Santa Barbara, CA | Mobile: 619-517-5127 | paul.bruemmer at gmail.com

www.linkedin.com/in/paulbruemmer/ | www.beyond.com/paulbruemmer/

Eighteen years experience driving new customer acquisition and revenue resulting in 150% year-over-year growth for five consecutive years with 10X search and social channel revenue lift. Developed, trained and supervised Global teams of analysts and developers; leading to an increase of 20% corporate annual business. Focus is on new customer acquisition, revenue and alliances with top online marketing experts.Key performance indicators:

• Identified online marketing quick win priorities
• Analyzed, evaluated, planned and executed enterprise eCommerce marketing activities and strategies
• Assisted with developing strategic & operational marketing plans with budgets to $100 million
• Collaborated input from CEO, senior management, marketing, IT, merchandising and brand
• Marketing industry conference speaker and author
• Developed Semantic Web optimization best practices using Schema.org vocabulary
• Developed action plan to oversee negotiate purchase and execute vendor channel partner services
• Implemented local search SaaS /CMS optimization for enterprise multi-location brick and mortar locations
• Group lead to evaluate corporate sponsorship opportunities and implementation of selected sponsorships
• Coordinated opportunities to leverage internal resources with outside agencies
• Refined systems to measure the effectiveness of all elements of the Company’s marketing efforts

Professional Experience

 2009 – Present: PB Communications LLC – Managing Partner, Online Marketing

Implement SaaS CMS Local, Organic, Mobile Search Traffic & Conversion for enterprise brick-and-mortar businesses including major automotive parts dealer with 3,800 locations in the US. Injecting Semantic SEO Technology, RDFa, Schema.org Microdata providing Google Compliance & Search Engine Optimization Guidelines with technical editorial auditing & website compliance.

2011-2012: Best Rank Inc. – Executive Marketing Analyst

Delivered the firm’s first Big Box client contract

• Created a scalable Local and Mobile Solution to increase revenue by 100% within 12 months
• Created scalable SEO/SEM business structure to increase profit margin/recurring revenue
• Trained and developed internal sales staff to sell new revenue stream solution

2007 – 2011: Overstock.com – Director, Digital Asset Optimization

2006 – 2009: Red Door Interactive, San Diego, CA – Director of Search Marketing

Created new revenue stream for advertising agency without prior search department capability. Doubled annual agency revenue with addition of new search channel.

• Hired and trained search department personnel
• Created SEO and Paid Search deliverables, documentation and training program
• Created SEO Client Educational Seminar for C-Level Execs

2005: Bruce Clay.com, Simi Valley, CA – Principal Business Analyst

Exceeded expectations in business development. Created SEO deliverables for high integrity brands.

1998 – 2004: Web Ignite Corporation, Santa Barbara, CA – Founder and CEO

Built sales to $1M first year for one of the first search engine optimization companies in market. Created the first best practice SEO deliverables and documentation for products/services, technology, vendors, affiliates, contracts, sales and accounting. Started Search Engine Marketing column for Clickz.com 1998-2002Sold business to partner.

1995 – 1998: Web Specialist LLC, Santa Ynez, CA – Founder and Managing Partner

Pioneered the first development of coordinating content on websites with search engine index and ranking on Webcrawler, InfoSeek, Lycos and Alta Vista. Created the first pay-per-click SEO network for NASDAQ.

1982 – 1994: Los Padres Construction, Santa Ynez CA – Licensed B Building Contractor

Built six single family homes and assisted with a 500 home sub-division.

1977 – 1982: The Solar Energy Company of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA – Owner/Founder

Sold, contracted and installed over 100,000 square feet of solar panels for space heating, water heaters and pools.

1976 – 1994: Santa Barbara City Fire Department, Santa Barbara CA – Firefighter

Excelled in mitigating emergencies including structure and wildland fires, vehicle rollovers, medical emergencies.

Partial Client List: NASDAQ, eBay, Intuit, Novartis, Lexis-Nexis, Char-Broil, Overstock, Charles Schwab, 3M Telecomm, AT & T WorldNet, Bell South, Business 2.0, Dockers/Levi Strauss, GMGoodwrench, HBO, Henry Ford Health, Herbalife International, Intuit, IRS.com, McGraw-Hill Bookstore, Medseek, Mercedes Benz, Metropolitan Life, Nescafé’s Big Break, Office.com, Prentice-Hall Publishing, Price Waterhouse LLC, Purdue University, RadioShack -Tandy, Samsung Corporation, Seabury & Smith/ AARP, Sony Music (Epic), St. Ives Laboratories, United Media, ValueClick, Warner Brothers.

Interests: Camping, Coffee and conversation, Business networking, Cooking, Dining out, Fishing/Hunting, Gardening/Landscaping, Hobbies and crafts, Movies/Videos, Museums and art, Music and concerts, Exploring new areas, Playing cards, Playing sports, Shopping/Antiques, Travel/Sightseeing, Video games, Volunteering and Watching sports. For exercise I like Racquetball, Aerobics, Surfing, Baseball, Billiards/Pool, Bowling, Ping Pong, Cycling, Golf, Skiing, Swimming, Walking/Hiking and other types of exercise. I like to exercise 4 or more times per week.

Digital Career Portfolio: http://www.beyond.com/Paul_Bruemmer

 

Credits: Linking Open Data cloud diagram developed by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch.

The entire concept can be tied to a past presentation Barbara Starr gave, illustrating the growth of the semantic web – before Google adopted GoodRelations. When you look at the new LOD cloud compared to the time series and graphics in presentation, you will see the growth is crazy!

Linked Open Commerce (LOC) belongs in the LOD.

A snippet from LOC: “The centerpiece of LOC is the GoodRelations vocabulary as a global data schema for e-commerce and the Virtuoso database and middleware technology in the cluster edition. This is being complemented by: GoodRelations-compliant vocabularies for selected vertical industries, like automotive, real estate, tickets, consumer electronics, human resources. Crawling and data acquisition mechanisms that keep the data fresh and complete without putting too much of a burden on the providing web sites.”

Tests have shown a 30% increase in organic search-engine traffic to websites using Microdata or similar technologies. Search results with respective extensions get a 30 % higher click-through rate (CTR).

BestBuy 2011 Black Friday recent examples of Schema.org, Microdata, RDFa.

Image via Wikipedia

If you haven’t heard, one of the best methods for allowing websites to link to you in a very natural way is Zemanta’s service taking your RSS content feed. Zamanta is a blog plug-in being used actively by about 50,000 bloggers every day. As these bloggers create new post’s, Zemanta’s side bar provides relevant recommendations citing sources for your link consideration. The author can then choose to link to the content in the side-bar. When Zemanta populates the side bar with your content and the blogger selects your content, you get the link. It’s completely natural, complies with Google guidelines and requires no work on your part other than providing the RSS feed to Zemanta. The ROI from what I’ve heard works out to about $5 per link, you can’t beat it. An example of Zemanta links are below; these link sources below popped up as options as I was writing this post, same with the image to the right. Pretty sweet tool, good luck! I have no affiliation with Zemanta, just sharing the info to promote a cleaner better web.

Related articles

• Using Zemanta with Blogger (peterbijkerk.blogspot.com)
• Zemanta for Better Content and More Traffic (alwaysbcmom.com)

Semantic Search is no longer a vision, it has stabilized and we now have solutions adopted by Google, Bing and Yahoo for Standards in the Semantic Web that have never been possible before, extending beyond microformats and Schema.org. Although Google likely has this offering capability, they choose to continue down the relevant information path using link authority as their primary relevancy algorithm. Our process of content syndication and aggregation will be pioneering the new Organic Semantic Web and does not rely on commercially vulnerable link-based algorithms. This verified authentic data will then feed into Google, Google will consume and rank it accordingly. We make no claim for its ranking popularity however, we believe Google will prefer structured verified data that has not been manipulated.

We are using rich standardized data that can be used in new and universal ways. This will involve Product Data Feeds, HTTP API, RDFa, MySQL, CSV, XML and xHTML. The tools being built are capable of assisting those involved with search engine optimization (SEO) however, this is not SEO. Organic Semantic Web and Optimization is authentic high quality verified data that puts SEO to shame. We will essentially be able to help to shore-up and recover from SEO vulnerabilities and weaknesses through novel semantic based technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language programming (NLP).

All the recent actions by Google in regards to punishing paid links, discount codes, article linking, content farms and keyword rich domains have been a spam quality issue since 2001. Virtually any website performing SEO over the past 10 years is highly vulnerable to having violated Google’s guidelines to some degree, and they may not even know it. You would be very surprised to learn who some of the intentional and egregious violators are, up and running “business as usual” as I write this post. Why do you think they’ve been calling it a Google Dance for all these years? I should write a book, any publishers out there who want the real story?

Important Note: if you think there is any remote possibility (even less than half of a one percent chance) that your website is in violation of Google guidelines you had better find it and fix it ASAP. Google is on a rampage to clean up their index and trust me, they will accomplish quite a big clean-up in 2011.

Lastly, on a more encouraging note: would you like to learn about genuine intelligent and authentic search algo innovations that currently exist in 2011 outside of Google? Are you interested in what algo’s might fuel the next 10-20 years in “search and find” or “question and answer” engines on the Web? If so, call me and we’ll talk about the organic semantic web which cannot be gamed or manipulated by SEO’s. The day is coming in the not so distant future.

The focus of SMX Advanced is unique. Conference sessions and keynotes are designed for sophisticated search engine marketers; they are fast paced and don’t review basic concepts. You’ll choose from in depth sessions on organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search advertising (PPC) and social media marketing.

Since the recession, SMBs have been trying to figure out the best way to optimize their websites for organic listings due to SEO’s lower cost over time and higher ROI. What many have asked is, “what is the most effective way to get traffic leads and sales.” Everyone out there has come to the realization that SEO is now #1, and email marketing is a close second.

Besides the need to be efficient with marketing dollars, marketers are casting aside old assumptions that SEO is complex and unaccountable. Just the opposite is true on accountability. On the other hand, it doesn’t take much to get started with a PPC account for instant visibility, but many marketers find it gets expensive for popular keywords.

Another factor driving the switch to SEO is the explosion of social media, which can help boost your rankings. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs are all good ways to create content and dialogue, all of which is integrated into natural search. Marketers are realizing their websites need to work in tandem with social dialogues.

Paid search: PPC spending in Q2 this year, across all search engines in the U.S., was down 21 percent compared to the same period last year (Efficient Frontier). The Q1 year-over-year decline was 23 percent.

On Google alone, PPC spending was off by 8.2 percent worldwide in Q2 compared to Q1 this year (Covario). This was the second straight quarter that Google saw global decreases. Yahoo!’s PPC spending was down 30 percent quarter to quarter, while Bing edged slightly upward from its small market share due to its aggressive $80M marketing campaign in June.

SEO:  On the other hand, SEO appears to be robust. eMarketer report, “Search Marketing Trends” released in February said 55 percent of marketers will increase spending on SEO this year, which is more than any other advertising channel. SEO expenditures were forecast to total $3.9 billion by 2014.

SEO gets the most clicks, and its share of clicks is increasing. In 2005-2006, 87 percent of all clicks were on organic links, now it’s up to 91 percent! All marketers are scratching their heads and wondering why they haven’t concentrated more on SEO. Maybe the preference for SEO links is because people know they aren’t ads. Additionally, SEO links have more credibility because they are ranked by search engines to provide best results, and people trust these results more than banners and sponsored links.

Cost of SEO: SEO isn’t free, and skilled consultants can charge big fees. Another problem is the difficulty of getting changes implemented because of poor cooperation between marketing and IT. SEO is a massively time-consuming process and requires a lot of insider knowledge. SEO automation tools are beginning to show up; keep posted for our reviews.

Local search queries are increasing at a rapid rate. Your site can gain additional traffic and conversions by getting listed in Google Local, Yahoo! Local, CitySearch, and appropriate industry-specific directories.

Google Local: Get listed in Google Maps via Google’s Local Business Center, where you can create a free listing with a Google account. First, check to see if you are listed, and if so, ensure your listing is accurate. If not, list your company name, address, phone/FAX, toll-free number, contact personnel, email address, Web site address, and hours of operation. Follow Google’s Business Listing Quality Guidelines and use Google’s Reinclusion Request form if your listing gets pulled.

Yahoo! Local: Get a free local listing in Yahoo! Local Basic, which consists of a profile listing with your address, phone/FAX number, Web site and email addresses, business category, hours of operation, accepted payment methods, and a description of your products and services. Add or update information any time. Adding your address and phone information in a footer on all your pages can get your inner pages listed.

Citysearch:  This online city guide provides local information on restaurants, entertainment, retail, travel, and professional services in major U.S. cities, including contact information, maps, driving directions, editorial and user reviews. You can get a free listing on Citysearch by going to the “Enter Missing Listing Information” page and enter the business information requested on the form. You can use this same form to make changes to existing listings. Search for your business first, check your profile page for accuracy, and then either make changes or start from scratch by filling out the form.

Niche Search Engines: It’s important to get a free listing in all the directories relevant to your business. Some directories are free and others are worth the listing fee. Look for appropriate directories for your business in DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory. Google has an industry-specific directory, and you can find a list of industry-specific directories at NYPL.org. Read each submission guide carefully and provide requested information accurately. Directories are a good source of traffic and help increase link popularity.

Optimize for Universal Search

It’s important to create content in all relevant media. Know what type of content your customers prefer and create content in relevant media. Optimize your multimedia content, which should be tagged and cataloged correctly.

Images: Use images on your site for illustrating your products and services. Optimize your images with descriptive, keyword-rich file names and ALT tags. Use accurate descriptions of image files.

Videos: Create videos using descriptive file names that are keyword-rich. Also use keywords in your title tag, description tag, and video site map. Create a Web page to launch your video, optimizing the content for SEO and using anchor text wherever possible. Submit to Google Video, Blinkx and YouTube.

News Releases: Submit your press releases for display as “news,” but make sure your story is truly newsworthy. It could be information about new products or upcoming events your site is involved with.

Blogs: Smart companies communicate with their customers and stakeholders via blogs. Tag it (digg, del.icio.us, reddit, stumbleupon, etc.), submit to Google Blog search, and expand your visibility in the SERPs.

Resources and SEO Training

You will need a depth of knowledge to do your own SEO. Below are some resources for learning the basics, keeping abreast of the constant changes in search, and finding answers to your questions. This list is not exhaustive but includes many top assets.

1. Search industry conferences: SMX Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo, Webmaster World Pubcon, and Search Insider Summit.
2. Search marketing news and information sites: Search Engine Land, SearchEngineWatch, iMedia Connection, MediaPost Publications, ClickZ, Search Marketing Standard, and Website Magazine.
3. The Top SEO Blogs are listed on the Online Marketing Blog. Subscribe by RSS or email for the latest information on optimization tactics and search engine rules.
4. SEO training courses: SEMPO Institute’s online basic and advanced SEO courses, DMA Search Engine Optimization Certification Program, SEOToolSet Training, Search Engine Workshops, SEOClass, Search Engine College, and SEO Book.
5. SEMPO Learning Center provides access to articles, research, editorials, case studies and webinars on search engine marketing.

Conclusion
Any way you look at it, saving money is a good idea. However, it’s also important for SMBs to save time. A comprehensive SEO strategy requires an investment of time, personnel, and money, especially since SEO is an ongoing process, not a one-time event.

When you do SEO yourself, you’ll find the tasks are time consuming. SEO tools can save time and simplify your tasks. Some tools are free and others can be very reasonable on a subscription basis. Below are some tools for analytics, keyword research, competitive research, and link analysis.

Analytics Tools: Used to optimize site content and design, maximizing performance.

1. Google Analytics: Robust analytics tool
2. Google Website Optimizer: Test and optimize site content and design to maximize performance
3. Piwik: Open source web analytics
4. Webalizer:  Free Web server logfile analyzer

Keyword Research Tools: Used to discover keywords to target, and tell you how competitive the keywords are.

1. Wordtracker Free Keywords: Generates up to 100 related keywords and get an estimate of their daily search volume.
2. Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool: Generates keywords based on your keyword/URL input
3. Keyword Discovery: Free search term suggestion tool generates the top 100 keywords
4. Microsoft adCenter Keyword Forecast: Gives impression count and predicts demographic distributions of keywords

A tool like MySEOServer crawls your site or blog identifying each page to be optimized for Google, Yahoo! and Bing. It searches content on each page and selects three keywords based on traffic, relevancy and keyword density. This can save you or your webmaster a lot of time and is cost effective.

Competitive Research Tools: Used to determine how much traffic your competitors get and which search terms send them the most traffic.

1. Alexa: Gives you traffic trends for competing websites
2. Compete.com: Track and compare competitors with free site metrics for the top 1,000,000 web domains
3. Google Search Insights: Compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames

Link Analysis Tools: Used to analyze your link profile compared to your competitors, identify and fix broken links, and find new linking sources to give your site the authority needed for top rankings.

1. Xenu Link Sleuth: Free software identifies broken links, verifies internal links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets.
2. Backlink Watch: Free tool shows details on your backlinks including anchor text

Tip: Download FireFox for SEO plugins that streamline many SEO tasks.

Now that you’ve built your site, you should get it listed in local search and industry-specific directories. Part 4 tells you how to get more traffic with local search, universal search, and also gives you tips on SEO training.

Let’s hope your site was designed by following Webmaster guidelines from Google, Yahoo! and Bing. The best way to attract search traffic is to create a lot of keyword-focused, customer-centric Web pages about your product, service or niche. Remember that your long tail keywords add up and create more traffic than your highly competitive keywords. This is especially true for newer domains. You also need logical, keyword-focused site architecture with good navigation.

Title Tag: Keep your title short (65 characters or less), forming a sentence beginning with your primary keyword(s). The title is the first thing users see in the SERPs so be descriptive and enticing. Create unique title tags for every page.

Meta Description: Create your description tag to attract users. Use keywords as soon as possible and keep it short (150 characters or less) since snippets can be truncated by the search engines.

Header: Include primary keywords, spark interest, keep it short and relevant. Use only one H1 tag per page.

Body Text: Create pages that have a purpose for your visitors and are focused on 2 to 3 primary keywords. Include your primary keyword at the beginning and at end of the page. Support your primary keywords with related keywords to establish context and facilitate spidering. Close with a call to action. Write in conversational style while focusing on the needs of customer and search spiders. Let your headers organize the copy with the use of bullets and bold text for emphasis. Leave plenty of white space. Use anchor text for internal and external linking and vary your anchor text by using related keywords.

Internal Links: Link relevant pages to each other internally throughout site content. Ensure keyword-focused anchor text is relevant to the destination page. Use navigation text links rather than images or Javascript. Use breadcrumb links, subject/topic group links, and sitemap links.

External Links: Get listed in DMOZ and quality directories in your niche. When looking for one-way links, search your primary keywords to identify competitors, then find out who is linking to them. Create a list and be prepared to offer something of value in return for a static link with relevant anchor text. Start a business blog and post valuable information on other blogs relevant to your business. Write hot content in your area of expertise and submit to relevant publications or post on your blog.

Images: Use images to lend credibility to your content and create interest. Keep image size to a minimum for fast display. Use relevant alt text.

Sitemap: Create a sitemap of all the pages in your site to reveal link structure. This helps search spiders find all relevant pages of your site available for crawling.

Site Validation: Ensure your pages are indexable and links can be followed with the free W3C Markup Validation Service.

Doing it yourself takes time, but there are tools out there that can save you time. Part 3 is about SEO Tools.