Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing [Hardcover]

Lee Odden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2012

Attract, engage, and inspire your customers with an "Optimize and Socialize" content marketing strategy

Optimize is designed to give readers a practical approach to integrating search and social media optimization with content marketing to boost relevance, visibility, and customer engagement. Companies, large and small, will benefit from the practical planning and creative content marketing tactics in this book that have been proven to increase online performance across marketing, public relations, and customer service. Learn to incorporate essential content optimization and social media engagement principles thereby increasing their ability to acquire and engage relevant customers online.

Optimize provides insights from Lee Odden, one of the leading authorities on Content and Online Marketing. This book explains how to:

• Create a blueprint for integrated search, social media and content marketing strategy
• Determine which creative tactics will provide the best results for your company
• Implement search and social optimization holistically in the organization
• Measure the business value of optimized and socialized content marketing
• Develop guidelines, processes and training to scale online marketing success

Optimize offers a tested approach for a customer-centric and adaptive online marketing strategy that incorporates the best of content, social media marketing, and search engine optimization tactics.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Imagine the last time you purchased something online. Did you look for it via a search engine? Or maybe a friend recommended a review on a social network? Every 60 seconds there are over 690,000 searches on Google and nearly as many updates on Facebook. With Google search becoming social through Google+, the worlds of search and social media are now inseparable. For businesses to succeed online, it's essential to optimize search and social media content to attract, engage, and inspire customers to buy.

Optimize gives you a practical approach to integrating search and social media optimization with content marketing to boost your relevance and visibility for potential customers. Companies large and small should grasp how customers find and seek out resources, the content topics and formats that motivate them, and the social media platforms and tools they use to engage with one another and recommend things.

Optimize offers a proven customer-centric and adaptive online marketing strategy that incorporates the best of content, social media marketing, and search engine optimization tactics. This book will help you to:

• Understand the changing nature of consumer preferences and behaviors with search, social media, and content

• Explore optimized content marketing tactics from personas to topics to content planning and measurement

• Determine which creative tactics will provide the best results for your company

• Implement search and social optimization holistically in your organization

• Measure the business value of optimized and socialized content marketing

• Develop guidelines, processes, and training to scale online marketing success

Make sure your SEO, social media, and content marketing efforts are seamlessly integrated. Achieve an optimized state of mind—and help your brand become the most relevant solution for your product category, no matter what path your customer takes.

From the Back Cover

Praise for OPTIMIZE

"Blending the gears and guts of search with the passion and artistry of content is a brilliant move. If I were lazy, I could cheat and use Lee Odden's book as my road map for this coming year's business."
—CHRIS BROGAN, President, Human Business Works, and New York Times bestselling coauthor of Trust Agents

"Content, search, and social are like the Three Musketeers of Marketing. Optimize shows you how—in very specific, measurable ways—you can put them to work for your business."
—ANN HANDLEY, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs, and coauthor of Content Rules

"Optimize is a manifesto for how to think about your business and your life in today's always on, always sharing world we live in, as well as a guide for putting practical social media and content marketing advice into action."
—JOHN JANTSCH, author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine

"Lee Odden has unparalleled insights that teach professionals not just the 'why' of a holistic digital approach, but actually 'how' to maximize the ROI and engagement value of their SEO, content, and social media campaigns. His deep expertise and the practical, easy-to-understand steps included in Optimize make it a must-read!"
—MELANIE MITCHELL, SVP, Search Marketing Strategy, Digitas

"Content marketing has been a hot subject recently, but what good is your content if no one can find it? Odden takes a methodical and thorough approach to this important aspect of content marketing. Whether you're from an agency or a brand, you hold in your hands the playbook you'll need to run an effective program."
—SCOTT MONTY, Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company

"Lee Odden understands better than just about anyone that content, social media, and SEO are all part of one continuum when it comes to effective online marketing. Now with Optimize, he spells it all out for you, clear as a bell. Read this book before your competition does."
—BRIAN CLARK, founder and CEO, Copyblogger Media

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 243 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 17, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1118167775
• ISBN-13: 978-1118167779
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > Computers & Technology > Internet & Web Culture > Search Engine Optimization
  • #16 in Books > Business & Investing > Marketing & Sales > Marketing > Direct
  • #45 in Books > Business & Investing > Marketing & Sales > Marketing > Web Marketing

More About the Author

Lee Odden is the author of Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing. He is also the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a digital marketing and online PR agency that specializes in a 360 degree approach to growing new business and enriching both brand and community engagement online.

Lee has over 15 years experience consulting with some of the best known Fortune 1,000 B2B and B2C companies and fast growing technology start ups ranging from McKesson to Marketo. Cited by the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist and Forbes, he is an active international speaker and publishes one of the most popular marketing blogs on the web at http://marketingblog.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Next Generation Of Search Marketing... April 25, 2012

By Robert Rose

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

There are alot of books that will talk to you about how content, marketing and search are all coming together. But none of them lay this intersection out as well as this one. Lee understands and takes us through the entire process of WHY creating quality content is important - and how that relates to our search and social strategy. He lays out the process of HOW to actually do it - and then finishes with some of the best, specific advice for WHAT to actually do next. If you think optimizing your content, marketing and search marketing processes will be an overwhelming project - then I urge you to get this book. After you read it - you'll be so much better equipped to actually make *optimization* a reality!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn to Optimize your On-Line Presence April 15, 2012

By Craig E. Yaris

Format:Hardcover

Guy Kawasaki offers a simplistic take on search engine optimization in his book, What the Plus?, by saying the best method to improve search rankings is to "Write. Good. Stuff." And, while I agree with the idea, there is much more to search engine optimization than just that. And Lee Odden, in his book Optimize - How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing outlines exactly how much work proper optimization really is.

Odden takes the reader on a complex journey through the optimization process. From the decision regarding where optimization fits within your company to the necessary market research and buyer personas, to the culmination of your hard work with talk about the necessary measurement tools and tactics, Odden covers it all. And he covers it in incredible depth, but without any techno-speak.

Although the tools, methods, and advice throughout this book may be better suited to larger businesses, the examples provided almost always relate to the typical small business. This makes the work seem manageable, even by an SEO newbie. If you utilize Optimize as a workbook and not a "read cover to cover" book," you will realize the benefits that SEO has to offer. And to help you accomplish this, Odden offers "Action Items" at the end of each chapter, to help you continue to move your SEO strategy forward.

Although text-book in nature, time spent reading and acting on Lee Odden's advice throughout this book will be well spent.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating Content is One Thing...Online Integration is a Totally Different Ballgame April 18, 2012

By Joe Pulizzi

Format:Hardcover

I've read almost every book there is on content marketing...there are definitely some good ones, but Optimize by Lee Odden may be the first one that seriously looks at how an organization (of any size) can integrate the rather complex process of search, social and content creation.

The first few chapters set the stage for why: so if you don't get why this is important or need to convince your boss, those are a must read.

From that point on, Lee does what most marketing books don't...offer practical and realistic advice (using real case studies from large and small brands, as well as his own) on how to develop an online marketing strategy (leveraging search, social and content marketing) and then how to effectively execute it using in-house and/or outsourced resources (including training and integration across organizational silos).

Chapter 14 might be my favorite, where Lee busts some myths and offers real ideas on how both small and large brands can deal with the change that occurs from a holistic approach to content marketing.

As a side note...Lee could have written this book years ago, but he waited. It was worth the wait.