Bob Heyman is acknowledged as having coined the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and having established the first agency search marketing practice. He is the co-author of five well respected internet marketing books, including Digital Engagement and Marketing By The Numbers. His clients have included IBM, Intel, SGI, Avon, Bristol Myers Squibb, REI, Harley-Davidson, Sothebys, Sony, Time-Warner, Trend Micro, Napster and World Vision. In a previous life he was an entertainment lawyer for New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Jefferson Starship and Maria Muldaur. His Rock Opera “Rock Justice”, written with Marty Balin and Mike Varney, is in The Book Of Rock Lists.
Bob Heyman and Leland Harden created their first online agency together, Cybernautics, in 1993 at the very genesis of the World Wide Web as we know it. At Cybernautics, the duo set about putting together the online methodologies for traditional “analog” marketing activities. Their work was successful enough that they were able to land many of the Web’s earliest power house brands as clients. As word spread about their innovative work they were approached by a division of Macmillan Publishing to write a book. This effort became “Net Results: Web Marketing that Works” and was published under the byline of their company, USWeb, which had acquired Cybernautics.
This book was very successful and became the online marketing curriculum for many of the country’s best business schools like Stanford, Wharton, and others. This success led to the team subsequently publishing “
Net Results: Best Practices in Web Marketing,” “The Auction-App: How Companies Tap the Power of Online Auctions to Maximize Revenue Growth,” “Digital Engagement” and “Marketing By The Numbers: How to Measure and Improve the ROI of Any Campaign.” The last two books were published by AMACOM, the publishing arm of The American Management Association. The AMA course on Web 2.0 marketing was based on “Digital Engagement” and utilized Bob Heyman as the subject matter expert.
Bob Heyman is credited with having pioneered the agency side of Search Engine Marketing as a co-founder of early full service web agency Cybernautics which was acquired by USWeb in 1997. His next company, eMarketing Partners, was acquired by the Catenas Corp. in 2000. He is the co-author of Net Result.2 (New Riders) and The Auction App (McGraw Hill). He also co-founded CybeReps, acquired by Interep. His clients have included IBM, NEC, Ask Jeeves, Netscape, Intel, SGI, Avon, Bristol Myers Squibb, REI, Time Warner, Sony, Macromedia and ABC. Bob has spoken at AMA events, Internet World, Ad-Tech and many other venues. His articles have appeared in Digitrends and iMedia Connection. He was 2000 Commencement Speaker at Golden Gate University and was honored when then Mayor Willie Brown declared “Bob Heyman Day” in San Francisco. He earned a Masters in Education from Harvard and a law degree from Hastings College of Law (U. of California) where he was founding Review Editor of Comm/Ent, the Communications and Entertainment Law Journal. His Rock Opera, “Rock Justice”, co-written with Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane/Starship, is in the Book of Rock Lists as one of the top ten most obscure rock operas. As an entertainment lawyer, he represented Maria Muldaur, Jefferson Starship and the New Riders of The Purple Sage.
Digital Engagement Group provides clients with comprehensive marketing strategies and tactical implementation. We bring together Search, Social Media and PR to create integrated and measurable campaigns that captures customers and builds brand loyalty. Our practice is built around creating a marketing plan that includes a ranked hierarchy of ongoing and planned marketing intitiatives and an ROI Scorecard that assures learning and improvement.
How do your Succeed at Search Engine Optimization Today?
excerpted from the E-book "Get Known, Get Found "
...I get credited with coining the term Search Engine Optimization and establishing the first agency SEO practice and it all came about by accident.
My early web design shop, Cybernautics, had built a website for the Jefferson Starship. The URL was www.jstarship.com. You can still find it on the Wayback Machine.
The band loved the site. One night, after a gig, they wanted to show it to the promoter, but no one - not the band or the crew - could remember the URL. So they looked it up in the then most popular search engine - Lycos - only to find themselves listed on Page 2. Behind a whole lot of funky websites put up by fans.
Understandably feeling that they should be ranked first for their own name, they deputized their manager to call and chew me out. The only way I could get him off the phone was to promise to make them number one.
By reverse engineering the high ranked sites, we found that the only factor effecting rank was how often the keyword was used on the home page.
That technique - called keyword stuffing - is a now a “no no” that will get you penalized. But, back in 2004, it was all that mattered. When we employed it on behalf of the band, the Jefferson Starship site went to number one and the rockers were as pleased as they had been pissed. “What do you call what you did?”, they asked. "Search Engine Optimization”, I replied. For what else would you call it? “You should do it for other people”, they said. And so we did. And the practice of Search Engine Optimization was born.
Search Engine Optimization has gone thru many changes since those early days. Lycos has been supplanted by Google (and Bing). For many years “black hat” techniques involving various types of trickery were dominant. But Google (and Bing) have made it impossible to “game” the system. They have worked hard to make sure that users only find truly relevant results.
So how does one succeed today at SEO? By following two tried and true rules:
1. Winning at SEO requires thinking like contestants on the game show Jeopardy: Your answer must be in the form of a question
2. The wise fisherman fishes where the fish are: There is no point in being first for keywords that no one is searching for.
Point 1: People who use search engines are essentially asking a question. You want to be the answer. If you provide quality information that answers question being asked then the engines will consider you to be highly relevant and will rank you highly
Point 2: Just a a fisherman needs a guide who knows where the fish like to feed, those practicing SEO need to know what keywords get are being heavily searched for and which are not.
How can you glean the needed knowledge? By using a tool like SearchTriggers.
With SearchTriggers you can get real time insight on what are the highest volume searches and how you can tailor your content to rank highly.
Too many people resort to guessing what terms are getting traffic.
Why guess when Search Triggers can tell you not only what terms are most highly searched but can tell you the exact phrases to use that will get you highly ranked?
You need the competitive advantage that SearchTriggers insights provide.
As a corporate manager in a software company for 17 years in charge of such projects as qualifying the firm for ISO 9001 compliance, guiding them to CMMI certification and directing the management team to Operational Excellence, Tarek Mourad has extensive experience in business processes and business improvement. Tarek Mourad has leveraged his career in management into business coaching. Tarek Mourad utilizes a unique six step model that address the core competencies of the business and develops a Unique Selling Proposition to distinguish the business from the competition. Focus is always maintained on the target long-term goals of the business.
Julia Carlisle is an award-winning print, broadcast and online journalist. Published in The New York Times, she was also a news writer for The Associated Press and ABC News. She has extensive experience in media relations including writing press releases, having worked in the PR/marketing departments of The American Skiing Company and Trafalgar Square Publishing. More recently, Carlisle created and ran WoodstockEarlyBird.com, an online news blog based in Vermont. Her past social media clients include Snyder-Donegan Real Estate, ConferenceHound and Kidzter.
(In addition to writing, Carlisle has also served as a National Park Service ranger in Alaska, California and Vermont and enjoys walks with her dog, Mungo, a Gordon Setter.)