Since March, when we started the reinvestment in our blogs, the team has really focused their efforts, and it’s paying off in spades. We’re engaging our readers more by getting topic suggestions from them and holding contests, we’ve restarted our blog series, and introduced new elements like the video blog and Twitter interviews. Overall, visits and pageviews have grown significantly as a result! Comparing the previous 90 days to the same time frame before that, we’re now up 19% and 25%, respectively, for PPC Hero! (We inadvertently lost some stats on SEO Boy, though we’re looking into whether a second analytics program was tracking.)

Since I’m already talking about the Hanapin team, before I get into what’s in store on the blogs this month, we have a lot happening that I want to share first.

We have two new Account Executives starting next week, who join the five who have already started this year! We’ve already begun looking for two more – with 2+ years of paid search experience managing accounts of $50K/mo in spend – and if you fit the bill, please email me at pat.east@hanapinmarketing.com. We’re also hiring for a sales and a marketing position too, and once those are filled, we’ll be at 80% capacity of the new office space we just moved into! And, most important, the team has been killing it on their accounts! Two clients have significantly increased their budgets this year – one has tripled and another has nearly doubled! We also picked up a competitor to Groupon, so the team is busy trying to slay that IPO’ing beast!

On to the blogs…

Last month on PPC Hero, Jessica Cates posted her top five Excel tips for PPC managers, and it went off like gangbusters! Among our how-to posts, it alone comprised a third of our pageviews! Since it seems you liked it so much, we’re doing a full series on Excel this month. We’ll expand on the list of Excel functions in Jessica’s post and even create Excel worksheet templates.

Two more topics on deck are general campaign setup and which default settings to change (shocker – the default settings by Google aren’t always the best ones!) and a to-do list for everything PPC.

We’ll continue with the Twitter interviews, which we’ve named “Heroviews.” These are interviews with folks in the SEM industry that are conducted completely over Twitter. Our first was with Tom Demers and last month’s was with Matt Umbro, which focused on lead generation. We’ll announce this month’s Heroview on the PPC Hero Twitter account, and you can follow the interview with the hashtag #heroview.

The video blogs have been really popular too! Hanapin’s Creative Specialist Jessica Rooney launched a new feature, Ticker Tuesday, last month, and it’s slowly but surely attracting its own audience. Most notably, we’ve surpassed our monthly goal for pageviews by 21%! Similar to ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption,” there’s a running clock on the screen that counts down the time. So far, we’ve covered topics such as bidding, adCenter’s quality score, and setting up data feeds in Google’s Merchant Center. There’s also a great 15-minute video blog on enterprise-level PPC and how to manage those large accounts.

For SEO Boy, we’ll write about creating custom reports in the new version of Google Analytics. We’ll also explore Klout – what is it, how does it work, and if you should use it.

Also on SEO Boy, our June contest is a blog scavenger hunt! We’ll post a question each week and readers will search through our archives to find the answers. As always, we’ll have a prize. I’m told it will be a “summer goody basket.” Maybe a tasting box from Foodzie?!

Last but not least, custom illustrations! SEO Boy has already celebrated ‘National Leave the Office Early Day‘ and we have two others on deck for both blogs. We’ll celebrate the First Day of Summer on 6/21 and Social Media Day on 6/30. And, in case you missed last month’s custom illustrations, here’s a quick recap: Star Wars Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Geek Day.

Thanks again for reading and helping make our blogs big successes!

NEWS UPDATES
For both blogs, we’ll continue writing our news updates, and for PPC Hero specifically, we’re paying extra attention to breaking news that we receive from Google as one of their agency partners. They recently paid us a visit to help plan for the rest of 2011 and are giving us unprecedented access to webinars, white papers, and other materials. If there’s new information to report on AdWords, you’ll hear it from us first!

UPCOMING ARTICLES
For SEO Boy, we’re writing about ‘analyzing SEO data.’ At first, I thought this topic was a bit vanilla, primarily because that’s a fundamental service that Hanapin provides to all our clients already. However, when I read a recent tweet from SMX about how the “next wave” of SEO reporting will go beyond just reporting the data and start to give the client insights from that data, I changed my mind. This should be a solid post, and I’ll lay even odds that you’ll start seeing posts from other agencies about what Hanapin has been doing for years.

We’ll also write about whether or not SEO is dead. Of course it’s not dead, but this debate has been revived again through recent news, primarily because prominent entrepreneurs like Chris Dixon have been misinterpreting startups not doing SEO well or claiming that that it’s not the foremost tactic any longer as a sign that SEO doesn’t work. Danny Sullivan, as always, has a great response to Chris and we’ll put our two cents in too.

For PPC Hero, we have several topics lined up. Among them are ‘how to create a test conversion’ that should increase your ROI since you’ll be able to verify and pinpoint tracking issues sooner and ‘the effects of broad modifiers on an account’ which will give some good tips and insights on how keyword and match type selection impact your account’s performance.

MAY CONTEST
The past two months, we’ve introduced a new feature on the blogs – a contest for our readers. We hope it gives you a break from your daily search marketing work and we know it’s fun for us to create for you! Last month, we did SEO haikus on SEO Boy, and we were even graced with a live appearance from SEO Boy to announce the winner. Thanks to Dave Rosborough, one of our Assistant Account Executives, who was a good sport and dressed up for us! This month, we’ll have “best dressed” PPC manager on PPC Hero. The team has some interesting and fun guidelines, so keep on the lookout for the announcement.

CUSTOM ILLUSTRATIONS
We have three custom illustrations this month, and two of them are for the uber geeks out there! We’ll have illustrations for Star Wars Day (5/4), Cinco De May (5/5), and Geek Pride Day (5/25). If you have any ideas for June that you’d like to see, please post them in the comments.

TWITTER INTERVIEW
Last month featured our very first Twitter interview. Not an interview with someone from Twitter, but rather an interview with someone in the SEM industry, which was held completely over Twitter. Tom Demers of Measured SEM was kind enough to be our first guest, and I think it went great! You can find a full transcript of the interview here. There’s another one in the hopper for this month, though the team hasn’t told me who the interviewee is yet, so it must be a good one! We’ll announce it on the PPC Hero Twitter account and you can follow the interview with the hashtag #heroview.

VIDEO BLOGS
Last but not least, you’ve likely noticed the videos our team has been creating. We have several on PPC Hero and just posted our first on SEO Boy to announce the SEO haiku winner. As part of our investment in our blogs, we’ll continue making more videos, led by Hanapin’s own Creative Specialist, Jessica Rooney.

This month, Jessica will be creating weekly videos that will provide extra insight into account problems that may have viewers stumped. The series started yesterday and is called “Ticker Tuesdays” (with the clock being the “ticker”), and they are visually similar to ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption,” with no shouting, of course. The hook of our Tuesday video shorts is that the answers will be given in a minute, with a running clock on the screen that counts down the time. The answers will be listed on the side of the screen as they come up. The first Ticker Tuesday episode, posted this morning, was about how to make good accounts great. Keep an eye out next Tuesday for the second episode about advanced bidding strategies.

That’s it for this month! Thank you for being a loyal reader, for helping our re-investment pay off so quickly for us, and for all your wonderful comments and feedback!

In March, I wrote that Hanapin is increasing the investment in our blogs. They’re a great source of pride for us, we have a lot of fun with them, and they generate quite a few leads and business too! To that end, we did several new things last month: we added more custom illustrations, a new blog series, and we announced Hanapin’s volunteer initiative (more on that below). While last month was great—every single one of our engagement metrics on both blogs improved—I think this month will be even better! (Do you see the connection to Empire now? It’s better than Star Wars, just like this month is better than last month. Feel free to vehemently disagree in the comments. ☺)

The team has planned a blog series for this month that I think many of our readers will find useful. Four Hanapin team members took the Google Analytics certification test and passed last month. They’ll share their insight with you, including how they prepared, what they learned while studying, and how the knowledge they acquired now benefits their PPC and SEO clients.

In addition to the blog series, if the team keeps up last month’s pace, they’ll write nearly two blog posts every business day! Two topics for PPC Hero will include Google Merchant Center tracking and new geo-targeting strategies in AdWords. For SEO Boy, two topics will be Piracy in Google SERPS and a follow-up of Google Instant and how it has impacted SEO over the last seven months. Last but not least, we’re expanding our journalistic skills to start covering PPC and SEO news. We’ve always focused on writing in-depth posts based on our client experiences, and now we’ll be offering breaking news updates too!

Following suit with last month, we’ll continue adding custom illustrations each month for the rest of the year. Two of our April illustrations will be for Earth Day (April 22) and Easter (April 24). There’s another one too that’s already been posted…we thought it was pretty clever. ☺

Because we’re Hoosiers, we ran our own version of “March Madness” on PPC Hero. It was so well-received, we decided to conduct a new contest every month, and “SEO Haikus” is up for April! To celebrate National Poetry Month, we’ll be asking for your best “SEO Haikus” for SEO Boy. There will be a prize for the best one too, so keep your eyes peeled on how to submit them!

Hanapin is making a big investment in our blogs this year, and we’re doing the same with our team members and our community. Thank you to everyone who voted on which one of Bloomington’s 300 non-profit organizations Hanapin should volunteer at. This summer, we’ll devote a half-day of volunteerism to Habitat for Humanity. We’ll be sure to post pictures of the event!

Finally, good luck to Bryan, one of Hanapin’s Assistant Account Executives. Today is his first full day living in Europe! He’s taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play football professionally! His contract is for the next two months and for one additional month if they make the playoffs. He’ll be doing that while also working for Hanapin remotely. I know he’ll do well, and after you watch his highlight film, I think you’ll agree!

April is going to be a busy month on PPC Hero and SEO Boy. We believe in offering high quality, fun content for you, our readers! We know you’ll continue to find that content here on our blogs every month. As always, thank you for reading!

• Part 1: Introduction to our hiring process series
• Part 2: The job announcement and writing portion
• Part 3: The phone interview
• Part 4: The meet-and-greet and in-person interview

And today is Part 5: The Wrap-up! We know that every company’s hiring process is different and, therefore, every company has tips and tricks they’ve learned over the years about what has worked best for them, for their company, and their industry. At Hanapin, we’ve spent quite some time brainstorming about our process and refining it. We wanted to share our personal tips and tricks with you in hopes of helping you also uncover amazing search marketers.

On Monday, Jessica posted the introduction to our hiring process series, explaining why we do what we do and what you could expect from each post. On Tuesday, Jessica C. did an excellent job of explaining the job announcement and writing portion of our hiring process. Read through her post for all the great information she gathered. Below is a recap of some of her most important take-away points:

To Post Or Not To Post?

At Hanapin, we feel it’s best to cover all our bases, plain and simple. Here’s a sample of where we typically post our job listing:

• Career Builder
• Monster/Hot Jobs
• Talent Zoo
• eMarketing Silo
• Marketing Pilgrim
• SEOmoz
• Our local newspaper, The Herald-Times
• Linked In
• SEO Boy & PPC Hero
• Twitter
• College Job Boards

Filter, Filter, Filter

We treat every step of our hiring process as a filtering system, right from the get-go. Even our job listing serves a two-fold purpose:

1. Acquire applicants.
2. See if those applicants can follow directions.

Check out Jessica C.’s post to see a sample of our job listing. In it, we give applicants very specific instructions. If they don’t follow them, they are not chosen to advance to the next round: the writing portion. Below is a list of the questions we typically ask an applicant in the round 2 writing portion:

1. Why do you love the Internet?
2. What’s the most challenging work problem you’ve ever encountered? What could you have done differently?
3. Describe a situation where the workload was beginning to be too much.  How did you meet deadlines and maintain the quality of your work?
4. What’s the single most important lesson you learned from your parents?
5. What would make you not a good fit for (position)?

These questions not only give us insight into why the person is applying, they also give us a glimpse into their personality. We couple this Q & A list with the applicant’s resume and cover letter to help us ask the right questions in the next round…

Mm What ’cha Say?

Steve did a great job covering our telephone interview process. Here are some take-away points from his post:

• Phone interviews are special because they give us our first real look at the communication abilities of an individual and an opportunity to hear the stories that support the resume.
• Determining the right questions to ask is the one of the hardest things to do in preparation for the interview. You want to ask questions that encourage the candidate to reveal something important about his or herself and are not impossible to answer. Remember, the purpose of a phone interview is to find out whether or not this person is worth inviting to the next stage of the hiring process…Use it as a tool to collect information and make an informed decision about someone.
• If you are having trouble coming up with ideas for questions, I recommend sitting down and determining what traits you value in the position you are trying to hire and then formulating topics around them. As a word of caution, it’s also important to remember that certain questions are illegal for companies to ask. If you’d like to know more about those kinds of questions and their legal alternatives, see jobinterviewquestions.org.
• We conduct phone interviews in pairs so that a candidate gets more thorough feedback that’s from more than one perspective/opinion.

Mix & A-Mingle

The meet and greet portion of our hiring process is an office favorite. Amy did an excellent job explaining the purpose of the meet and greet. Here are some take-away portions to part 4 of our series:

• It gives each candidate the chance to connect with everyone.
• If we’re on the fence about people, we bring them in to the meet and greet because it’s a lot easier to gauge a person’s personality in person.  It’s a good buffer before the final interview, for one, because we are able to further narrow down the pool and, for two, sometimes we get some odd ones.
• Conversely, the meet and greet also offers us the opportunity to show a glimpse of our personality; if the fit isn’t right, a candidate can bow out gracefully after the meet and greet, no harm no foul.
• The final interviews take place at our office. Multiple team members are involved in the interview process for each candidate, which allows us to develop a balanced perception of how well the candidate will work with our team and within our industry.

Why We Do What We Do

Over the years we’ve worked hard to refine our hiring process, and we will continue to do so down the road. However, for now, we think our detailed process ads quite a bit of value to our company. The following are some Hanapin team members’ opinions about the value and importance of our hiring strategy:

“It allows us to truly know the people we’re hiring in a way that I don’t think people at other companies get to. I think it’s important especially for a small company that we can gauge the personalities of the people we’re hiring, so the meet and greet and in-person interview are especially valuable to us.”

-Bethany Bey, Account Executive

“You get to see, especially through the meet and greet, putting a face with a resume and seeing how people interact with various team members and that’s important. Seeing a person’s ability to follow directions…with all the specifics of each round you get to see a person’s attention to detail and that’s a big part of the industry.”

-Bryan Watson, Assistant Account Executive

“I think the main value of our long and in-depth hiring process is that it allows us to discover little pieces of information about people that don’t come out normally with the “one interview” method. And sometimes those little pieces of information that people don’t think are important to mention but that end up coming out during the various different types of interview are the most important things in determining if someone will fit with our team or be able to think in the way we need them to.”

-Jessica Niver, Account Supervisor

And That’s A Wrap!

At Hanapin, we’ve worked hard over the years to refine our hiring process. Overall, we feel it’s quite effective right now, but we’ll certainly continue to refine it down the road. We have learned some valuable lessons along the way, and we are thrilled to have been able to share our hiring process with you, as it now stands, through this series. We hope we’ve helped. Happy Hiring!

At this point in the hiring process, we’ve already narrowed down the pool pretty significantly.  We generally have well over a hundred applicants and will invite anywhere from 15-20 to the meet and greet.  This size group is nice because it gives each candidate the chance to connect with everyone. We are all active in the hiring process, and everyone’s opinion is taken into account.  Since we don’t have time to allow every employee to interview every candidate (and really, what candidate wants to be interviewed by 15 different people?), we are all able to at least meet everyone, and help decide who will advance to the final interview. Likewise, it gives each of us the chance to get to know them.  It’s also the perfect size to reserve a room at a restaurant or other venue without feeling overcrowded.

The meet and greet is the candidates’ time to shine.  It’s a relaxed setting and we genuinely look forward to meeting everyone. A meet and greet offers candidates a chance to make an impression, discuss interests, and in general, just to be candid.  If we’re on the fence about people, we bring them in to the meet and greet because it’s a lot easier to gauge a person’s personality in person.  It’s a good buffer before the final interview, for one, because we are able to further narrow down the pool and, for two, sometimes we get some odd ones.  We’re a laidback, down-to-earth group but there are some deal-breakers that, simply put, should not be done at a meet and greet, nor any other professional setting, casual as it may be.  Conversely, the meet and greet also offers us the opportunity to show a glimpse of our personality; if the fit isn’t right, a candidate can bow out gracefully after the meet and greet, no harm no foul.

After a short presentation and a few hours of mingling with prospectives, the candidates leave and we all rank our top five, as well as the characteristics that led us to believe that they would be most valuable.  We also have what I’ll call ‘Honorable Mentions’, in case someone had more than five candidates that they really liked.  Our CEO and account supervisors will then sort through everyone’s selections and determine who has made it on to the final round.  Generally, everyone’s top five is different although there are usually at least a few names that top the majority of rankings.

The final interviews take place at our office. Multiple team members are involved in the interview process for each candidate, which allows us to develop a balanced perception of how well the candidate will work with our team and within our industry.  We ask around five pages of questions that range from general background, critical thinking, strategy, Internet knowledge and more.  Our questions are followed up with a small internet quiz, which gauges the candidate’s internet know-how.  Because of our unique, extensive training program, we’re able to hire people with little or no experience, train them, and allow them to manage clients once they are ready.  Thus, we use our interviews to gauge interest in the field, ability and desire to learn, customer service, and many other aspects of the job that are not always possible to teach.  Once the interviews are done, we send all of our feedback to the CEO who ultimately decides who to extend offers to.  Offers are extended and the rest is history!

Don’t miss out! Tomorrow, part 5, the conclusion of our Behind the Curtain series will recap the entire hiring process. In case you missed the prior posts from this 5 part series, I’d encourage you to check them out. See part 1, part 2, and part 3.

(On a side note, please, please, please tell me you know the movie reference to the title of this post. ☺)

This post is from me–the president and CEO of Hanapin Marketing–and it is the first visible sign of that extra investment. I’ll be writing at the beginning of every month, sort of like a “letter from the editor,” to communicate some of the great things we have planned.

This month, we’re starting a four-part blog series about hiring. At Hanapin, we have an outstanding group of Assistant Account Executives, Account Executives, and Account Supervisors–folks who act as a combination of client contact, data analyst, and search marketer all in one. Their jobs require a great deal of analytical thinking, clear communication, attention to detail, and grace under pressure, which is difficult to find in a single person. Over the past eight years, we’ve honed our recruitment process to find the very best candidates, whether or not they have SEM experience, and we’re detailing every step of the process and why we do what we do! This new series starts Monday, March 7th with an intro post, then we’ll alternate posts between SEO Boy and PPC Hero, since the overall series is about how to hire folks who are great at SEO and PPC!

The series is a great way to kick off the month of March, but that’s not all we have in store! The team had a really productive brainstorming session last week to come up with some great blog topics. Here’s a quick preview: On PPC Hero, we’ll be writing about helpful PPC people to follow on Twitter and their blogs, and we’ll also include some helpful exam studying tips for the AdCenter certification. On SEO Boy, we’ll provide tips on Google’s in-page analytics and, continuing our Bing theme, we’ll write about their Webmaster toolbox. Bing continues to increase their market share and drive more search traffic, and we’ll bring you even more tips on how to take advantage of it!

We’re also excited to announce that three new team members just started at Hanapin yesterday, so in the coming months keep an eye out for some new faces and new perspectives on our blogs. Also, there are two special days this month that we’d like to commemorate with custom illustrations. The first is PPC Hero will be turning four (four!!!) this month. The second is St. Patrick’s Day, and both PPC Hero and SEO Boy will be celebrating this one leprechaun style! We’re increasing the number of custom illustrations this year, not only because it’s just fun to come up with new holidays and poses for our cheeky, cartoony superheroes, but it’s also a great way for the team to take a break from the analytics and exercise the creative part of their brains. If you have an idea for a custom illustration, we’d love to hear it. Post it in the comments!

Last but not least, we’d like to get some input from you! Hanapin is making a big investment in our blogs this year, and we’re doing the same with our team members and our community. Starting in April, we’ve decided to devote a half-day of volunteerism each quarter to one of Bloomington’s 300+ non-profits. The team has narrowed it down to eight for April, and we want you to vote for your favorite one. The survey follows this post and contains descriptions of each non-profit.

Our blogs have been a great source of pride for our company, and they’ve generated quite a bit of business for us too. We feel that by committing even more time, effort, and resources to our blogs, we’ll see the return many times over, and we’ll continue to provide you, our readers, with informative, fresh, and engaging content. Thank you for being a loyal reader of our blogs, and we look to even bigger and better things for the rest of 2011!

The ideal candidate…

• loves the Internet
• obsessively makes to do lists
• possesses a “whatever it takes” attitude
• feels comfortable talking to a CEO or Joe the plumber, and
• is eager and willing to tackle new experiences and situations.

Hanapin Marketing is an award-winning and fast-growing Internet marketing company, located in Bloomington, Indiana. We are hiring multiple Account Executives who will work with clients on search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising. While experience is a bonus, it’s not required, as we have a comprehensive and intensive 12-week training program to get you up to speed on everything we do.

JOB DESCRIPTION

• Account Management – You’ll work independently and with a team of other Account Executives and Assistant Account Executives on 5-10 SEO, PPC, and/or web development clients. Some are short-term consulting arrangements, while a vast majority are long-term engagements. You’ll be responsible for communicating with clients via email, phone and/or in-person.
• Tracking and Goal Setting – You’ll work with your clients to establish goals and to implement tracking for those goals, which can vary greatly in nature: rankings, traffic, leads, sales and/or revenue.
• Research, Analysis and Problem Solving – You’ll get your hands dirty with website audits, competitive research, keyword research, analysis of web analytics and much more. Additionally, you’ll research best practice strategies for both SEO and PPC and implement the best tactics to help your clients achieve their goals.
• Blogging – 25,000 people each month read Hanapin’s blogs. After 6-12 months, you’ll write for both SEO Boy and PPC Hero, our blogs that cover the search marketing industry.
• Marketing and Publicity – All Hanapin employees help grow the company through writing articles for the blogs, making content updates to our corporate website, writing proposals, speaking at conferences and seminars, networking and referring new clients, etc.

REQUIREMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Ability to work on-site at Bloomington offices
• Ability to work outside of normal office hours as needed or required by client projects
• Eagerly willing to tackle unfamiliar problems and research “best practice” solutions
• Innate sense of urgency to complete projects quickly yet thoroughly
• Ability to prioritize tasks and focus on the vital few instead of the trivial many
• Keen critical thinking skills and problem solving abilities
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and demonstrated ability to “think on your feet”
• Can easily toggle between working independently and with others
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills
• Demonstrated ability to manage deadlines

BONUS ROUND: IF YOU MEET ONE OF THESE, WE REALLY WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

• No professional office experience, but you’ve earned a degree in marketing, advertising, public relations, or communication.
• One year of experience:
  • With SEO and/or PPC, either in-house or at an agency; or
  • As an account manager at a traditional advertising agency.
• Or 2+ years of experience:
  • As an in-house marketing manager; or
  • In any web-oriented field (examples include, but aren’t limited to, blogging, email marketing, social media, and web analytics).

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

• Competitive annual salary, paid every two weeks via direct deposit
• Paid time off for vacation, personal days, sick time and holidays
• Self-scheduled working hours (eight hours from 7 am to 7 pm) after six months of employment
• 100+ hours of initial and on-going training annually
• Simple IRA
• Health, life, vision and dental insurance
• Additional benefits such as tuition reimbursement and adoption assistance
• Use of company laptop plus a second monitor
• Casual dress
• Performance reviews at 30/60/90/180 days and annually thereafter
• Opportunity for raises every 12 months
• No bureaucracy – direct and regular contact with our executive team
• NEW OFFICE IN DOWNTOWN BLOOMINGTON IN THE CERTIFIED TECH PARK!!!

HOW TO APPLY

1. Send an email to pat.east@hanapinmarketing.com.
2. As the body of your email, include:
   1. A short but sweet bio/intro
   2. A blog (personal or work related) you read regularly and why
   3. Why this particular position and why Hanapin interests you
   4. Where you learned about the job opening
   5. If you’ve applied for a position here more than three months ago, please denote that and also include two examples of areas you’ve improved in or skills you’ve acquired — since the last time you applied — that would make you more valuable to our organization.
3. Attach your resume as a PDF.
4. Apply no later than 5 pm (EST) on Monday, January 17, 2011. No phone calls or walk-ins, please.

HOW THE APPLICATION PROCESS WORKS

1. Within one business day of submitting your application, we’ll notify you if you’ve made it to the first round.
2. Due to the number of anticipated applications, we cannot respond to everyone who applies.
3. If you are selected for the first round, for all subsequent rounds you’ll be notified via email if you do or don’t move on.
4. There are four rounds to our interview process:
   1. written questions/answers via email
   2. a telephone interview with two team members
   3. a reception and information session
   4. a face-to-face interview with two more team members.
5. While we will accept applications until 5 pm (EST) on Monday, January 17, 2011, we’ll begin the first round as soon as we begin receiving applications.

FIVE REASONS TO WORK FOR HANAPIN MARKETING

1. Culture. You want to work for a firm that has a friendly, results-oriented culture.  Our people are intelligent, dynamic and fun.  We support one another, and we are invested in the success of our staff and clients. We are receptive to new ideas, and we encourage and value input from our staff.
2. Knowledge. You want to work for a company that emphasizes training and on-going learning. We invest significant time and resources into training our staff and promoting their professional development. Our president and CEO is an adjunct professor at Indiana University, teaching one of the nation’s few courses on search marketing. Our employees routinely speak at conferences such as Get Your MBO and Blog Indiana. Additionally, more than 25,000 people each month read our blogs on SEO and PPC.
3. Trust. You want to work for a firm that is trusted by successful companies to grow their businesses. Hanapin boasts over 100 clients nationally. Our clients include Inc 500 winners, Fortune 500 companies and local powerhouses such as Author Solutions and Cook Medical. Some of our clients have even started new divisions because they knew we could support their search marketing efforts.
4. Growth. You want to work for a financially stable company that’s growing quickly, but intelligently. Hanapin was founded seven years ago, has been profitable since our inception, carries zero debt and has grown revenues a minimum of double-digits each year.
5. Leadership. You want to work for a company that is a respected authority. In 2007, we won the Fuse Business Award for Innovative Business of the Year, sponsored by the Small Business Development Center and inVenture. In 2008, we were a finalist for the BKD Indiana Excellence Awards, one of only five companies in the service category. And, in 2009, we were one of 19 companies chosen by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and SBDC for their first economic entrepreneurship award.

Hanapin Marketing (the publisher of SEO Boy and PPC Hero) is looking for three search marketing specialists to add to our talented and hard working team! We have a comprehensive and intensive 12-week training program, so while experience in SEO and PPC is helpful, it’s not required. Apply here!

FIVE REASONS TO WORK FOR HANAPIN MARKETING

1. You want to work for a financially stable company that’s growing quickly yet intelligently. Hanapin was founded five years ago, has been profitable since our inception, carries zero debt, and has grown revenues no less than 50% each year. While the rest of the advertising industry has seen revenues decrease by roughly 50% this year, we’ve swum against the stream and are on pace for 50% growth. No bailouts here!

2. You want to work for a firm who is trusted by storied companies. Hanapin boasts over 80 clients worldwide, with many on a monthly retainer. Our clients include three Inc 500 winners, two Fortune 500 companies, and such Indiana brands as Author Solutions, Cook Medical, and French Lick Resort and Casino.

3. You want to work for a firm with proven online experience. We helped increased revenues at AuthorHouse 233% over just 4 years. Clients have started new divisions because they knew we could support their marketing efforts. We’ve taken a firm from $0 to $1.5M in online revenue. We know how to grow businesses using the Internet.

4. You want to work for a firm that’s blazing a trail. Our employees come from proven Indiana companies such as Author Solutions and The Finish Line. Our President and CEO is an adjunct professor at IU, teaching one of the nation’s few courses on search engine marketing. More than 20,000 people each month read our blogs on SEO and PPC. And, our employees routinely speak at Indiana’s premier Internet marketing conferences such as Get Your MBO and Blog Indiana.

5. And, it’s not just us saying this. Hanapin won the 2007 Fuse award for Innovative Business of the Year, sponsored by the Small Business Development Center and inVenture. We were also finalists for the 2008 BKD Indiana Excellence Awards, one of only five companies in the service category, and in February, we were honored with an Inaugural EDGE Award from the state of Indiana.

• loves the Internet;
• obsessively makes to do lists;
• possesses a “whatever it takes” attitude;
• feels comfortable talking to a CEO or Joe the plumber; and
• is eager and willing to tackle new experiences and situations.

And, if you also like The Office and Lost, we love you already! Read on!

Hanapin Marketing is an award-winning and fast-growing Internet marketing company, located in Bloomington, Indiana. We have an open position for a Search Marketing Specialist, who will work with clients on both search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. We have a comprehensive and intensive 12-week training program, so while experience in SEO and PPC is helpful, it’s not required.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Account Management – You’ll work with 5-10 clients on SEO and/or PPC. Some are short-term consulting arrangements, while a vast majority are long-term engagements. You’ll be responsible for communicating with clients via email, phone, and/or in-person.

Tracking and Goal Setting – You’ll work with your clients to establish goals and to implement tracking for those goals, which can vary greatly in nature: rankings, traffic, leads, sales, and/or revenue.

Research, Analysis, and Problem Solving – You’ll get your hands dirty with website audits, competitive research, keyword research, analysis of web analytics, and much more. Additionally, you’ll research best practice strategies for both SEO and PPC and implement the best tactics to help your clients achieve their goals.

Blogging – More than 20,000 people each month read Hanapin’s blogs. After 6-12 months, you’ll write for our both SEO Boy (www.seoboy.com) and PPC Hero (www.ppchero.com), our blogs that cover the search marketing world.

Marketing and Publicity – All Hanapin employees help grow the company through writing articles for the blogs, making content updates to our corporate website, writing proposals, speaking at conferences and seminars, networking and referring new clients, et. al.

REQUIREMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Ability to work 40-45 hours on site at our Bloomington offices
• Ability to put in extra time at nights and on weekends
• Minimum of 1-2 years experience in any web-related field (examples include, but aren’t limited to, blogging, email marketing, social media, web analytics, and web development)
• Eagerly willing to tackle unfamiliar problems and research “best practice” solutions
• Innate sense of urgency to complete projects quickly yet thoroughly
• Ability to prioritize tasks and focus on the vital few instead of the trivial many
• Keen critical thinking skills and problem solving abilities
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and demonstrated ability to “think on your feet”
• Can easily toggle between working independently and with others
• Can get along with the other Hanapin team members
• Regularly maintain a blog and/or Twitter account

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

• Competitive annual salary, paid every two weeks via direct deposit
• Paid time off for holidays
• Paid vacation
• Summer hours (office closes at 3 pm on Fridays during June, July, and August)
• Simple IRA
• Health, life, vision, and dental insurance
• Use of company laptop plus a second monitor
• Casual dress
• 1 on 1 review with the President and CEO at months 6 and 12 and annually thereafter
• Opportunity for raises every 12 months

HOW TO APPLY

1. Create an email to patrick.east@hanapinmarketing.com *or* apply through the online application process if you found us via an online job board such as Monster.
2. Include a cover letter (this can in the body of the email or if an attachment, send as a PDF), which includes:
   1. A short but sweet bio/intro.
   2. Include two (personal or work related) blogs you read regularly and why.
   3. Where you learned about the job opening.
   4. If you’ve applied for a position here previously, please denote that and also include two examples of areas you’ve improved in or skills you’ve acquired — since the last time you applied — that would make you more valuable to our organization.
3. Include your salary requirements.
4. Attach your resume as a PDF. Please, no Word docs or any format other than a PDF.
5. Apply no later than 5 pm on Friday, October 9, 2009. No phone calls or walk-ins, please.

HOW THE APPLICATION PROCESS WORKS

1. Within one business day of submitting your application, we’ll notify you if you’ve made it to the first round.
2. Due to the number of anticipated applications, we cannot respond to those who don’t make it to the first round.
3. If we select you for the first round, you’ll be notified via email if you do or don’t move on to subsequent rounds.
4. There will be at least four rounds: written questions/answers via email, a reception and information session for candidates who make it to the second round, a one-on-one interview with the President and CEO, and a group interview with the Hanapin team members.
5. While we will accept applications until 5 pm on Friday, October 9, 2009, we’ll begin the first round as soon as we begin receiving applications.

FIVE REASONS TO WORK FOR HANAPIN MARKETING

1. You want to work for a financially stable company that’s growing quickly yet intelligently. Hanapin was founded five years ago, has been profitable since our inception, carries zero debt, and has grown revenues no less than 50% each year. While the rest of the advertising industry has seen revenues decrease by roughly 50% this year, we’ve swum against the stream and are on pace for 50% growth. No bailouts here!
2. You want to work for a firm who is trusted by storied companies. Hanapin boasts over 80 clients worldwide, with many on a monthly retainer. Our clients include three Inc 500 winners, two Fortune 500 companies, and such Indiana brands as Author Solutions, Cook Medical, and French Lick Resort and Casino.
3. You want to work for a firm with proven online experience. We helped increased revenues at AuthorHouse 233% over just 4 years. Clients have started new divisions because they knew we could support their marketing efforts. We’ve taken a firm from $0 to $1.5M in online revenue. We know how to grow businesses using the Internet.
4. You want to work for a firm that’s blazing a trail. Our employees come from proven Indiana companies such as Author Solutions and The Finish Line. Our President and CEO is an adjunct professor at IU, teaching one of the nation’s few courses on search engine marketing. More than 20,000 people each month read our blogs on SEO and PPC. And, our employees routinely speak at Indiana’s premier Internet marketing conferences such as Get Your MBO and Blog Indiana.
5. And, it’s not just us saying this. Hanapin won the 2007 Fuse award for Innovative Business of the Year, sponsored by the Small Business Development Center and inVenture. We were also finalists for the 2008 BKD Indiana Excellence Awards, one of only five companies in the service category, and in February, we were honored with an Inaugural EDGE Award from the state of Indiana.

RELATED KEYWORDS FOR THIS POSITION
search engine optimization, SEO, search engine marketing, SEM, search engine promotion, search engine consulting, pay per click, pay per click advertising, pay per click management, PPC, paid search, Internet marketing, online marketing, web marketing, Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, and Yahoo! Search Marketing