Lori Malitsky, CEO of Sunvent Industries in Pelham, NH, contacted me last February for help with her existing Web copy. After spending three years developing a new foundation flood vent, Lori was ready to go to market. Like many small businesses, she was on a tight budget.

During our first meeting, I quickly noted that Lori’s initial Web copy draft included a mistake many small companies make: she had positioned her four flood vent models on one page. In addition, the sales copy was minimal — consisting of short bullet points.

My recommendation? Give each flood vent its own page. Because Lori was selling these online, I wanted the extra product pages for a number of reasons:

–> Increased conversions — Giving each vent its own page would lessen buyer confusion and make it easier for people to click and buy.

–> More room for sales copy — With the extra real estate, I could add considerable “oomph” to the copy and explain the differences between each vent and their benefits.

–> Better SEO opportunities — When you have only one product page, you have only one Title tag — and thus only one opportunity to rank for one or two specific search phrases. Four pages mean you have four Title tags — and a much better chance of getting one or all of those pages to show in search results for numerous phrases (provided, of course, you’re creating unique Title and meta tags for each page).

Strategy: Basic SEO marketing tactics

Working with Lori, I edited her copy, optimized it for search, and provided additional consulting on site design and other issues. Optimization efforts included developing a keyword list and keyword site architecture, developing Title and meta tags, and adding keywords in the page copy (headlines, subheads, etc.).

While this type of SEO work is pretty basic, it’s also essential to getting a site to rank well. However, it’s not enough. One reason I loved working with Lori is because she had done her homework before calling me — which helped ensure her success:

1. She purchased her domain ahead of time — Domain age is one factor Google uses to determine how a site ranks. Lori purchased floodsolutions.com a year or so before she needed it and then redirected it to her Sunvent Industries site. Think of this move as putting an avocado on your counter to ripen five days before you need it. You don’t do anything to hasten the ripening — you just let it sit. That’s what Lori did.

2. She added lots of educational content — Because Lori was selling “FEMA compliant engineered flood vents,” she included the kind of educational, relevant information Google and people love — information about FEMA, the National Flood Insurance Program, flood vents, etc. The beauty of having this lovely content is that I could also optimize it — meaning, more opportunity for people to find her pages.

3. She obtained state certifications — Each state has its own requirements regarding certified flood vents. Lori’s flood vents have been certified in 18 states, and these certifications are available for easy download on the site. Again, this is the type of people-friendly content that Google adores — and that over time shows up in search results.

PPC and SEO work together to drive sales

Because it can take a little while for new sites to rank well in Google (sites usually appear in the index fairly quickly; getting high rankings is a whole other issue), I now recommend that companies use pay-per-click (PPC) to generate leads while waiting for leads from organic search to kick in. In Lori’s case, I wanted her to get sales right away.

To help with the PPC side of things, I recommended that Lori contact my colleague, Pauline Jakober, CEO of Group Twenty Seven. Group Twenty Seven developed the initial campaign and continues to actively help Flood Solutions use data from Google Analytics to make smart business decisions by analyzing which keywords drive traffic and ultimately sales.

Flood Solutions site goes live August 2011

Within a month of going live, the Flood Solutions site was appearing on page one of Google for a few of Lori’s targeted search phrases. Once the site was live, Lori added a blog, for which my team and I create original content each month.

What I love about this project is that it’s a great example of how “basic” SEO marketing yields solid results — results that Lori can literally take to the bank. Between August 2011 and January 2012, Lori has realized the following:

–> Steady increase in traffic — Traffic has increased by 45%, with 32% of total visits coming from organic and 38% from PPC. Eight of her top 10 keywords are non-branded, meaning people didn’t use “Flood Solutions” in the search phrase. In fact, people used over 500 keyword iterations to find her site.

–> Top rankings — In January, the site was showing up in position #4 on the first page of Google for Lori’s main keyword, “flood vents” — despite the fact her main competitor was clogging up the first page with spammy microsites. (Yeah baby!)

–> Robust sales — The site is doing so well, Lori is on track to meet her sales goal for the first year — after just seven months of sales!

As for me, I’m always thrilled when small B2B clients like Lori see real results using basic tactics. Having worked with small businesses since 1998, I know it’s hard to allocate money to marketing when budgets are tight. It’s always my goal to meet clients where they are — and to get the best results possible even on tight budgets.

Do you have an example of how your small business has achieved success using “basic” marketing tactics? Feel free to share!

Last week Google clamped down on companies that use questionable methods to manipulate search results. According to Search Engine Land, these methods include paid links (sites that pay for links from other sites), and content farms (sites that have “shallow or low quality content“) to use Google’s words.

For months now, SEOers and content marketers have been complaining about Google’s search results. Top results for searches often include crap content from sites like Ezine Articles (a site that got penalized by Google in its crackdown — and about time, too), scraper sites and spam blogs.

The problem with all this crap content is that it’s hard for legitimate sites that practice ethical SEO and provide high quality content to rank well for competitive search phrases. The crappy stuff clogs up the search results, making it difficult for people (searchers) to find relevant and insightful information.

So what exactly is “shallow and low quality content” as it applies to B2B? Basically, it’s content you create to help your site rank better versus helping prospects make purchasing decisions. Shallow and low quality content is based on:

Keywords — Content is created based on keyword searches; these keywords are then used in the Title / meta tags and through out the article or blog post.

Quantity — The more content that’s created around a specific grouping of keywords, the better.

Lack of depth — Shallow content is usually a blog post or article that doesn’t give much in the way of insightful analysis or is filled with information you probably already know. It’s usually written by non-experts who write dozens of articles at slave wages.

High quality, in-depth B2B content, on the other hand, takes time (and yes, money) to create. Generally it’s created by companies who genuinely want to help prospects and customers do their jobs better.

If you’re a company like Eloqua (@Eloqua), you’re creating “Grande Guides” that help prospects learn about content marketing, lead generation and the like.

If you’re Ardath Albee (@Ardath421), you’re creating original blog posts filled with insightful information on how to create content that moves prospects along a complex sales cycle (or, how to create better Tweets — love this post, Ardath!)

If you’re Dow Corning (@DowCorning), you’re creating videos that communicate your company’s values to potential employees as well as educate prospects and customers about new products and services.

If you’re Exact Target (@ExactTarget), it’s offering your followers and fans reports, posts and Webinars about social media — and how you can do it better. (Be sure to sign up for their Webinar, The Social Breakup.)

The point is, developing this high-value content takes time. You have to:

• Determine why you’re creating it in the first place (to help people decide to do business with you, to generate leads, to show your thought-leadership and expertise, to get people to work at your company).
• Map out a strategy for creating it and then publicizing it.
• Create the content (the hard part).
• Get it formatted, designed, etc.
• Publicize it.
• Publicize it some more.
• Rinse. Repeat.

This stuff is not easy — and yes, it is much easier to write 15 crap blog posts and pay someone $25 for doing so.

As Google continues its crackdown, creating consistently great, high value content will only become more important — and given that its vaunted search results have taken a real hit of late, we’ll continue to see more sites get downgraded due to poor content and questionable SEO tactics.

I like to tell my small B2B clients that while having top rankings is important, it’s not the end all be all. What really counts are results: are you getting the calls and emails (inquiries / leads) that become sales? To get these results, you need content — content that’s been written for people, not search engines.

What’s your opinion of Google’s crack down?