If you want to get a good grasp of where search engine optimization is going in 2010 think like a realtor. Location, location, location. Our Los Angeles search engine marketing guru Mike Keesling has been tracking the just-this-week-launched Google Caffeine algorithm. And due to the work we started doing with the Beta back in the Fall - all of our clients are being ranked high up in page one of Google.
Mike says this year search engine marketing will become increasingly more important as far as Google is concerned. That is why, in both the second and third option of Maintenance SEO, we make provisions for building cloud linking around articles for locally based keywords.
Hidden in the discussion of what the Caffeine update to the Google algorithm means is that location is going to be a huge factor in terms of what results get returned on searches. Here's why.
All search engines are becoming more and more personalized. What that means is that if you live in Los Angeles and are searching for a hair salon (for instance) you will start seeing more and more Los Angeles based hair salons in the search results as we move into the New Year.
What this affords for the Los Angeles SEO companies like MarCom New Media is a tremendous opportunity by using Google Map API's and other localized search optimization tactics to totally dominate the results for your main keyword phrase (Los Angeles social media marketing in our example) for anyone searching for social media marketing firms who work from the Los Angeles area, as well as for anyone outside of Los Angeles searching for the phrase "Los Angeles Social media marketing firm."
This may be the last time there is a level playing field between small business and big business to dominate search rankings.
Showing posts with label Los angeles Internet advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los angeles Internet advertising. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Paradign Shift in Online Marketing
We are in the earliest stages of a massive paradigm shift among the corporate world and our institutions - and it is all being driven by social media marketing and the Web.
Ie seems like social networking has been tagged as a better way to work. Many experts agree it will become an essential utility to do business, so the faster businesses use social media tools, the better they will do in the New Year. But if your website isn't optimized properly for the search engines, it won't help you on your Google rankings.
In the past, we didn't necessarily think that Twitter was a great of a corporate tool as other networks like Facebook. But now we can see, that both have their places - especially with re-Tweeting capabilities, and tiny urls which fit the 140 character format. We have set up corporate accounts and ghostblog, ghostTwitter, and have corporate fan pages for all of our clients. We also do corporate social bookmarking of content that we write and post all over the Web in spots like DIGG, StumbleUpon, and others.
Our clients' YouTube videos are a smashing success. Check out www.YouTube.com/Bioidenticals where we have more than 90 videos for client T.S. Wiley, who sells the Wiley Protocol bioidenticals. The fact is, all of these online social media marketing tools are great for content building and linking back to websites, which ultimately gives you first page results in the search engines. But you must know how to link properly.
The 2010 New Year - some time in January with a national roll-out - is when Caffeine launches, a next-generation architecture for Google's web search. So far we are seeing great results for our clients rankings with the Beta version.
What's more, Google's Social Search is a new program that integrates content from a user’s social network into their search results so they can easily find relevant blogs, reviews and other information from within their own social networking groups.
If there's relevant web content written by people in your circle when you sign into Google, it will show up at the bottom of your search results under an area called "Results from people in your social circle." This means that search marketing is going to become more targeted to individuals, as people seriously organize into groups and communities on the Web. It is also becomming more localized.
Overall, today people just want direct communication with the brands, products and services they like and uchoose to use. People want messages that address their individual needs, even if it is only 140 characters in Twitter.
The era of mo more mass marketing is over.
Call Los Angeles SEO company, MarCom New Media at 323.650.2838 for more information on how we can help your business.
Ie seems like social networking has been tagged as a better way to work. Many experts agree it will become an essential utility to do business, so the faster businesses use social media tools, the better they will do in the New Year. But if your website isn't optimized properly for the search engines, it won't help you on your Google rankings.
In the past, we didn't necessarily think that Twitter was a great of a corporate tool as other networks like Facebook. But now we can see, that both have their places - especially with re-Tweeting capabilities, and tiny urls which fit the 140 character format. We have set up corporate accounts and ghostblog, ghostTwitter, and have corporate fan pages for all of our clients. We also do corporate social bookmarking of content that we write and post all over the Web in spots like DIGG, StumbleUpon, and others.
Our clients' YouTube videos are a smashing success. Check out www.YouTube.com/Bioidenticals where we have more than 90 videos for client T.S. Wiley, who sells the Wiley Protocol bioidenticals. The fact is, all of these online social media marketing tools are great for content building and linking back to websites, which ultimately gives you first page results in the search engines. But you must know how to link properly.
The 2010 New Year - some time in January with a national roll-out - is when Caffeine launches, a next-generation architecture for Google's web search. So far we are seeing great results for our clients rankings with the Beta version.
What's more, Google's Social Search is a new program that integrates content from a user’s social network into their search results so they can easily find relevant blogs, reviews and other information from within their own social networking groups.
If there's relevant web content written by people in your circle when you sign into Google, it will show up at the bottom of your search results under an area called "Results from people in your social circle." This means that search marketing is going to become more targeted to individuals, as people seriously organize into groups and communities on the Web. It is also becomming more localized.
Overall, today people just want direct communication with the brands, products and services they like and uchoose to use. People want messages that address their individual needs, even if it is only 140 characters in Twitter.
The era of mo more mass marketing is over.
Call Los Angeles SEO company, MarCom New Media at 323.650.2838 for more information on how we can help your business.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Online Marketing in the New Year
People are always asking us if we do viral advertising, or online advertising. People often think of this as a separate entity ... separate from traditional advertising. But in reality it is all one and the same -- lead generation. That is truly what MarCom New Media is in the business to do. We help get our clients leads that turn into new customers and revenues. It's what marketing and advertising has always been all about.
Today, we just use new technologies like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to make your website show up on the first pages of the engines like Google when people search for what they want. MarCom does SEO basically in two ways: onsite optimization on your website, and offsite via links BACK to your website. This isn't all that different from direct marketing. The direct mail piece was targeted to you, and if you called the company who mailed it, that was a lead generated.
Customers are more sophisticated and demanding these days. We all like to go online and chat about things. And in order to find you online, we now use what is called Social Media Marketing where we target and interact with other people, share ideas and opinions. It is really just like to oldfashioned "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." Social media is the online technologies and practices that we use to share ideas, opinions insights, experiences and perspectives with other people. There are online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, while social media technology includes an assorted array of online communications hubs driven by users: Internet forums, message boards, blogs, podcasts, wikis, and videos. And there’s also picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, and music-sharing.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) includes offsite optimization strategies with the intent of distributed content across multiple social media networks. Tools for this include adding links to services such as Digg, Del.icio.us or Readdit. This includes writing unique content embedded with your key words and phrases, so when people search online, there’s a better chance of finding your content via the search engines.
MarCom, a Los Angeles Internet marketing company, has been testing social media marketing strategies in this space for many years, and it all started with forum posting, back around 2000. Now we ghostwrite blogs for clients, shoot video shorts, manage podcasts and conduct creative viral email campaigns.
SMM is about being social so this offsite work includes research, and a social media strategy with specific tactics for getting involved and having two way conversations with target audiences. We want to create pages that provide links back to your website, for inbound traffic and links. We also want these pages to rank well in the search engines under your key words and phrases. This ultimately will build traffic, and bring you return on investment (ROI.)
Today, we just use new technologies like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to make your website show up on the first pages of the engines like Google when people search for what they want. MarCom does SEO basically in two ways: onsite optimization on your website, and offsite via links BACK to your website. This isn't all that different from direct marketing. The direct mail piece was targeted to you, and if you called the company who mailed it, that was a lead generated.
Customers are more sophisticated and demanding these days. We all like to go online and chat about things. And in order to find you online, we now use what is called Social Media Marketing where we target and interact with other people, share ideas and opinions. It is really just like to oldfashioned "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." Social media is the online technologies and practices that we use to share ideas, opinions insights, experiences and perspectives with other people. There are online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, while social media technology includes an assorted array of online communications hubs driven by users: Internet forums, message boards, blogs, podcasts, wikis, and videos. And there’s also picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, and music-sharing.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) includes offsite optimization strategies with the intent of distributed content across multiple social media networks. Tools for this include adding links to services such as Digg, Del.icio.us or Readdit. This includes writing unique content embedded with your key words and phrases, so when people search online, there’s a better chance of finding your content via the search engines.
MarCom, a Los Angeles Internet marketing company, has been testing social media marketing strategies in this space for many years, and it all started with forum posting, back around 2000. Now we ghostwrite blogs for clients, shoot video shorts, manage podcasts and conduct creative viral email campaigns.
SMM is about being social so this offsite work includes research, and a social media strategy with specific tactics for getting involved and having two way conversations with target audiences. We want to create pages that provide links back to your website, for inbound traffic and links. We also want these pages to rank well in the search engines under your key words and phrases. This ultimately will build traffic, and bring you return on investment (ROI.)
Friday, October 3, 2008
Social Media Marketing Comes of Age
After attending a Social Media Marketing "Agency Bootcamp" luncheon yesterday, it has come to my attention that very few marketers are doing what MarCom is doing. In a room filled with Los Angeles advertising agency staffers and consultants, I can honestly say that very few knew social media marketing to the depth that we do. In fact, I have read that we are in the top ten percent nationwide and the other 90 percent are just starting to try to catch up.
We regularly update our website with relevant searchable content and post new search engine optimization (SEO) tags, descriptions and links on the pages as needed. We have set up multiple RSS feeds - one for press releases, another for articles, and I am about to set up a third one for newsletters. we use http://www.press-feed.com/. I have joined a few more social networks and niche communities to mine customers -- places like FaceBook, and I will be updating LinkedIn and MySpace regularly now.
We added a new social media blog on our homepage, so now there are two - each with a seperate focus. I have started conversations online by stepping up my blogging, added more blogrolls, updated MySpace. Next I need to begin Friending in Facebook, then Twitter about current happenings to my growing list of followers.
MarCom has been writing a number of articles that can be social bookmarked at DIGG, but I want to create a Google map mashup and then start a white paper for people to StumbleUpon or find at Squidoo.
My associates and I have been brainstorming ideas for podcasts and videos to post on YouTube, and we have even thought about doing a virtual B-2-B seminar at Second Life. I plan to research and sign up for some new measurement and conversation mining tools to listen to what people are saying online, although everyone in the social media marketing industry agrees, the tools are still not there yet.
We have started conversations with our own clients to update their social media marketing strategies. MarCom New Media is looking forward to continuing to lead the transformation from old school marketing to building relationships in online communities, and we are already celebrating the results.
Oh BTW if you have no clue what I am talking about…you need to read Paul Gillin’s book, The New Influencers, and of course, hire us as your Los Angeles social media marketing firm.
We regularly update our website with relevant searchable content and post new search engine optimization (SEO) tags, descriptions and links on the pages as needed. We have set up multiple RSS feeds - one for press releases, another for articles, and I am about to set up a third one for newsletters. we use http://www.press-feed.com/. I have joined a few more social networks and niche communities to mine customers -- places like FaceBook, and I will be updating LinkedIn and MySpace regularly now.
We added a new social media blog on our homepage, so now there are two - each with a seperate focus. I have started conversations online by stepping up my blogging, added more blogrolls, updated MySpace. Next I need to begin Friending in Facebook, then Twitter about current happenings to my growing list of followers.
MarCom has been writing a number of articles that can be social bookmarked at DIGG, but I want to create a Google map mashup and then start a white paper for people to StumbleUpon or find at Squidoo.
My associates and I have been brainstorming ideas for podcasts and videos to post on YouTube, and we have even thought about doing a virtual B-2-B seminar at Second Life. I plan to research and sign up for some new measurement and conversation mining tools to listen to what people are saying online, although everyone in the social media marketing industry agrees, the tools are still not there yet.
We have started conversations with our own clients to update their social media marketing strategies. MarCom New Media is looking forward to continuing to lead the transformation from old school marketing to building relationships in online communities, and we are already celebrating the results.
Oh BTW if you have no clue what I am talking about…you need to read Paul Gillin’s book, The New Influencers, and of course, hire us as your Los Angeles social media marketing firm.
Monday, September 22, 2008
The True Value of Social Media
Finally, advertisers are beginning to realize how valuable social media marketing can be. This is truely exciting because now more than before, our clients are starting to understand the value when we recommend social media campaigns.
Just yesterday at the doctor seminar, Two Days Back on Earth, on environmental endocrinology for our client T.S. Wiley and The Wiley Protocol (http://www.thewileyprotocol.com/), Wiley's book publisher talked about the importance of social media to the traditional publishing industry today. She said they now strategize books that have websites for reference materials and more information, and places where people can host e-books and chapters that are bookmarked pages from new book releases.
This means we can strategize longer term social media campaigns for MarCom New Media clients -- and just like any marketing campaign, it takes hard work, tracking, which the Internet makes easy, as well as maintenance.
We can easily blend direct-response and branding. It is about the objective for the campaign, then fine tuning the right strategy. The good news is that the Web is ideal for measurment.
Today, 70 percent of the ad dollars online are going toward direct-response advertising, but the shift toward brand-building campaigns is starting to happen. Check the following interesting stats from a recent research report. (Source: Awareness, Inc.)
Just yesterday at the doctor seminar, Two Days Back on Earth, on environmental endocrinology for our client T.S. Wiley and The Wiley Protocol (http://www.thewileyprotocol.com/), Wiley's book publisher talked about the importance of social media to the traditional publishing industry today. She said they now strategize books that have websites for reference materials and more information, and places where people can host e-books and chapters that are bookmarked pages from new book releases.
This means we can strategize longer term social media campaigns for MarCom New Media clients -- and just like any marketing campaign, it takes hard work, tracking, which the Internet makes easy, as well as maintenance.
We can easily blend direct-response and branding. It is about the objective for the campaign, then fine tuning the right strategy. The good news is that the Web is ideal for measurment.
Today, 70 percent of the ad dollars online are going toward direct-response advertising, but the shift toward brand-building campaigns is starting to happen. Check the following interesting stats from a recent research report. (Source: Awareness, Inc.)
- The number of organizations that allow employees to use social networks for business purposes has increased dramatically to 69% in 2008 from 37% last year.
- More than six in 10 companies are using social media to build and promote their brands, improve communication and increase consumer engagement.
- There has been a fivefold increase in the percentage of employees who use popular social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn for business purposes, from 15% in 2007 to 75% this year.
- Some 37% of organizations plan to focus communities on specialty areas where they can provide focused business value.
- More than 40% of respondents report using one or more of the following tools: user groups, tags, communities, blogs, social networking and videos.
- The most popular internal tools are social networks, blogs and wikis, with adoption rates of between 50% and 55%.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Don't Let Do-it-Yourself SEO Programs Fool You
Lately it seems we have had some new business clients who contacted us for online marketing or PR services, but when we talk to them about their search engine optimization (SEO), they seem to think that they already know how to do SEO in-house. One prospect even said they know there are all kinds of keyword software programs out there for free, that can tell you what your keywords are, etc.
Here's the thing. Would you tell your optometrist, for example, how to fit you in a pair of glasses? Or, would you feel confident about being able to design your own website in html? And do you even want to learn how to do it and then take all the time required to continue monitoring and doing it? Unless a company has hired a true SEO expert, who has years of experience, it is unlikely that the job will be done properly.
Much of what we do as marketers can always be done by the small business owner "in-house"-- but when a company starts learning and then implementing things like SEO, or PR, it takes vast amounts of time away from what they do. That said, it is often best to leave SEO up to the experts who have been doing it as a career for awhile - like Mike Keesling, our resident Los Angeles SEO expert. He has been doing SEO for more than ten years with excellent results for our MarCom New Media clients. Check out our SEO case histories. As Mike always says, it's best to look for long term results rather than short term instant gratification.
In fact last year we had a client who promised their web development team could be "taught" how to do the website SEO meta-tagging, etc. Mike trained them and we charged our standard training fee. Several months later, their site was still not tagged properly, and Mike had to actually do the job we should have done in the first place. That said we wasted three good months of possibly better search engine optimization results. And yes, in the end we charged more for it than it cost them to be trained. But with this being only a one-time fee, it was worth it because after the SEO started working, their revenues from new leads made up the difference fairly quickly.
Here's the thing. Would you tell your optometrist, for example, how to fit you in a pair of glasses? Or, would you feel confident about being able to design your own website in html? And do you even want to learn how to do it and then take all the time required to continue monitoring and doing it? Unless a company has hired a true SEO expert, who has years of experience, it is unlikely that the job will be done properly.
Much of what we do as marketers can always be done by the small business owner "in-house"-- but when a company starts learning and then implementing things like SEO, or PR, it takes vast amounts of time away from what they do. That said, it is often best to leave SEO up to the experts who have been doing it as a career for awhile - like Mike Keesling, our resident Los Angeles SEO expert. He has been doing SEO for more than ten years with excellent results for our MarCom New Media clients. Check out our SEO case histories. As Mike always says, it's best to look for long term results rather than short term instant gratification.
In fact last year we had a client who promised their web development team could be "taught" how to do the website SEO meta-tagging, etc. Mike trained them and we charged our standard training fee. Several months later, their site was still not tagged properly, and Mike had to actually do the job we should have done in the first place. That said we wasted three good months of possibly better search engine optimization results. And yes, in the end we charged more for it than it cost them to be trained. But with this being only a one-time fee, it was worth it because after the SEO started working, their revenues from new leads made up the difference fairly quickly.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Online Advertising: Video ad predictions at 1.4 billion for 2010
The online video advertising predictions, according to video ad company, LiveRail, are way up from the $619 million in 2008. The company predicts that online video ad spending will be closer to $1.4 billion in 2010.
Another online research company known as eMarketer, has done another analysis, that puts online ad spending in 2010 at $1.15 billion, up from $505 billion in 2008.
Online video has become increasingly popular on websites like YouTube and Google, so that is partially why online video ad spending predictions are somewhat optimistic. More than half of US consumers currently watch online video, but predictions are that by the year 2012, that figure will be up to nine out of 10 Internet users.
MarCom New Media is not only a Los Angeles SEO firm, but also specializes in online advertising and therefore online video production. We have been busy producing online videos for a number of our clients during the last few years. The most recent one, was a recent project we did for OriginOil, Inc., who shared its vision of the algae to oil revolution with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Green Tech Expo, held in Los Angeles in conjunction with the Border Governors Conference in August. The OriginOil video was not only streamed from the company's website but also placed on YouTube and Google.
Most folks watch TV online because it's convenient, it allows them to watch on their own schedule and many people like the fact that they get to skip the commercials.
Another online research company known as eMarketer, has done another analysis, that puts online ad spending in 2010 at $1.15 billion, up from $505 billion in 2008.Online video has become increasingly popular on websites like YouTube and Google, so that is partially why online video ad spending predictions are somewhat optimistic. More than half of US consumers currently watch online video, but predictions are that by the year 2012, that figure will be up to nine out of 10 Internet users.
MarCom New Media is not only a Los Angeles SEO firm, but also specializes in online advertising and therefore online video production. We have been busy producing online videos for a number of our clients during the last few years. The most recent one, was a recent project we did for OriginOil, Inc., who shared its vision of the algae to oil revolution with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Green Tech Expo, held in Los Angeles in conjunction with the Border Governors Conference in August. The OriginOil video was not only streamed from the company's website but also placed on YouTube and Google.
Most folks watch TV online because it's convenient, it allows them to watch on their own schedule and many people like the fact that they get to skip the commercials.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Why B2B Companies Need SEO
One of the biggest problems facing companies with business to business (B2B) as opposed to Business to Consumer (B2C) solutions is the fact that many B2B sites don’t have sufficient content on their websites to respond to desired search terms that folks are using to find them. What does this mean? Simply put, while consumer driven websites may get more daily searches from prospective customers, B2B sites get their fair share of their own niche of potential businesses or strategic partners, and in some cases shareholders who are on the Internet searching, using certain key words to find the B2B solution they are seeking.
Following are just a few of the steps that MarCom takes as SEO consultants to ensure that our B2B client websites are organized into the most logical, user-friendly architecture that responds to organic searches (e.g. comes up on the first page of Google).
1) Benefits of SEO Sooner- Not Later. Today, with so many companies and individuals swarming the Internet and putting up websites, blogs, and posting to social media sites, the search engines are running out of bandwidth for indexing websites fast and efficiently. What used to take a company just two to three months to be ranked by Google and other search engines for keywords that people are using, may now take eight months or longer. The longer you wait to do the proper SEO for your B2B site, the longer it will take to become ranked. The proof is that we can take a look at your competitors today, and in 3 or 6 months, we'll tell you how ahead or behind your SEO is while they become better and better ranked each month.
2) Keyword Analysis. No matter whether you’re are a B2C or B2B company, the first step is still a keyword analysis. BUT the differences are that a B2B company should not make keyword judgments, but rather create the gross list that is as inclusive as possible of the potential terms their actual prospects might use – and this would include vertical markets, potential strategic partners, the government in some cases, and even shareholders. As SEO experts, we then focus on generic keywords based on what these potential customers call things. You also need to think about whether or not searches will be about a problem they’re experiencing, or the type of company potentially offering solutions? And often times geography may play a role in what people are searching for.
3) Determine Relative Popularity of B2B Keywords. Once you’ve created the gross list of potential keywords, we will determine the relative popularity of these search terms to give us some idea of which search terms are used more often than others. The actual raw number of searches for a given search term doesn’t matter as much.
4) The Value Website Optimization. You can now figure out the search terms by which your site will be optimized. For each B2B solution, there will be one or two relevant search terms that rank highly, three to five more that place as seconds, and many others that also have good potential. You can include terms with lower search volume because in B2B , these may yield less search volume or not as much traffic, but more likely it will yield a more serious potential partner or investor. Website optimization is where most webmasters make their biggest mistakes such as universal tagging, repeating the company name, or NOT using key words in Meta, Alt and Description tagging. This requires a true and experienced SEO consultant for the best results.
5) Building Content to Accommodate Extra SearchTerms. B2B companies often have sparse website content, so they will need to find a home for all of their search terms. As always, each page of content should focus on a specific term. In other words, where else on your site can you create a credible landing page that is going to respond well to organic search for each of these terms?
6) Internal and External Link Building Strategy. Some of the pages might be directly accessible through your site's primary navigation, other pages may be in the sub-navigation, and others may only be accessible through text links in the body copy of pages. Always keep the landing pages for the most popular search terms closest to the home page. Never go more than three layers deep, or the engines won’t look there. Go for the least amount of clicks possible to get to the landing pages with the best key words. Landing pages related to less popular, more obscure terms (also known as longtail keywords) can reside deeper on the site.
7) Inter link Between Related Search Terms. If there are three landing pages for a given product page, a case study page, and a blog posting-make sure that the site visitor can easily get from the landing page to the other “related” pages.
8) Create Content and External Inbound Links. Articles, blog posts from external blogs, videos posted to YouTube or Google and the hundreds of other video sites, and bookmarks on Social Media websites must be created so there is activity generated TO your website from other places on the Internet. And this does NOT mean recripricol links, but just one way inbound links. This will help get your site ranked faster than anything. AND while we build these links, we can also add other versions of this same content with your keywords to pages of your website, so the search engines have a better chance of finding your B2B company among all of your competitors.
In summary, the faster you accomplish all of the above steps, and do them right, while continuing to build content and links, the better your ranking will be in the search engines. MarCom shoots for all of our clients to become ranked on ALL of their keywords, and then STAY in the first page of Google, Yahoo and other search engines. As things change, MarCom New Media will make sure we continue to stay up on all the latest SEO trends.
Following are just a few of the steps that MarCom takes as SEO consultants to ensure that our B2B client websites are organized into the most logical, user-friendly architecture that responds to organic searches (e.g. comes up on the first page of Google).
1) Benefits of SEO Sooner- Not Later. Today, with so many companies and individuals swarming the Internet and putting up websites, blogs, and posting to social media sites, the search engines are running out of bandwidth for indexing websites fast and efficiently. What used to take a company just two to three months to be ranked by Google and other search engines for keywords that people are using, may now take eight months or longer. The longer you wait to do the proper SEO for your B2B site, the longer it will take to become ranked. The proof is that we can take a look at your competitors today, and in 3 or 6 months, we'll tell you how ahead or behind your SEO is while they become better and better ranked each month.
2) Keyword Analysis. No matter whether you’re are a B2C or B2B company, the first step is still a keyword analysis. BUT the differences are that a B2B company should not make keyword judgments, but rather create the gross list that is as inclusive as possible of the potential terms their actual prospects might use – and this would include vertical markets, potential strategic partners, the government in some cases, and even shareholders. As SEO experts, we then focus on generic keywords based on what these potential customers call things. You also need to think about whether or not searches will be about a problem they’re experiencing, or the type of company potentially offering solutions? And often times geography may play a role in what people are searching for.
3) Determine Relative Popularity of B2B Keywords. Once you’ve created the gross list of potential keywords, we will determine the relative popularity of these search terms to give us some idea of which search terms are used more often than others. The actual raw number of searches for a given search term doesn’t matter as much.
4) The Value Website Optimization. You can now figure out the search terms by which your site will be optimized. For each B2B solution, there will be one or two relevant search terms that rank highly, three to five more that place as seconds, and many others that also have good potential. You can include terms with lower search volume because in B2B , these may yield less search volume or not as much traffic, but more likely it will yield a more serious potential partner or investor. Website optimization is where most webmasters make their biggest mistakes such as universal tagging, repeating the company name, or NOT using key words in Meta, Alt and Description tagging. This requires a true and experienced SEO consultant for the best results.
5) Building Content to Accommodate Extra SearchTerms. B2B companies often have sparse website content, so they will need to find a home for all of their search terms. As always, each page of content should focus on a specific term. In other words, where else on your site can you create a credible landing page that is going to respond well to organic search for each of these terms?
6) Internal and External Link Building Strategy. Some of the pages might be directly accessible through your site's primary navigation, other pages may be in the sub-navigation, and others may only be accessible through text links in the body copy of pages. Always keep the landing pages for the most popular search terms closest to the home page. Never go more than three layers deep, or the engines won’t look there. Go for the least amount of clicks possible to get to the landing pages with the best key words. Landing pages related to less popular, more obscure terms (also known as longtail keywords) can reside deeper on the site.
7) Inter link Between Related Search Terms. If there are three landing pages for a given product page, a case study page, and a blog posting-make sure that the site visitor can easily get from the landing page to the other “related” pages.
8) Create Content and External Inbound Links. Articles, blog posts from external blogs, videos posted to YouTube or Google and the hundreds of other video sites, and bookmarks on Social Media websites must be created so there is activity generated TO your website from other places on the Internet. And this does NOT mean recripricol links, but just one way inbound links. This will help get your site ranked faster than anything. AND while we build these links, we can also add other versions of this same content with your keywords to pages of your website, so the search engines have a better chance of finding your B2B company among all of your competitors.
In summary, the faster you accomplish all of the above steps, and do them right, while continuing to build content and links, the better your ranking will be in the search engines. MarCom shoots for all of our clients to become ranked on ALL of their keywords, and then STAY in the first page of Google, Yahoo and other search engines. As things change, MarCom New Media will make sure we continue to stay up on all the latest SEO trends.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Why SEO firms Know Corporate Blogs are a Good Idea
Corporate blogs have finally caught on in the business world as part
of a company's overall
marketing strategy. Research from May 17,
2008 says that 58 (11.6%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging. However we have noticed that some companies are still "afraid" of using this tactic. We hope this will help clear up any confusion. Why? Because blogs are a great way to keep the conversation going with current and perspective customers, and can often answer questions that people are asking. And blogs are a great Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool that when used properly, can help get your company ranked in the top pages of search engines like Google or Yahoo.
Yes it is really important to maintain a blog strategy and carefully monitor ANY correspondence on the Internet, as we know because we also do reputation management for clients who may have said the wrong thing online or in a blog. BTW forum posts or responses to other blog posts are not always the best thing for an executive or an officer of a company to do online. We even have one client with a negative mention because of a book he is "badmouthed" in on businessweek.com. So we have a corporate blog that I ghostwrite on his behalf, talking about his charity work and trends in education. His personal website is getting great positioning within the top two listings in Google, and slowly but surely that negative listing is being bumped down to page 2 of the search engines.
But it is time for companies to pay attention when the Wall Street Journal writes about corporate blogs after a new study in June 2008 by Forrester Research. After they reviewed 90 blogs run by business-to-business companies in the Fortune 500, as well as close to 200 B2B marketers, word has it that most B2B blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion.” Seventy percent focused on business topics, 74 percent do not get many comments, and 56 percent are full of old company news. Forrester does not suggest giving up on corporate blogging, but rather suggests companies spice the blogs up, post regularly, stick to it and give their blog posts some personality. Businesses need to offer visitors something like tips, insight, tidbits on how a product was designed, or something funny. The company says Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is a great B2B blog example.
We have been doing corporate blogs as part of our SEO work for companies for a long time. We can train or ghostwrite blogs. They are a fantastic way to provide link backs to our client's websites. In fact, outside of affiliate websites, and optimized press releases, the blog is the next best tactic for online optimization.
It is always best to have your blog on your own website, because the weekly blogging activity creates a stir that the search engines notice. In fact MarCom has been experimenting with one new blogging program lately, and we are about to put up our own internal blog on our website, as opposed to only using Blogger.com. We'll use both. If your have your own blog on your website you would do internal linking to other pages on your website.
We have been ghostwriting a corporate blog for one client called the Entertainment Career Connection, a company that has recording, film, and radio schools for people who want to learn how to be a recording engineer, directors and producers, or DJS or sports announcers.
There are a number of types of blogs including CEO or executive blogs, employee and group blogs, advice or advocacy blogs, educational blogs, and of course, purely promotional blogs. Two to three posts per week are recommended in the beginning. Tagging and linking of the blog are also important tactics. TIP: Even photos posted to your blog can be named using your keywords.
If your company chooses to do an executive or a group blog, there's no doubt you are opening up to potential issues, so you will need to create and or extend your corporate policies. You will also want a blog moderator, who can go in and "clean up" a posting. Also it is important to give company bloggers a list of the key words and phrases so they can use at least three of the words in their blog posts, which will improve organic search results.
Here are some of the daily challenges of having a blog. Most blogs don’t receive tons of traffic, especially at first - as you can see if you go to http://www.technorati.com/, where you will note what blogs have made it to the top of the list via what is known as "authority." Some have no authority, some like ours have an azuthority of 4, qand others more than 300.
Blogs require time, making it important to consider the cost per hour of any employee - from managers to executives - posting on the corporate blog.
Another concern includes the challenge of CEO blogs in a public company, which require someone to manage. We often recommend adding a safe-harbor provision, which is a boilerplate statement that could prevent lawsuits. CEO bloggers need to be very careful in what they say, and they may not be able to offer strong opinions.
Marketers also need to remember that blogs can be PART of a corporate marketing campaign, but it is not a campaign in of itself, so there is no ending date. It is also important to remember that employees don’t always know how to represent a company or brand properly. Last, it can be difficult to measure specific successes. Although marketers can measure campaign successes by drops in website visits and registrations, and we measure the optimization successes via monthly reports that show increased ranking in the search engines.
At MarCom, our goal as Los Angeles SEO consultants, is to provide our clients with a strategy, then work hard to accomplish our goals mutually. The Internet is constantly changing, so tactics like a corporate blog will always require monitoring and deployment of new better practices for optimum SEO results.
of a company's overall
marketing strategy. Research from May 17,2008 says that 58 (11.6%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging. However we have noticed that some companies are still "afraid" of using this tactic. We hope this will help clear up any confusion. Why? Because blogs are a great way to keep the conversation going with current and perspective customers, and can often answer questions that people are asking. And blogs are a great Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool that when used properly, can help get your company ranked in the top pages of search engines like Google or Yahoo.
Yes it is really important to maintain a blog strategy and carefully monitor ANY correspondence on the Internet, as we know because we also do reputation management for clients who may have said the wrong thing online or in a blog. BTW forum posts or responses to other blog posts are not always the best thing for an executive or an officer of a company to do online. We even have one client with a negative mention because of a book he is "badmouthed" in on businessweek.com. So we have a corporate blog that I ghostwrite on his behalf, talking about his charity work and trends in education. His personal website is getting great positioning within the top two listings in Google, and slowly but surely that negative listing is being bumped down to page 2 of the search engines.
But it is time for companies to pay attention when the Wall Street Journal writes about corporate blogs after a new study in June 2008 by Forrester Research. After they reviewed 90 blogs run by business-to-business companies in the Fortune 500, as well as close to 200 B2B marketers, word has it that most B2B blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion.” Seventy percent focused on business topics, 74 percent do not get many comments, and 56 percent are full of old company news. Forrester does not suggest giving up on corporate blogging, but rather suggests companies spice the blogs up, post regularly, stick to it and give their blog posts some personality. Businesses need to offer visitors something like tips, insight, tidbits on how a product was designed, or something funny. The company says Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is a great B2B blog example.
We have been doing corporate blogs as part of our SEO work for companies for a long time. We can train or ghostwrite blogs. They are a fantastic way to provide link backs to our client's websites. In fact, outside of affiliate websites, and optimized press releases, the blog is the next best tactic for online optimization.
It is always best to have your blog on your own website, because the weekly blogging activity creates a stir that the search engines notice. In fact MarCom has been experimenting with one new blogging program lately, and we are about to put up our own internal blog on our website, as opposed to only using Blogger.com. We'll use both. If your have your own blog on your website you would do internal linking to other pages on your website.
We have been ghostwriting a corporate blog for one client called the Entertainment Career Connection, a company that has recording, film, and radio schools for people who want to learn how to be a recording engineer, directors and producers, or DJS or sports announcers.
There are a number of types of blogs including CEO or executive blogs, employee and group blogs, advice or advocacy blogs, educational blogs, and of course, purely promotional blogs. Two to three posts per week are recommended in the beginning. Tagging and linking of the blog are also important tactics. TIP: Even photos posted to your blog can be named using your keywords.
If your company chooses to do an executive or a group blog, there's no doubt you are opening up to potential issues, so you will need to create and or extend your corporate policies. You will also want a blog moderator, who can go in and "clean up" a posting. Also it is important to give company bloggers a list of the key words and phrases so they can use at least three of the words in their blog posts, which will improve organic search results.
Here are some of the daily challenges of having a blog. Most blogs don’t receive tons of traffic, especially at first - as you can see if you go to http://www.technorati.com/, where you will note what blogs have made it to the top of the list via what is known as "authority." Some have no authority, some like ours have an azuthority of 4, qand others more than 300.
Blogs require time, making it important to consider the cost per hour of any employee - from managers to executives - posting on the corporate blog.
Another concern includes the challenge of CEO blogs in a public company, which require someone to manage. We often recommend adding a safe-harbor provision, which is a boilerplate statement that could prevent lawsuits. CEO bloggers need to be very careful in what they say, and they may not be able to offer strong opinions.
Marketers also need to remember that blogs can be PART of a corporate marketing campaign, but it is not a campaign in of itself, so there is no ending date. It is also important to remember that employees don’t always know how to represent a company or brand properly. Last, it can be difficult to measure specific successes. Although marketers can measure campaign successes by drops in website visits and registrations, and we measure the optimization successes via monthly reports that show increased ranking in the search engines.
At MarCom, our goal as Los Angeles SEO consultants, is to provide our clients with a strategy, then work hard to accomplish our goals mutually. The Internet is constantly changing, so tactics like a corporate blog will always require monitoring and deployment of new better practices for optimum SEO results.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Online ads Go Local
If you have been thinking about doing online advertising, then you may be in luck. As a Los Angeles online advertising firm that is forging strategies and tactics in the online arena for measurable results, we know that today, a commercial message is often thought of as an intrusion. It has to be creative and compelling for someone to read it, let alone interact with it.
Today's Wall Street Journal Media & Marketing section had an article about the fact that newspapers are finally starting to think locally for online ads. In the past they believed they had an edge over Internet advertising because they supported communities. Plunging print ad revenues have forced newspapers to re-think things. Over the past two years, the number of local salespeople selling online ads for newspapers went from 5,900 to 15,500 (Source: Borrell Associates.)
As our Creative Director Brad Stone often says, "Many people ask us what is the secret formula for a successful marketing, advertising or communications campaign? It’s creativity that gets to it. Emotions. Appeal. That’s what drives the difference for success." Brad's work for Guess, Ralph Lauren, Rampage, Nextel, Neutrogena, and Glacier Bay Vodka stands apart when it comes to concept and design.
When it comes to advertising and design in Los Angeles, MarCom can manage both traditional as well as online ad campaigns such as Pay-per-Click (PPC). In fact, we have actually saved clients including the Entertainment Career Connection money in that arena. Depending on your industry category, PPC can be quite costly. This client sells accredited courses and mentor programs in the film, radio and recording industries. Here's what we have done for them to save money in online advertising campaigns. In less than one year, we reduced the Entertainment Career Connection’s PPC budget from $29k per month to $9k per month, while increasing SEO and social media marketing campaigns. For one third the budget they are getting 170 percent of the business, we have decreased Entertainment Connection’s original PPC budget by 67 percent of what it was, and increased the number of leads by 67 percent.
The market for spending on local ads expanded to 57.2 percent last year thanks to Google and Local.com whose ads target consumers searching the Web for products and services. Together they control 53.3 percent of the local online ad market, which is up from 25 percent in 2006.
Today's Wall Street Journal Media & Marketing section had an article about the fact that newspapers are finally starting to think locally for online ads. In the past they believed they had an edge over Internet advertising because they supported communities. Plunging print ad revenues have forced newspapers to re-think things. Over the past two years, the number of local salespeople selling online ads for newspapers went from 5,900 to 15,500 (Source: Borrell Associates.)
As our Creative Director Brad Stone often says, "Many people ask us what is the secret formula for a successful marketing, advertising or communications campaign? It’s creativity that gets to it. Emotions. Appeal. That’s what drives the difference for success." Brad's work for Guess, Ralph Lauren, Rampage, Nextel, Neutrogena, and Glacier Bay Vodka stands apart when it comes to concept and design.
When it comes to advertising and design in Los Angeles, MarCom can manage both traditional as well as online ad campaigns such as Pay-per-Click (PPC). In fact, we have actually saved clients including the Entertainment Career Connection money in that arena. Depending on your industry category, PPC can be quite costly. This client sells accredited courses and mentor programs in the film, radio and recording industries. Here's what we have done for them to save money in online advertising campaigns. In less than one year, we reduced the Entertainment Career Connection’s PPC budget from $29k per month to $9k per month, while increasing SEO and social media marketing campaigns. For one third the budget they are getting 170 percent of the business, we have decreased Entertainment Connection’s original PPC budget by 67 percent of what it was, and increased the number of leads by 67 percent.
The market for spending on local ads expanded to 57.2 percent last year thanks to Google and Local.com whose ads target consumers searching the Web for products and services. Together they control 53.3 percent of the local online ad market, which is up from 25 percent in 2006.
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