The move to Wordpress

Quietly, for the past few days I've been working on the transition of this blog to the new Constructionmarketingideas.com site on my own Wordpress-framework host.

Although not intended to be really public yet, I set the code and voting mechanism in place for the Best Construction Blog competition and the votes started arriving, along with comments from some nominated bloggers to correct errors in their listings, or ask why they weren't included. As I fixed various bugs, more votes continued to arrive, suggesting some viral marketing is happening. (People are telling their friends and colleagues about the site and voting, and these guests are arriving, registering and voting.

I still have quite of bit of work to do before the new site is fully ready -- there are glitches in the background pages, the references, and some of the data, but overall it is exciting to see the amount of interest the blogsite has attracted.

You can help out by bookmarking the new site or including it on your blogrolls (but don't delete this one just yet). Unlike the site referenced in the previous posting, I'm going to be up-front and 100 per cent visible about my Search Engine Optimization -- of course both sites will continue to have truly original content.

P.S. The resources at Statcounter.com are truly impressive, and free, and will provide you with a wealth of data.

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A marketing mystery

So, who is behind roofersmarketing.com, or for that matter, marketing-for-roofers.com? The site is certainly appealing, with lots of refreshing content and ideas, but some thing's odd here. You can't find any real contact information about the site owner.


My guess is this is part of a SEO initiative by a marketing organization (I have an instinct about who it is, but cannot prove it, so won't assert it publicly here).

Nothing wrong with this sort of strategy, of course, and I suppose with the backlinks from this public blog I've helped the mysterious organization with their objectives, but the advice and ideas on the site are useful and relevant, regardless.

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Plumbing and plumber marketing: The accidental discovery

A search of Google keywords "Plumbing Marketing" leads you to plumbermarketing.com, not Adam Hudson's Plumbingmarketing.com, which I discovered yesterday. Why?

Yesterday, I reported on my discovery of some really useful resources at Adams Hudson's Plumbingmarketing.com site (one of a network of sites he operates from Alabama.) But what do you find when you key in "Plumbing marketing" without quotes on Google?

Another site, plumbermarketing.com has first ranking (at least from my Canadian base, but using the global Google search engine, not its "Canadian" version. That takes us to this site, whose domain is owned by Torske & Sterling Pty Ltd. in Sydney, Australia. When you search into Torske & Sterling, you find some stuff relating to "legal marketing" which of course makes this even more confusing.


Nevertheless, yesterday evening, in searching for the ownership of plumbermarketing.com I inadvertently used the whois.sc tool to research "plumbingmarketing.com" and discovered Adams Hudson's site, truly accidentally. His hudsonink.com site ranks fourth on the first page for "plumbing marketing", but the "plumbingmarketing.com" site is nowhere to be found. In any case, as I reported a few weeks ago, there are big differences in search site visits and time spent between first and fourth place on the Google rankings.

I have calls out to both Hudson and someone named Grant, who provides phone numbers serving the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K., and provides audio testimonial clips focusing on U.S. clients. I sense Plumbermarketing.com has a cleaner, simpler, and less stereotypical Internet interface, but the real key to its success may be the mysterious Torske & Sterling in Australia.

The research continues, but I had one other question to solve: How important and valuable are the search terms "plumbing marketing" and "plumber marketing"?

Here I used the Google Keyword Analysis tool to discover that the local search volume in June was 590 inquiries, with the monthly global search inquiries at 720. "Plumber Marketing" meanwhile had 110 and 170 searches respectively.

For comparison sake, I tried "Construction Marketing" and discovered 12,100 local searches and 9,900 global searches.

This doesn't necessarily mean this blog has a better "place" in the actual keyword value because more people who are really interested in -- and willing to pay for -- plumbing marketing services may go to the appropriate plumbing site(s) than here. But I'm not complaining!

Can we learn anything from this research?

First, most readers here are seeking to serve local rather than international markets. If you are a contractor in Chicago, you don't really want inquiries from people seeking services in New York -- though you might want potential customers based in New York but with a job in Chicago to find you!

Second, a great search engine ranking does little for you if you cannot convert the initial inquiries into real clients. This is easier said than done, and is a key element of my current research project (one I wish to solve, because of truly enlightened self interest.)

But I am going to take a stab on explaining why I think Google may like plumbermarketing.com so much more than plumbingmarketing.com.

Back-end SEO sophistication
Torske & Sterling appears to know something about SEO. I'll call them to see if I can learn more about what they are doing and how (assuming they will share things with me).

Simple design using video and audio tools
Note the audio clip and video image

Multi-national contact information
This may not be helpful if you are purely local, but if you have a worldwide service, Google probably loves it.

There are some puzzling gaps on the successful site. For example, you can't easily find who "Grant" really is, and I can't determine on the surface exactly where the site owner is located! These would seem to be essential in building real trust (but, then again, the top Google ranking may trump these qualities.)

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How important is it to be first on Google?

This chart showing the importance of high ranking on Google is published in Distribution of Clicks on Google's SERPs at seoresearcher.com, October 26, 2006.

How important is it for your architectural, engineering or construction business to be in first place with relevant keywords for organic Google searches?

The answer is "very" if you consider two important elements, the percentage of searches that rely on Google, and the amount of attention given to the top position on the search rank compared with others, even on the first page of organic search listings, at least if you can believe one widely quoted study from Cornell University researchers Laura A. Granka, Thorsten Joachims and Geri Gay.

The Cornell study using student volunteers discovered that 56.26 per cent of people click on the first organic listing, and the number of clicks declined to 13.45 per cent for second place and 9.82 per cent at third place. Near the bottom, the 10th ranked spot attracts 2.55 per cent and the seventh ranked is in a kind of black hole, at 0.36. Nevertheless, if you are in the top three spots, you have an advantage in two ways: First, 79.63 per will click within the first three places, and they will spend 68.23 per cent of their time there.

How important, however, is Google in relationship to other search alternatives? According to comScore, in June 2009, Google had close to two thirds of the search market at 65 per cent, followed by Yahoo at 19.6 per cent and Microsoft's new Bing at 8.4 per cent. (See this Eweek.com story, Microsoft Bing Gamed Market Share in June, says comScore.)

If you extrapolate this data, you can see how important it is to have top spot on Google -- more than 35 per cent of the total search volume from all engines and sources occurs if you are lucky enough to be first there.

My check shows this blog is referenced in the first, third and fourth places on Google when you search "Construction Marketing" (without quotes), suggesting it is capturing almost 45 per cent of all search inquiries from all engines, based on the Google searches alone. The actual numbers are probably better. While this blog doesn't rank as highly on Bing and Yahoo.com, it still is in the first three to four places.

If you fear you don't think you have a chance of reaching these glorious heights, I should add a couple of other important considerations: Geographical targeting, and true keyword relevance.
Increasingly, Google is segmenting its search results to achieve greater localization. Certainly, at the highest level, Google results vary by country, but Google Local is creating a new level of relevance if you are strong within your community, and have little market elsewhere.

The second point, true keyword relevance, relates to the actual probability of someone searching for your keyword with the intent of finding you (or your type of business). This is where Google has been so successful -- its search results generally are relevant, and it appears to bias its results so that business manipulation to achieve top ranking doesn't really help very much. In other words, (unless you pay Adwords for the privilege), you can't pay your way to the top.

The consequence of negative publicity for high search engine rankings can be equally devastating.

Consider the story of Christian Kirschner in Denver, who declared personal bankruptcy at the same time as the High Country Club destination club he founded went bankrupt earlier this year, leaving hundreds of people who had prepaid for vacations in the queue of unsecured creditors. This thread on the Destination Club Forums tells the story.

One of the forum's participants noted:

When you do a Google search of Christian Kirschner this website is #1 and #2 in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Statistically 1st place gets 42.1% of all clicks for the search and 2nd place gets 11.9% or 54% of all mouse clicks are done for #1 and #2.

Job well done.

Now try for #3 which adds an additional 8.5%....

(Full disclosure: Our family participated in this club and we had four successful vacations before the business failed.)

Kirschner is working to rebuild his Denver-based Kirschner Partners real estate brokerage business. Despite the Destination Clubs Forum reference, his brokerage's own listing has first place on Google searches from our Canadian location. I cannot tell from here how he ranks in Denver, where it matters the most to him.

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Reaching first place with Google

Sometimes we enjoy moments of joy and glory in business.

Yesterday, I appreciated how this blog -- originally started 2.5 years ago as a client service initiative -- has become a significantly valuable marketing resource. The reason: It has keyword leadership on Google for the phrase "Construction Marketing", which means that of about 8,000 search inquires a month using these words, this blog is first.

I can trace calls, inquiries, and some meaningful business to the blog -- and sense that much more is on the way. Clearly, a first place ranking within Google for keywords relevant to your business will be lucrative, especially if you don't have to pay a cent for advertising (or, if you are in the publishing business, you can earn money from advertising revenue.)

How do you do it?

Here is a strategy that may work for you.

• Figure out what people searching for your service are actually doing. The keyword combinations may be obvious, but they may not be that clear.
• Build a website with practical information about your business, but most importantly, useful and relevant content about the topic on which you are an expert. Don't worry about giving away secrets. Just be helpful.
• If you enjoy writing, start and maintain a blog. Write daily if you can, but not less than once a week. If you enjoy video, make a video blog.
• Offer, without worry of reciprocation, other websites and organizations which have information relevant to your readers a free link on your blog. Don't worry about trading or reciprocation. It will happen naturally.
• Contribute to relevant forums and groups, again sharing your knowledge and insights.

If you think all of this is a lot of work without any immediate reward, you are correct. Patience is important. This is not an instant gratification program. (You can of course buy your way to the top paid listings by allocating enough money -- and turn that system on within minutes.)

Note: If someone is already in exactly the space you wish to occupy, you will have an uphill battle. Whoever is first, and does a reasonably good job, wins.

Is this effort worthwhile? While I knew there were some immediate benefits in blogging early on, it has taken more than two years for the intuitive to generate revenue, and I think it will be another year to 18 months before it reaches its full potential.

So, yes, this takes time. But not cash.

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