Buyers looking for the latest products for the upcoming season know exactly where to find them — at ASR. Twice a year the Surf/Skate Lifestyle and Fashion industries invade San Diego to conduct business and preview lines for the upcoming seasons. ASR tradeshow provides an authentic and efficient forum for buyers, sellers, media, and the investment community to conduct business and move the action sports industry forward. It’s the platform that unites brands of all sizes with an unmatched national and international buying audience.

Mike Duncan, Sage Island’s CEO, will be presenting three different seminars during the show.

The Board Retailers Association (BRA) hosts Survival of the Fittest – BRA Retail Certification Programs August 12th, 2010. Retailers are encouraged to take advantage of the trip to the trade shows by attending a full-day of certified retail education focused on current market issues facing specialty retailers.

Strengthening Your Website’s Presence through an Integrated Marketing Plan
Presented by: Mike Duncan, Sage Island Marketing Agency
10:00 am on August 12th

Your website is a critical component of your business. At a time when online competition has never been so fierce, it’s crucial to have a marketing plan for your website that drives results. This seminar, presented my Mike Duncan, CEO of Sage Island addresses the necessity of a well designed, innovative site, and how to properly market it through a hands on  approach of planning, analysis, and optimization. Mike speaks to the art of  SEO and PPC tactics and how to  expand your brand on the web to drive results.

Ten Ways for Retailers to Improve Website Presence
Presented by: Mike Duncan, Sage Island Marketing Agency
Saturday, August 14th at 11:00 am

In the ever changing world of retail, competition has never been more fierce. Your website is a critical component of your business. This seminar teaches a fully integrated marketing approach leading you through the basics of a well designed, innovative site, and how to properly utilize e-commerce solutions. Learn how to build and expand your presence on the web to drive sales and maximize your bottom line.

Leveraging the Power of Social Media
Presented by: Mike Duncan, Sage Island Marketing Agency and Danny Keith, Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop
Saturday, August 14th at 2:00 pm

Over the last few years, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have gone from college networking sites to marketing powerhouses. Businesses today tap into Facebook to reach their audience in more targeted, local, and efficient ways than ever before.  This seminar, presented by Danny Keith, owner of the Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop, and Mike Duncan CEO of Sage Island, teaches the latest tactics and applications that elevate social media from self promotion sites to professional lead generating tools.

As a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Specialist, your responsibilities will be to design, development and implement PPC campaigns on major search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.​ as well as work to develop and implement strategies to increase natural / organic search engine traffic from key search engines to the network of Sage Island web sites.​

The SEM Specialist will also work with Account Executives, Graphic Designers, Programmers, and other team members to drive SEM and SEO success and will be charged with establishing best practices on optimization of a variety of different PPC campaigns for a variety of unique customers.​ Additionally, you will be responsible for developing and implementing keyword strategies, including working with business owners to understand their specific PPC and SEO needs and developing strategies, plans, and campaigns accordingly.​

The SEM Specialist will also work with developers to evolve in-house SEM tracking and reporting tools and keep current on SEM developments within the industry.​

Responsibilities

• Create, manage and optimize PPC campaigns in support of business goals for Sage Island customers.
• Continuously review and optimize PPC campaigns, including thorough analysis of profitability of campaigns, keyword lists, landing page quality, downstream feedback of lead and traffic quality, etc.
• Serve as internal search expert to ensure best practices are shared and leveraged by all groups.
• Continuously improve tracking, reporting and profitability of the SEM and SEO efforts.
• Analyze and translate quantitative and qualitative data from web analytics tool intoactionable SEM and SEO plans
• Research and develop SEM and SEO best practices to identify new market opportunities and maximize program profits with improved paid campaign performance and organic rankings
• SEMrecommendations should be very detailed and include analysis of current keywords, ad groups, and landing pages and other PPC issues
• SEO recommendations should be very detailed and include specifications for improving indexing, link popularity, on page optimization and other SEO issues
• Select and refine SEO/​SEM keyword lists
• Through research and analysis of key metrics help identify new projects to expand visibility in search engines

Skills

• Knowledge and experience with the creation, management, and optimization of large-scale PPC campaigns
• Knowledge of optimizing websites for major search engines
• Experience with Web content management tools
• Experience with PPC campaign management and optimization tools
• Understanding of search engine rankings algorithms and how search engine spiders work
• A quantitative approach to traffic measurement and experience with collecting and interpreting site visitor statistics
• Knowledge/​skills in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are a plus
• Experience using Microsoft Office programs (Excel, Word, etc.​)
• Must be detail-oriented with excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Strong written and verbal communication skills to evangelize Traffic/​Search Strategy projects and work with cross functional staffs to ensure implementation
• Ability to work individually on a project or in a team environment
• Self-starter approach to work, with an eagerness to consistently meet and exceed objectives and take on more responsibility.

Qualifications/​Requirements

• 1 – 3 years experience as a Search Engine Marketer
• Bachelors degree or equivalent training and experience

Full-time with benefits package. Send us a cover letter and resume. Specify Marketing Specialist in subject line to jobs@sageisland.com.

If you’ve started on the wrong foot, there’s still time. Good keyword research is an evolution. The world of search is constantly changing, and your keywords should, too. The terms that people are using today may not be the most successful six months from now.

Whether you’re putting together your first keyword list or adapting your current list, here are some tips to get you started.

Don’t use the same keyword list for your SEO and PPC campaigns.

SEO and PPC are complete different, and they require different keyword lists. In fact, most of the keywords you use for SEO probably won’t even end up on your PPC list. PPC keyword lists are highly targeted — you’re looking for keywords that will target a very specific audience to ensure you’re not spending money on clicks from tire-kickers. For SEO, your keywords should be relevant, but much broader to reach a larger search audience.

Never build a keyword list based on assumptions.

No matter how well you know your target audience, the truth is that as a business owner you think differently than your consumers. Many marketers and business owners create keyword lists based on their knowledge of the business instead of search volume. They’re surprised to discover that consumers are searching for a completely different list of terms. Your technical knowledge may be preventing you from finding the laymen’s terms for which your customers are searching. While a good knowledge of the terminology in your business is a great place to start your research, you need metrics to back you up. Use a keyword research program like Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, Google AdWords’ Keyword Tool to ensure that the keywords are the right ones.

Break long keyword phrases into pieces.

For SEO, try breaking your keyword phrases into smaller pieces to maximize your reach. For example, while “new houses for sale” may have a decent search volume, you might have better results with something like “new home listings,” because it works as a stand-alone keyword phrase, two separate shorter phrases (new home and home listings), and home has a higher search volume than houses. Create power phrases by ensuring that each and every word in your keyword phrase packs a punch.

Choose your keywords wisely.

Once you’ve built a long list of potential keywords, it’s decision time. For PPC, you can test a long list of keywords to find the most successful. For SEO, you need to be a little more selective. The most successful optimizations use a very short list of keywords — no more than 3 for each page. Don’t just choose the keywords with the highest search volume. Look deeper to create longer keyword phrases that will garner search volume without being too competitive. Find a balance between search volume, competition, and relevance.

Constantly update your keywords based on analytics, conversions, and traffic.

Good keyword research can create a pretty powerful initial list, but you’re not finished. You need to make constant adjustments. With PPC, the changes will most likely be daily, especially in the beginning. Watch your click-through rates and conversions to ensure that your keywords are driving relevant traffic without costing too much, and keep an eye on your analytics to find negative keywords.

SEO is a long-term process, so you’ll want to give your site some time to collect data before making changes. Monitor your analytics constantly to determine which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site. If you’re not getting the results you wanted after a month or two, it may be time to make some changes, shift your focus, or find new keywords.