BSI-Marketing is Number One on Google for Paid Search Portland

I don’t normally toot my own horn, but I am happy to announce that I have obtained the number one ranking in Google for the keyword”paid search Portland“. I am very pleased with this result and am now tasked with working to defend this number one position to maintain the top ranking.

So does this mean that potential customers are pounding my site with inquiries? Is my phone ringing off the hook? I did have a new potential client contact me mention searching on Google and found my paid search category listing.  Since this is relatively new, it’s now a wait and see scenario as to whether I will have clients as a direct result of this top ranking.

Top Rankings Isn’t the Silver Bullet, Long Term Strategy Is

While it is great to achieve top placement on the search engines (especially Google), it’s important to realize that this should be one piece of your overall online marketing strategy. Making sure you get a ton of traffic to your site will not automatically translate into success for your Web site. The entire customer pathway (or customer touch points) for your site should be taken into consideration.

You need to ask the following questions:

• Are these the key phrases that users are searching on Google?
• Is your page providing value to keep site visitors engaged?
• What is your desired next step (course of action) you want visitors to take when they reach your page?

Understanding and mapping out the answers to this questions will improve the overall site experience for your visitors. When more visitors are engaged, they will over time start to follow these steps and you will being to see sucess and results. However, it is not something that will happen overnight. SEO (search engine optimization) and other online marketing strategies take time to develop and need careful planning for both the short and long term.

An old Elementary School friend contacted me asking for help with SEO. Here’s what he asked:

“I need to pick your brain on Google and my business webpage. There is so much info on the internet and I continually get bombarded with phone calls offering to help with pushing my webpage to the top of the search engines. I figure they are all scams but I know there has to be a relatively simple way of doing it. Can you explain it in 50 words or less? Or is there even a simple way of doing it?”

My initial reply was short:  It’s unfortunately not that simple. (

There are ways to help elevate your listings and many “get rich” quick schemes that will help but only in the short term. You want to look at long term solution with SEO (search engine optimization). It requires a lot of work and takes time…if done right.

However, before you try to get rankings, I would recommend ask yourself “how do I want my customer to find me”? Do I want to be at the top of Google nationwide, regionally or just in my local area? How are they currently finding us? Use your analytics, or if you don’t know the answer then start asking your customers.

These are important questions to start from. Based on this information, you can begin to map out how your online strategy will unfold. But this is only one part of the equation.

What is most important to your company is conversions or actions that your visitors take on your site. Once you identify these, you want to map these out as “customer pathways” start to track back and use your analytics to find where they came to your site from. The answer may surprise you.

These two elements are closely tied together in SEM (Search Engine Marketing) so it is important to have this information first before taking the next step and hiring someone to help you out.

Plan the work…work the plan! I welcome comments and thoughts from others.

We Educate Our Clients

The key to our internet marketing success has been through the education of our customers. We have found in our experience that most businesses are of the “do it yourself” mentality. By this we mean that they realize they need help but need to be eased into the transition of allowing others to help them achieve their success with SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing), SMM (social media marketing), etc.

By initially offering strategic advice and helping to educate clients on how to do some of the basic internet marketing techniques themselves, we empower our clients to see “hands on” what’s going on and how everything works. This process helps our clients realize that they are merely scratching the surface on a wealth of marketing opportunities available to them. The more you understand, the more confident you become in your understanding of the tactics along with our guidance and expertise to help you reach your strategic goals.

It’s a win-win situation and one that has proven successful, based on the referral received from clients.

Why BSI-Marketing? What Sets You Apart from the Rest?

The key to our success has been through the education of our customers. We have found in our experience that most businesses are of the “do it yourself” mentality. By this we mean that they realize they need help but need to be eased into the transition of allowing others to help them achieve their success.

By initially offering strategic advice and helping to educate on how to do some of the basic marketing techniques themselves, we empower our clients to see “hands on” what’s going on and how everything works. This process helps our clients realize that they are merely scratching the surface on a wealth of marketing opportunities available to them. The more you understand, the more confident you become in your understanding of the tactics along with our guidance and expertise to help you reach your strategic goals.

It’s a win-win situation and one that has proven successful, based on the referral received from clients.

Contact us today for a free web site consultation at info@bsi-marketing.com or call 503-816-7806.

There are many different interpretations of this term “Strategic Internet Marketing”. It is a process that encompasses all aspects of interactive marketing and creates a holistic overview of where you want to be succesful online.  With so many different channels and mediums to choose from it may seem overwhelming to most as to how to start or begin marketing online.

It is important to think of your online marketing as a journey, broken down into the following sections:

• Start At the End (of your journey)
• What Does the Journey Look like?
• What is the Cost of Your Journey?
• Fitting the Puzzle Pieces in place

Step #1 – Start At the End
(What does your company want to be when it grows up?)

Ask this question? Where do you want your company in 3-5 years? Where would you like for your company to be from the following:

Sales, HR/Staff, production, customers, etc.

This should be much more than a night out conversation. You should think long and hard with the other leaders/partners and determine how you see the company 3 years from now.

For example, ABC company is $3 million in sales and they want to be at $5 million in sales in 3 years. Most companies spend too much time dwelling on the day to day and don’t think about what’s on the horizon because they can’t gaze out that far. This simple tactic is what separates great companies from good companies.

Step #2 – What Does the Journey Look Like?
(How will you make your dreams a reality?)

Next, think about how you are going to get there? Like retracing your steps, you have your destination in place, now you need to figure out how to get there. Work to build your our “map of success” that shows  how you plan to make these dreams a reality. This is  a compass, you need to figure out need to understand what it will take to get there.

Step # 3 – What is the Cost of Your Journey?
(Determine your KPIs before you consider any tactics)

This is the most critical step in your journey because this step helps you understand the measures of success. If you do not create the benchmark KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) then you have no idea how successful you truly are.

For example, if you were driving across the US and had unlimited funds to draw upon then you wouldn’t be concerned about your journey because you know that regardless of the cost you will reach your destination. What’s surprising is that many companies operate exactly this way and don’t realize that they are paying 100x more than they should to reach their destination.

First determine how many customers it will take to reach your desired goal. Then, calculate how much it takes to cultivate that sale for both a new and existing customer.  This cost should include all factors that compose the sale or transaction. Once this is established, you now have a benchmark KPI from which to measure your success.

Now consider this example, if you were taking the same drive across the US and only had $500 to spend to reach your destination. Your journey has now become critical because you have to plan out how you are going to make it across the country (roughly 5,000 miles) and stay within the budget.

STEP #4 – Fitting the Puzzle Pieces in Place
(Your KPIs Determine the Tactics you implement)

Once you determine the benchmark ROC (Return on Conversion), then you now have positioned your company into a mode of success.  Like a puzzle, you now are focused on finding the right tactics that will bring in the proper ROC and successfully align with your branding strategy. It is easy to drive thousands of people to your Website, but if none of them convert then how successful are you?

For example, you

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

We provide over 10 years of experience providing expert advice on SEO. To start things off we analyze and prepare a detailed SEO report for you. Depending on your level of service, we’ll implement or recommend changes you can easily implement which will help you rank much higher in the Search Engines for strategic high traffic keywords.

Our initial advice focuses on Title, Meta tags, Description, Sitemap, Page structure, File names, Alt text and so on. Since we are constantly keeping up with new SEO developments you can rest assured that your sites will always be on the cutting edge.

Contact us today for a free web site consultation at info@bsi-marketing.com or call 503-816-7806.