Organic Search Marketing in Practice

Profit Rank’s Organic Search Marketing strategy incorporates the following steps:

1. Establish baseline metrics. Profit Rank will have no way of measuring its success unless it knows where your firm currently stands. This step involves the installation and configuration of web analytics software.
2. Campaign architecture. This step establishes the infrastructure and operational plan for the Organic Search Marketing campaign. It involves the following elements:
   1. Content Management System (CMS). A good CMS is the foundation of any successful Organic Search Marketing campaign. Simply put, a CMS is an application that enables your firm to publish new content to its website quickly and efficiently.
   2. Lead Tracking System. In order to analyze performance (and to provide a basis for billing), Profit Rank must have a method to track a prospect through the sales process. There are a number of ways to accomplish this goal, and Profit Rank will consult with your firm's engineers to select and implement one of them.
   3. Content planning. A Content Plan lays out a long-term roadmap for the content generation effort. It addresses the following issues:
      1. Competition. What other firms are competing in the space, and what content are they publishing? In addition to measuring the height of the competitive bar, this review can produce valuable ideas and insights to fuel your own effort.
      2. Audience. Who does your firm wish its content to attract? Options include client technical advisors or high-level management. This is a strategic call that your firm's leadership must make.
      3. Format. How can your firm best convey value to its target audience? Options include online journals, case studies, best practices, technical data, technology review, and many more.
      4. Resources. In the course of its operations, your firm has amassed a vast repository of valuable, raw content. This may include e-mail archives, call center recordings, trouble-ticket databases, and even the experience and stories locked up in the heads of your employees! Profit Rank must assess these resources to judge which can most efficiently be brought to bear to deliver your message to your target audience in its format of choice.
      5. Effort level. In Organic Search Marketing, a consistent level of effort is critical to success. Very high levels of effort are costly, though, and produce diminishing returns.
      6. Operational impact. A primary benefit of partnering with Profit Rank for Organic Search Marketing is a significant reduction in the impact of the campaign to your firm's operational cycle. Planning for such interruptions is key to reducing their operational cost.
      7. Content Production Schedule. The critical bottom line of the Content Plan is the Content Production Schedule, which lays out specifics regarding articles of content to be produced, subject matter, timing, resources required, and operational impact anticipated.
3. Campaign operation. In this step, Profit Rank puts its plan into motion. Organic Search Marketing campaigns follow an operational cycle that includes the following steps: 
   1. Content Generation. Based on staff interviews, trouble-ticket records, other resources identified in the Content Plan, Profit Rank’s writers generate content that addresses your firm's target audience.
   2. Editing. All content undergoes a rigorous editorial review process so that the final product is error-free, a pleasure to read, and ready for publication.
   3. Publication. Profit Rank publishes all content according to the Content Production Schedule.
   4. Promotion. In this critical step, Profit Rank agents search the Internet’s public forums for conversations related to the most recently published content. They then join the conversation, leveraging the content to contribute value to the exchange and to enhance the forum’s perception of your product… and leaving behind a link to the content. This is not spam: it is a meaningful contribution whose cumulative effect is to establish the poster as a welcome authority in the field, and to enhance your firm's search results by establishing a growing index of durable, meaningful inbound links.
   5. Data collection, analysis, and reporting. On a monthly basis, Profit Rank analyzes the effect of its activity and provides an accounting of leads generated by its efforts.