Ruth Burr, Lead SEO at SEOmoz, has some great tips for getting everyone thinking about SEO—even when it's not officially part of their job.

Build Your A-Team. SEO-ers should be on the lookout for fellow employees who are interested in search rankings and site optimization. Begin mentoring those folks hungry to learn. Study sessions will include someone from every department—including accounting and public relations—who recognizes they have something valuable to offer the optimization process, or that becoming knowledgeable about SEO will help them do their own job better.

Manage Your Mission. Growing the body of SEO knowledge in your company is a smart move. It ensures trends and events will go unmissed, and means a variety of perspectives from different functional areas will become part of company discussions.

An important reality to cross-training is to be realistic when setting expectations from resources not under your direction.

	When requesting support on a SEO project, be sensitive to the work loads of others.
	Ask if you can offload a portion of their work while they complete the task you've asked of them.
	Share the glory. Make sure it's clear it was a team effort and benefitted from the extra work employees-on-loan took on.

Need more tips about how to get your company's SEO strategy off the white board and into the fast lane? Pull up a desk in our Search Marketing School: SEO course. You'll learn from leaders in the field including Vanessa Fox, author of Marketing In The Age of Google, Justin Cutroni from Google, and Ian Lurie from Portent Interactive.

Small Businesses Can Bask In The Spotlight, Too

Think cultivating positive word of mouth online is too hard? Or that it's only right for big businesses with more resources? Heather Whaling helps you think of media relations in a whole new light.

	The media is freely accessible to every person with a story. Be sure to target the right venues by performing a basic keyword search in blog directories like Alltop. Which bloggers and journalists seem to be the best fit, given your product or service?
	Build a relationship. A first shared cup of coffee is not the time to ask for a favor. Follow reporters and bloggers on social media sites and subscribe to their blogs. Familiarize yourself with their topics of interest and personal passions.
	Think about why your story might be of interest to the journalist or blogger. What makes your idea newsworthy for their audience, and why are you the best resource for supplying information? Reporters need good sources of information that are both solid and insightful.

Spend a little time doing some detective work and earning trust, and you may find yourself the go-to resource for journalists and bloggers covering your field.

Boost your small business's marketing results when you sign up for the Marketing Your Small Business course. Instructor Denise Lee Yohn will help you understand how to make the most out of your brand (hint: it's more than just a logo), and Ivana Taylor will give you a framework for tackling marketing and business-building tasks even if you struggle with just getting today's work done.

Kelsey A. Horine
Senior Strategic Consultant, Digital Marketing
Aspen Marketing Services, a division of Epsilon

MPU Course: Email Marketing Master Course

"As someone who does extensive consulting on email marketing I wasn't convinced that I would learn anything new. Well, I was wrong. The course covers a multitude of topics top of mind today, from the effect of zombie email addresses to how to generate content from keywords search, all from highly esteemed and diverse speakers. Best of all, the classes provide strong use cases on how new technology and data-driven insights enhance email marketing for the consumer and company."

Dan McDade
Owner
President, PointClear

MPU Course: B2B Lead Roundup

Class: Lead Definition: Why BANT Is a Dirty Word

Your Sales Force May Need Fewer Leads. "Too many raw, unqualified leads can lead to a clogged marketing and sales process, creating an unhealthy funnel. To figure out how your company fares, measure the number of Marketing Qualified Leads that become Sales Accepted Leads. If your qualification process is optimized, your number should be around 85 percent (the average is around 65 percent). Pass leads that are not Sales Qualified back to marketing for requalification."


	Special offer for repeat students: MPU alumni save 40% with promo code AUGALUM (PRO alums save 60%!) »


	Social Media Marketing: The Full Monty (kicks off October 11) Up-to-the-minute social media concepts and proven practices, from social media experts ready to bear it all just for you!
	Search Marketing School: SEO (kicks off September 13) Learn how to develop winning SEO strategies with the right content, keywords, off-site techniques, and even use your online social activity to boost rank.
	Search Marketing School: PPC (now on-demand with live Q&A August 27) Generate inbound leads and sales revenue by learning how to create, manage, and measure PPC campaigns yourself—guaranteed!
	B2B Lead Roundup (available now on-demand) Keep your pipeline full of high-quality leads, quickly move them through the sales funnel, and increase your conversion rates.
	Digital Advertising Academy (available now on-demand) See how the advent of digital marketing has revolutionized advertising and branding and how you can profit from these changes.
	Check out the full catalog »


	Beginning this month, if you're on a training roll, you'll find MPU classes at the ready (kind of like the stash of Mountain Dew and Twizzlers you kept in your desk at the dorm). All classes in each course will be accessible on-demand in the month the course launches. Go on, plow through two or three classes in one sitting. Be sure to test your newfound knowledge with the quizzes at the end.

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MPU Alumni Newsletter - August 2012 Edition

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