link Worthy?

0 comments 1,301 reads

Posted on 2011-12-08

While the holidays have provided a welcome lull in the number of search marketing conferences vying for our attention, what hasn’t lapsed is the day-in-and-day-out “noise” of SEO advice. The best SEO advice anyone can give you is to sell a great product and to provide a terrific user experience. Even the most “expert link building advice” can’t help you, if you own a website that no one wants to link to.

If your site is over two years old, then consider a facelift. Two years may not seem like a long time, but when you look at those hundreds of thousands of...

Read More »
Why Link Building is a Lot Like Golf

0 comments 1,061 reads

Posted on 2011-12-06

To be successful on the Pro Tour requires dedication, skill and the ability to calibrate your shots to the specific hole or golf course.

To be a successful link builder requires similar determination, skill and calibration. But with link building, what exactly are you adjusting for? That depends on the type of website for which you are building links. This is where the nuance of link building becomes apparent. If you have only built links for your own website, then you may have missed the opportunity to calibrate your link building from the beginning or to link build to your site’s best advantage.

Meaning, if you made mistakes with your link building when your site was new, you cannot turn back the clock; you can’t undo your link building deeds. All you can do, going forward, is to “recalibrate” your linking efforts with new knowledge.

If you are a link...

Read More »
B2B Advertising: Metrics That Matter

0 comments 1,033 reads

Posted on 2011-12-02

I started my career in print advertising selling ad space to national accounts like Stouffer’s, General Motors and Lands’ End. In those days, the pendulum swung every few years from media buying plans demanding reach to client’s wanting to promote to niche markets exclusively. Any independent rep who wanted to stay in business made sure she had a mix of high circulation and niche publications in her stable of magazines.

We’ve seeing similar decision making with online advertising and promotion. Media buyers today can choose from Google’s Content Network and the BBC for global reach to...

Read More »

View all posts

Connect:

Nicolette Beard