SEO: Everybody’s Doing It, So Should You

Ruby Tuesday Pick of the Week: Ai Media
Why It’s a Gem: Three simple letters can make or break a business.

Just because you’re an old-fashioned, brick-and-mortar business doesn’t mean that you can do without a website. How 1995! It’s not just that everyone’s doing it, it’s that everyone’s doing it because it works. A website is one of the least expensive marketing methods, and yet it has one of the highest ROIs.

In this week’s Ruby Tuesday, Sergio Alvarez of Ai Media Group explains why SEO and SEM are so important to the success of today’s businesses. (This interview has been edited for clarity and length.)

Lynda Resnick: We’re speaking to Sergio Alvarez, COO and founder of Ai Media Group, a company which specializes in one of my favorite things: SEO, search engine optimization. For our readers, search engine optimization is a technique that we use so that the information on our website is picked up by the crawlers of the search engines. Is that correct?

Sergio Alvarez: That would be correct.

LR: Okay. So, Sergio you can do a better job than I can describing exactly what you do. Describe your business model.

SA: We decided to take a different approach from the traditional SEO route, which basically implements people’s opinions, ideas, and what they found out about search to make a website that has the meta data, meta tags, keywords — the architecture of the site. Those are all things that you need to do on a site, but at the end of the day, the only people that know that algorithm and what it should be doing are Google, Yahoo, and the rest of the networks.

LR: Now why is that? Do they want to keep it a secret?

SA: That’s where they make their revenues. Ninety-five percent of revenues for search — and when I say search, I mean Google, Yahoo, and the rest of the networks — come from paid advertising. So if they just gave away the secret to their algorithm, then everybody could figure out how to come out on top [of search results]. So that’s a very, very closely guarded secret for them. We meet with Google periodically. Last year they had their first-ever local symposium. And to their admission, there are very few people that know those algorithms.

LR: And if we found out what the algorithms were, they would change them, wouldn’t they?

SA: Absolutely. They change them all the time because, not that people find out what they are, but they get pretty close. It’s math, at the end of the day. What happens is that you start to have some good success, you start to show up on search, things are going well, and all of a sudden, a couple months later, it changes again. Now, the site didn’t change, the demographics didn’t change, the industry didn’t change. But Google or the networks decided to change the algorithms.

Sergio Alvarez, COO and Founder of Ai Media Group

LR: Right. And so, if everybody came up on top, they wouldn’t need to buy the ads that are on the right side, or above…

SA: Which is SEM. SEO is very opinionated. There is no rulebook. So, we built a system that really starts with SEM — search engine marketing, and that is paid search, or pay per click. We built this proprietary algorithm that will look at a website and consider the geography, and it will let us know which keywords and terms are the most popular for them.

But the real important thing here is the accountability. Search is the most accountable medium ever created. People are still guessing and using analytics, so we decided to assist them and actually track the IP address of every single potential customer that came to a person’s site. Once we have that, then we’re able to see the path that that person took. So, simply put, we can see what network, at what time of day, from what search word somebody came to a site.

LR: Right. But that’s not your unique selling proposition. I mean, other people can do that as well, because I know that I have that in my business.

SA: There’s a couple different people that are doing that. But it’s the way that we’re doing it. It’s more along the lines of how that relates to SEO. The idea is that then you are able to take that information — because that’s specific data that’s brought down to an IP address — then you’re running an SEO program based off that. You’re setting up an SEO program based on the keywords that actually converted and led to a phone, an email, or a Contact Us submission.

LR: What is unique about what you do that no one else can do it? Is it supplying the IP address?

SA: It’s being the interactive arm for agencies. What we tried to do originally was go out to the end consumer and work with them, but at the end of the day, it’s search and it’s still very complicated. You really needed experts in the field. That’s where we decided that, instead of dealing with the individual business owner, to supply this technology to the advertising agencies and be the interactive role for them.

LR: I see. This is my business for Teleflora. We’re online, we host 12,000 websites. So we have to know these things, and we are sophisticated. But most businesses today are very unsophisticated about SEO. And I can understand how challenging it would be. First of all, a lot of company presidents have their secretaries print their emails. So if you start with that, how do you explain SEO? How do you explain community?

SA: It’s almost like a grassroots effort. You develop a presentation that really brings a customer through SEO, SEM, and their site. Because when it comes to search, you really can’t think about SEM without SEO, and vice versa. They have to work together. There is no one thing you can do on search that is going to be successful. It’s a combination of things.

LR: You said that “establishing more impressive ROI has never been this easy.” Why do you say that?

SA: I sold Yellow Pages back in the day. And back then, if you sold an ad, the only thing you could really say to the advertiser was that there was X amount of distribution, and that the book works.

LR: Right.

SA: With SEO, we can really target a customer and say, “This kind of demographic at this time of day, during these time frames, is when you’re getting most of the traffic. This is where we need to point them within the site.” So, they know if they spend $10,000 on search, exactly what they got for it. Nothing against billboard advertising, but you don’t know what you’re actually getting for it. With this, you know down to the penny how it’s working for you. That’s the first part. The second part is that you can really change your business model…

LR: On the dime…!

Ai Media Group joins SEMPO in ringing the opening bell at NASDAQ.

SA: On the dime! I just went down to NADA, the National Automotive Dealers Association.

LR: Did you bring boxes of Kleenex?

SA: (laughs) It was down 70% from last year.

LR: Oh my God.

SA: Yeah, it was pretty bad. But the difference was the dealers recognize that they still can’t hide and say, “All is lost, I’m not going to advertise.” The whole idea is to advertise smartly. If you’re a Toyota dealer, we are able to tell you that your Toyota Camry in black with these kinds of features are the ones that need to be on your homepage, because that’s what’s moving. It’s offering them business intelligence that didn’t exist before, that they can implement on the fly.

LR: This is why this won’t become a major depression. Because we have the Internet. It gives small businesses an even playing field with big businesses.

SA: Correct.

LR: It really does. So, how many employees do you have?

SA: Twenty people.

LR: Twenty people. You try to keep it very lean, don’t you?

SA: Yes. We do. Obviously when you look at the economic times, you always look if you can make it leaner, but we’ve been lucky in the sense that we’re growing, even during this hard time. We’re actually growing and adding on more people, only because, to your point, the Internet is something that is not slowing down, regardless of what happens to the economy. It becomes even more important.

LR: It’s absolutely true. Is there any do-it-yourself SEO advice that you can give to small businesses? They can’t all afford to go to an agency, and they’re just becoming part of the Internet age. What can you tell them in the short term?

SA: This, by itself, is going to sound obvious, but they have to be very specific when it comes to the Internet. The problem with the Internet is also what makes it successful. You can advertise so many different products and services in such a large geographical area. But for small businesses, the best advice I could give them if they’re doing it on their own is to focus on the smallest geographical area possible [buying geographically specific keywords], with the smallest amount of products, and try to make sure they’re on top there. The biggest mistake that I see with advertisers is that they’re all over the Internet, but they’re not really found easily. They have a lot of product, and a very large geography, but it’s very hard to find them. They’re still spending the same amount of money, but they’re getting less of a return.

LR: You know, you’re so right. And I know that people think more is better, but as I review some of these websites that people send me, they put everything on that website. And people don’t have the time. If they wanted to go and look for 75 different pillowcases, that’s what they would do. But they want to make a quick decision. I think people abandon sites because of too much choice.

LR: What are your predictions for the economy? For the Internet?

SA: The only thing I can say is that if somebody went on tonight and said, “The recession’s over,” people would go back to spending. It’s true! There’s not enough good news out there. There are companies that are succeeding everyday. Obviously, they’re smaller companies, but all you hear is about GM and Citibank and all the big problems. But they’re not speaking about the little guys that are succeeding in spite of all this. Once the news can actually turn to the positive, that’s what I believe would help to turn this around.

LR: I agree with you!

SA: Talk about the good news that’s out there, not all the bad.

LR: Actually, I was just writing an op-ed piece on “Five Reasons Why We Should Still Be Happy.” And there are lots of reasons, because this new age is bringing lots of breakthroughs. Big was the best thing before, but look at them now: Look at General Motors, look at AIG, look at Enron, look at Merrill Lynch. Those are the big guys! They’re gone!

SA: Being lean, and being able to dig deeper, is the name of the game.

LR: That’s right. You’re nimble, you don’t have such huge overhead, a ton of debt. You can breathe, you can run a business. It’s the good news.

SA: This economy, even though it’s horrendous, really has led to a lot of new companies opening up. And every time there’s a new company out there, they need printing, they need services, they need advertising, they need space. They need everything. Well, that’s keeping other people employed.

LR: That’s right. Well, good! You’ve made my day. Is there anything I can tell you?

SA: Honestly, I’m looking forward to reading your book. It’s just great when there are people like yourself who can help the businesses out there. Because there’s a lot of confusion. Any help that they can get helps the economy.