We have entered a new era of what has been called public relations over the years. I remember when PR became corporate communications, then marketing communications, and now many are saying that they believe PR has become social media.
I believe that PR is here to stay - although it is not the old school publicist in a telephone booth dialing the media to share the latest news tip on the street. It has changed from one way publishing and broadcasting to two way conversations.
Over the last year and a half, more than 300 newspapers have folded. Around eight magazines with a circulation of 1 million or more stopped their presses, while more than magazines completely shut down. 600 top-tier publishing employees were laid off. In the radio business alone, more than 10,000 jobs were lost. Bankruptcies have overtaken 100 plus television stations after their parent companies filed Chapter 11 bankrupsy.
It is no surprise. 2010 started out as the year of transformation. Whether it is due to the economy, in part, or just a social uprising - we are in early stages of a re-engineering of business as we know it, driven by social networking which has almost replaced the traditional media. (Source: Vocus Media Research Group.)
Today, people interact online in real-time dialogues with each other. Businesses now speak to customers with the hopes of influencing them. And people listen watch and read what other peoople have to say about products and services. Full disclosure. No longer can companies hide behind brand messaging.
However, marketing and public relations do go hand in hand with online strategies today, helping to launch and maintain social media campaigns. As a Los Angeles public relations agency, MarCom will always believe in synergistic campaigns and using the foundation built by yesterday’s public relations strategies.
As of today, 65 percent of marketers have only been involved with social media marketing for a few months or less.; 56 percent, are using social media for six plus hours every week; and only one in three – do social media for more than 11 hours per week. 85 percent of marketers indicated that the number-one advantage of social media marketing is generating exposure for their business.
For more information on MarCom's social media marketing services, call 323.650.2838.
Showing posts with label los angeles social media marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label los angeles social media marketing. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Los Angeles SEO Company Goes Local
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Link Building Strategies are Critical to SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices have been defined and now companies are competing for visibility within the organic search listings on the Internet. Three years ago it took a couple of months to be optimized; today it is closer to six to eight months. Why? Because so many companies are finally trying to get optimized, and the search engines need time to put them in place. New websites typically spend a month in the Google sandbox, before they are recognized.
Link building strategies are critical to the success of a website’s optimization. Link building provides links using your keywords to various pages on your website, so that the search engines will give the site a higher ranking, and so people using search terms and phrases will be more likely to find your site.
Social media marketing practitioners like MarOm New Media uses various tactics including building links to your site in relevant blogs, photo sites, social media networks, newswires, and directories. If you have short podcasts (audio) or videos, these can also be added to YouTube, and we also syndicate them to hundreds of other video sites. MarCom has completed the Bioidenticals Network on YouTube, for example, for our client The Wiley Protocol, for whom we have filmed, edited, produced, and syndicated more than 42 videos thus far.
Additionally you will find that there are other strategies including ghost blogging, forum posts, and bookmarking on social media networks, all of which provide linking opportunities. Bookmarking means adding content via a button, "add to del.icio.us," for example. You can also submit white papers, or relevant articles to other relevant sites to get your content out there. This way others can create what the industry has dubbed "mashups" to drive traffic back to your website.
MarCom has recently developed some ingenious three way linking strategies for MarCom clients that we'll be launching before July. Hiont: It is named "Billboard Mama."
Link building strategies are critical to the success of a website’s optimization. Link building provides links using your keywords to various pages on your website, so that the search engines will give the site a higher ranking, and so people using search terms and phrases will be more likely to find your site.
Social media marketing practitioners like MarOm New Media uses various tactics including building links to your site in relevant blogs, photo sites, social media networks, newswires, and directories. If you have short podcasts (audio) or videos, these can also be added to YouTube, and we also syndicate them to hundreds of other video sites. MarCom has completed the Bioidenticals Network on YouTube, for example, for our client The Wiley Protocol, for whom we have filmed, edited, produced, and syndicated more than 42 videos thus far.
Additionally you will find that there are other strategies including ghost blogging, forum posts, and bookmarking on social media networks, all of which provide linking opportunities. Bookmarking means adding content via a button, "add to del.icio.us," for example. You can also submit white papers, or relevant articles to other relevant sites to get your content out there. This way others can create what the industry has dubbed "mashups" to drive traffic back to your website.
MarCom has recently developed some ingenious three way linking strategies for MarCom clients that we'll be launching before July. Hiont: It is named "Billboard Mama."
Monday, May 11, 2009
B2B Social Media Marketing
We are getting many questions from our clients asking if we should start signing them up corporately for Facebook and Twitter, etc. Since MarCom has been doing Social Media Marketing (SMM) since the beginning, we have some strategic thoughts on what works and how it should be leveraged for B2B correctly.
First you need to do some research. One thing MarCom has done for several clients including Expensewatch.com, and The Interface Financial Group, is an audit of their competitor's search engine marketing programs, and then we provide recommendations for improvement. We told them, you need to review what to accomplish, and take a look at how SMM will complement your overall marketing plan. All companies need an SMM strategy - but it is difficult for most marketers to do this when this area is not their expertise.
For those of you involved in B2B, if you don't yet believe that MarCom New Media can assist you with your social media marketing, read Paul Gillin's latest book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing. This book will educate you about the ways you can extend your brand, engage customers, launch a product, deal with a crisis, and most importantly, generate leads in communities where your customers live online.
Some of the tactics include ghostwriting blogs, posting videos and syndicating them on the Internet, syndicating articles, and bookmarking in places like DIGG or StumbleUpon, to name only a few. Corporate Facebook pages and Twitter accounts are becomming popular as well. And as always, link backs from these social media sites to your website are encouraged for better search engine optimization and website rankings.
Gillin told us, "Social Media Marketing actually appears to be gaining a head of steam. Peter Kim has a great wiki of social media marketing examples that is up to more than 1,500 entries. The list dramatizes the surge in interest that we are now seeing in SMM, particularly because of the attractive economies."
The good news is that once you have read it - you will realize there's no way you can manage it alone, so we hope you will us so we can develop a strategic plan, put our practiced team on it for you and measure results.
First you need to do some research. One thing MarCom has done for several clients including Expensewatch.com, and The Interface Financial Group, is an audit of their competitor's search engine marketing programs, and then we provide recommendations for improvement. We told them, you need to review what to accomplish, and take a look at how SMM will complement your overall marketing plan. All companies need an SMM strategy - but it is difficult for most marketers to do this when this area is not their expertise.
For those of you involved in B2B, if you don't yet believe that MarCom New Media can assist you with your social media marketing, read Paul Gillin's latest book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing. This book will educate you about the ways you can extend your brand, engage customers, launch a product, deal with a crisis, and most importantly, generate leads in communities where your customers live online.
Some of the tactics include ghostwriting blogs, posting videos and syndicating them on the Internet, syndicating articles, and bookmarking in places like DIGG or StumbleUpon, to name only a few. Corporate Facebook pages and Twitter accounts are becomming popular as well. And as always, link backs from these social media sites to your website are encouraged for better search engine optimization and website rankings.
Gillin told us, "Social Media Marketing actually appears to be gaining a head of steam. Peter Kim has a great wiki of social media marketing examples that is up to more than 1,500 entries. The list dramatizes the surge in interest that we are now seeing in SMM, particularly because of the attractive economies."
The good news is that once you have read it - you will realize there's no way you can manage it alone, so we hope you will us so we can develop a strategic plan, put our practiced team on it for you and measure results.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Find me on Twitter at MarCom4SMM - for Social Media Marketing
The Aberdeen Group recently published a report, “The ROI on Social Media Marketing,” which was sponsored by Visible Technologies. The report affirms that marketers have developed the methods and tools to drive return on investment (ROI) for companies via social media. It's just one more reason why I now have a Twitter account for MarCom - twitter me at MarCom4SMM.
This just affirms what Marcom New Media, a Los Angeles social media marketing firm, has been doing for the last five years, which entails listening to customers and influencing prospects. Actually, we keep telling clients that in order to compete online, flourish and be more profitable, there are three key steps:
Phase I - Online SEO
Phase II - Offline Link Building and Pay per Click (PPC)
Phase III- Social Media Marketing
The research report said 63 percent of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.
The truth is, social media networks started around the spring of 2007, and today, memberships in platforms like Facebook, or My Space, are in the hundreds of millions. We started doing tactics like forum posting back in the year 2000.
But there is something else know as social media optimization. This 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.
MarCom writes unique content (all articles must be 30 to 40 % unique or different than any other document on the Web) that's 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.
We are also a Los Angeles Search Engine Marketing (SEM) firm, and helps clients audit and determine search marketing strategies for increased lead generation online. We use a many different social networking platforms for branding online.
A couple of the areas that have grown for us includes ghostwriting blogs for clients. We also shoot video shorts, edit them and syndicate them online in places like Google video or YouTube, and record and manage podcasts. We recently completed a number of online videos for our client The Wiley Protocol, which are also on YouTube, and syndicated around the Internet.
This just affirms what Marcom New Media, a Los Angeles social media marketing firm, has been doing for the last five years, which entails listening to customers and influencing prospects. Actually, we keep telling clients that in order to compete online, flourish and be more profitable, there are three key steps:
Phase I - Online SEO
Phase II - Offline Link Building and Pay per Click (PPC)
Phase III- Social Media Marketing
The research report said 63 percent of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.
The truth is, social media networks started around the spring of 2007, and today, memberships in platforms like Facebook, or My Space, are in the hundreds of millions. We started doing tactics like forum posting back in the year 2000.
But there is something else know as social media optimization. This 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.
MarCom writes unique content (all articles must be 30 to 40 % unique or different than any other document on the Web) that's 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.
We are also a Los Angeles Search Engine Marketing (SEM) firm, and helps clients audit and determine search marketing strategies for increased lead generation online. We use a many different social networking platforms for branding online.
A couple of the areas that have grown for us includes ghostwriting blogs for clients. We also shoot video shorts, edit them and syndicate them online in places like Google video or YouTube, and record and manage podcasts. We recently completed a number of online videos for our client The Wiley Protocol, which are also on YouTube, and syndicated around the Internet.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
A Client's Social Media Format Press Release on Bioidentical Hormones
Today we posted a rather interesting press release on our client's product, the Wiley Protocol. We had just completed five audio tape podcasts of amazing interviews with doctors, so we added one to the MarketWire distribution, and then quoted the other doctor in our release. We added this photo of one of our seminar advertisements, and linked to that page on the website.
We linked to many great reference spots on the website, including testimonials. Since Oprah Winfrey's show today was going to be on hormone therapy, that was mentioned in the release. Since Suzanne Somers' choice for bioidentical hormones IS the Wiley Protocol and she has written about the Protocol in her books, Ageless, and Breakthrough, I used a quote from one of the Wiley testimonials and linked to it on our website.
Next I posted the release on DIGG, bookmarked Del.icio.us and put it in my Facebook page, then Twittered it out to my followers. I blogged bloggers that focus on health, sent it to my personal email list, and the client's list of over 900 contacts, and I plan to email our media contacts tonight and tomorrow.
By the time the Oprah show aired at 3 p.m.PST, our release, blog items, etc. and links to the Wiley Protocol website, blog items, and articles were on the first pages of the search engines like Google when people typed in the key phrases "bio-identical hormones," Oprah Winfrey," or The Wiley Protocol, etc. These tactics are the essence of social media marketing and PR. The release is below.
Doctors Share Promising Symptom Relief From Women on Wiley Protocol Bioidentical Hormone Replacement
Wiley Protocol Hormone Therapy Makes Hot Flashes, Foggy Brain, Sleep Loss, Diminished Libido, Migraines, and Depression Symptoms of the Past; Menopausal Women Look Younger and Feel Like Themselves Again
Doctors worldwide are attending T.S. Wiley's 'Two Days Back on Earth' environmental endocrinology seminars. They are also learning about the only cyclical biomimetic hormone restoration -- the Wiley Protocol bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).
Dr. Christian Renna shares insights about his patients using the Wiley Protocol bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, stating that it restores the feeling of being yourself after experiencing a loss of self that occurs in perimenopause and menopause.
Highlighted Links
Wiley Protocol Hormone Therapy
SANTA BARBARA, CA--(Marketwire - January 15, 2009) - Wiley Systems, Inc. announced that mounting anecdotal evidence from participating physicians indicates that the majority of women who use the Wiley Protocol no longer experience hot flashes, sleep better, have increased energy, report better sex lives, and are happier, less moody, feel better and look younger.
The Wiley Protocol® is a bioidentical hormone replacement therapy that provides women with a more accurate form of restoration for lost endocrine function than conventional bioidentical therapies. More and more health care practitioners are attending Wiley's two-day environmental endocrinology "Two Days Back on Earth" seminar to learn a new perspective on aging, how our environment affects us, and about cyclical biomimetic hormone restoration therapy. With new rationale for treatment and diagnosis of their patients, they are taking that knowledge and applying it to those in need.
Millions of baby boomer women are either in perimenopause or menopause, and the issue of hormone therapy is gaining considerable media attention. Today's "Oprah Winfrey Show" is slated to air the first of a two part segment -- "The Great Debate: Should You Replace Your Hormones?" A feature story by Mary Duenwald in the February issue of O Magazine tells "Everything you need to know about menopause (but were too hot, tired, confused and cranky to ask.)"
After 12 years of research, Wiley developed a new approach to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) called the Wiley Protocol, which provides women with a more accurate form of restoration for lost endocrine function. The components of this protocol and the amount of hormones women take vary throughout the female 28-day cycle to mimic the hormone levels of youth. The Wiley Protocol is the only biomimetic hormone replacement that features plant derived hormones in a biomimetic way.
Tens of thousands of women report that the Wiley Protocol has changed their lives by relieving menopausal symptoms from brain fog, hot flashes, night sweats, and sleep loss to diminished sex drive, moodiness, depression and more, as evidenced by testimonials on the company's website. Wiley is also the co-author of "Sex, Lies & Menopause," Harper Collins, 2005 and "Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival," Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2000.
"If I could take anything on a desert island other than my dog, it would be my Wiley Protocol," said Wiley Protocol user Marla Mintz. "I was severely depressed and went everywhere for help and tried everything. I felt just like the woman described in Suzanne Somers' book, ("Ageless: The Naked Truth about Bioidentical Hormones," Crown; 2006) going from one doctor to another and getting nowhere with no help."
According to healthy aging specialist Christian Renna, "The benefits of this protocol are pretty far reaching in that it restores the feeling of being yourself after experiencing a loss of self that occurs in perimenopause and menopause. It's like finding yourself after being lost." Dr. Renna called the Wiley Protocol a universal key to the problem. "Without the estrogen peak on Day 12, the person never gets the full benefit of progesterone activity during the luteal phase, the latter phase of the menstrual cycle."
Wiley Protocol Hormone Therapy Makes Hot Flashes, Foggy Brain, Sleep Loss, Diminished Libido, Migraines, and Depression Symptoms of the Past; Menopausal Women Look Younger and Feel Like Themselves Again
Doctors worldwide are attending T.S. Wiley's 'Two Days Back on Earth' environmental endocrinology seminars. They are also learning about the only cyclical biomimetic hormone restoration -- the Wiley Protocol bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).
Dr. Christian Renna shares insights about his patients using the Wiley Protocol bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, stating that it restores the feeling of being yourself after experiencing a loss of self that occurs in perimenopause and menopause.
Highlighted Links
Wiley Protocol Hormone Therapy
SANTA BARBARA, CA--(Marketwire - January 15, 2009) - Wiley Systems, Inc. announced that mounting anecdotal evidence from participating physicians indicates that the majority of women who use the Wiley Protocol no longer experience hot flashes, sleep better, have increased energy, report better sex lives, and are happier, less moody, feel better and look younger.
The Wiley Protocol® is a bioidentical hormone replacement therapy that provides women with a more accurate form of restoration for lost endocrine function than conventional bioidentical therapies. More and more health care practitioners are attending Wiley's two-day environmental endocrinology "Two Days Back on Earth" seminar to learn a new perspective on aging, how our environment affects us, and about cyclical biomimetic hormone restoration therapy. With new rationale for treatment and diagnosis of their patients, they are taking that knowledge and applying it to those in need.
Millions of baby boomer women are either in perimenopause or menopause, and the issue of hormone therapy is gaining considerable media attention. Today's "Oprah Winfrey Show" is slated to air the first of a two part segment -- "The Great Debate: Should You Replace Your Hormones?" A feature story by Mary Duenwald in the February issue of O Magazine tells "Everything you need to know about menopause (but were too hot, tired, confused and cranky to ask.)"
After 12 years of research, Wiley developed a new approach to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) called the Wiley Protocol, which provides women with a more accurate form of restoration for lost endocrine function. The components of this protocol and the amount of hormones women take vary throughout the female 28-day cycle to mimic the hormone levels of youth. The Wiley Protocol is the only biomimetic hormone replacement that features plant derived hormones in a biomimetic way.
Tens of thousands of women report that the Wiley Protocol has changed their lives by relieving menopausal symptoms from brain fog, hot flashes, night sweats, and sleep loss to diminished sex drive, moodiness, depression and more, as evidenced by testimonials on the company's website. Wiley is also the co-author of "Sex, Lies & Menopause," Harper Collins, 2005 and "Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival," Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2000.
"If I could take anything on a desert island other than my dog, it would be my Wiley Protocol," said Wiley Protocol user Marla Mintz. "I was severely depressed and went everywhere for help and tried everything. I felt just like the woman described in Suzanne Somers' book, ("Ageless: The Naked Truth about Bioidentical Hormones," Crown; 2006) going from one doctor to another and getting nowhere with no help."
According to healthy aging specialist Christian Renna, "The benefits of this protocol are pretty far reaching in that it restores the feeling of being yourself after experiencing a loss of self that occurs in perimenopause and menopause. It's like finding yourself after being lost." Dr. Renna called the Wiley Protocol a universal key to the problem. "Without the estrogen peak on Day 12, the person never gets the full benefit of progesterone activity during the luteal phase, the latter phase of the menstrual cycle."
Doctor Stephen Dalton, a physician certified by the American Board of Family Medicine, practicing in Lubbock, Texas attended the "Two Days Back on Earth" 17-credit *Continued Medical Education (CME) seminar in Glendale, California. "The seminar is definitely scientifically based," he said. "The Wiley Protocol has changed my practice. By far, the best method that we have ever tried is the Wiley Protocol, plain and simple."
T.S. Wiley is a medical theorist in environmental endocrinology and Darwinian medicine. She is a noted writer, researcher and lecturer on the effects of hormones, particularly in menopausal women as well as an accepted expert in chronobiology and circadian rhythmicity. Wiley's CME accredited environmental endocrinology seminars, "Two Days Back on Earth" in Glendale, California are attended by physicians from all over the world.
About Wiley Systems, Inc. and the Wiley Protocol
Wiley Systems, Inc. was founded in 2005 in Santa Barbara, California by T.S. Wiley, who is the developer of the Wiley Protocol®, a trademarked patent pending delivery system consisting of biomimetic, bioidentical estradiol and progesterone (Biomimetic Hormone Restoration Therapy.) Wiley Systems began as a project to fund the union of doctors and pharmacists in a common goal to standardize bioidentical hormones for academic research.
The Wiley Protocol is only available at compounding pharmacies that have joined the project for future National Institutes of Health (NIH) study and have contractually agreed to the standardized methods, materials, packaging and recommended pricing. In exchange, Wiley Systems provides intellectual property and sells 28WP logo-bearing packaging consisting of color-coded bags and syringes. The Wiley Protocol name assures customers that they are receiving authentic Wiley Protocol dosing rhythms based on original research.
*Accreditation: The Medical Educator Consortium, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Credit Hours: The Medical Educator Consortium, designates this educational activity for a maximum of 17 hours AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s). Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
*Accreditation: The Medical Educator Consortium, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Credit Hours: The Medical Educator Consortium, designates this educational activity for a maximum of 17 hours AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s). Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Contact:Kristin GabrielDirector of MarketingO: 323.650.2838C: 213.840.6978E: kgabriel@thewileyprotocol.comWiley Systems, Inc.P.O. Box 50734Santa Barbara, CA 93150O: 805.565.7508F: 805 456-3939http://www.thewileyprotocol.com/
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Wiley-Systems-Inc-938451.html
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Wiley-Systems-Inc-938451.html
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, November 21, 2008
Why Choose a Los Angeles SEO Firm During a Tough Economy?
There is no question that small to medium-sized businesses often struggle during tough economic times. Over the years we have seen many clients try to cut back on marketing during these times. There are several schools of thought on the topic: 1) A bad economy is the time to spend money on marketing. 2) Don't spend what you don't have.
Well here is another thought. We have actually been getting quite few new business leads lately. Why? Today, more and more people realize that search engine optimization (SEO) is a must, because most people realize that if they are not in the top pages of the engines like Google or Yahoo, their customers may not find them. But with that there is allot of confusion about who they should hire and what the right SEO strategies. Lucky for us we have lots of experience, and in fact are possibly one of the few Los Angeles SEO firms that are also experts in the new Social Media Marketing -- according to guru and author of The New Influencers, Paul Gillin, MarCom is actually part of the ten percent of marketers nationally doing it. The other 90 percent are still trying to figure out what it is.
In 2006, MarketingSherpa did a survey of 3,053 client-side marketers. They determined that SEO was viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of return on investment (ROI.) In other words, ROI is critical during an uncertain economy.
In the past, traditional marketing and advertising meant spending quite a bit of your budget on tactics that typically don't provide tracking methods for figuring out if it works. Today, the beauty of the Internet and new media marketing is that we can track the results, and tweak the campaigns for better results if need be. In other words, we are more of a lead generation company, than just SEO, or PR or marketing.
A good SEO campaign can tell you a lot about your market because when we do our research about your market, we also research your competitors. We can even see how much money they have been spending on Pay per Click ads. We can determine how many visitors go to their website. A keyword analysis will tell us exactly how many people are searching and what words and phrases they use to find what products and services like you offer
We know that our campaigns address a need or a desire - so when we optimize your website, it will be so that the visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords will have a chance to find you and what you're offering on your website. Int he end SEO should help drive quality traffic to your website. And with that you have a better chance of closing the sale.
We use HitsLink for web analytics, which is a great program to tell more details of what people do after they do come to your site. do they stay on one page longer than others? Do they spend enought time on your site? How much time? Where did they come from before they went to your site? Tracking your website allows you to track your users.
So how should you decide if you need to invest in SEO and or Social Media Marketing? In-house employees are going t probably be too pricey. And on top of that, few people in the marketing today have as much experience as we as SEO experts have. So you are better off hiring outside consultants like MarCom.
The bottom line, SEO and social media marketing should not just be an afterthought to your marketing plan, especially during tough economic times. Because with such good ROI, you really cannot go wrong. In fact, you may get more business than you had before.
Well here is another thought. We have actually been getting quite few new business leads lately. Why? Today, more and more people realize that search engine optimization (SEO) is a must, because most people realize that if they are not in the top pages of the engines like Google or Yahoo, their customers may not find them. But with that there is allot of confusion about who they should hire and what the right SEO strategies. Lucky for us we have lots of experience, and in fact are possibly one of the few Los Angeles SEO firms that are also experts in the new Social Media Marketing -- according to guru and author of The New Influencers, Paul Gillin, MarCom is actually part of the ten percent of marketers nationally doing it. The other 90 percent are still trying to figure out what it is.
In 2006, MarketingSherpa did a survey of 3,053 client-side marketers. They determined that SEO was viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of return on investment (ROI.) In other words, ROI is critical during an uncertain economy.
In the past, traditional marketing and advertising meant spending quite a bit of your budget on tactics that typically don't provide tracking methods for figuring out if it works. Today, the beauty of the Internet and new media marketing is that we can track the results, and tweak the campaigns for better results if need be. In other words, we are more of a lead generation company, than just SEO, or PR or marketing.
A good SEO campaign can tell you a lot about your market because when we do our research about your market, we also research your competitors. We can even see how much money they have been spending on Pay per Click ads. We can determine how many visitors go to their website. A keyword analysis will tell us exactly how many people are searching and what words and phrases they use to find what products and services like you offer
We know that our campaigns address a need or a desire - so when we optimize your website, it will be so that the visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords will have a chance to find you and what you're offering on your website. Int he end SEO should help drive quality traffic to your website. And with that you have a better chance of closing the sale.
We use HitsLink for web analytics, which is a great program to tell more details of what people do after they do come to your site. do they stay on one page longer than others? Do they spend enought time on your site? How much time? Where did they come from before they went to your site? Tracking your website allows you to track your users.
So how should you decide if you need to invest in SEO and or Social Media Marketing? In-house employees are going t probably be too pricey. And on top of that, few people in the marketing today have as much experience as we as SEO experts have. So you are better off hiring outside consultants like MarCom.
The bottom line, SEO and social media marketing should not just be an afterthought to your marketing plan, especially during tough economic times. Because with such good ROI, you really cannot go wrong. In fact, you may get more business than you had before.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
New Domain Name Controversy for Online Marketing
So would you like a website domain name that ends in dot.bank? dot.hotel, or what about dot. restaurant? Well in the future of the world wide Web, you may get your wish. This may be the situation, and major brands are really worried about having to spend millions in order to protect their brands.
The entity that oversees the Web, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, plans to start selling the rights to an unlimited number of top-level domain names in the year 2009. The names would be those of popular subjects geographic locations, types of businesses.
Think about it this way. If you were a national restaurant with a cool branded name, for instance, like McWeener, and you already owned all the sites you thought you needed to own surrounding that name, like McWeener.com, McWeener.biz, and dot.org, dot.net, etc. Now you have to worry about owning McWeener (dot)restaurant, or McWeener (dot) Los Angeles and every other city where the franchises exist too!
Big companies are really worried that this situation could open the doors to Internet scams and fraud, and drastically increase their costs of doing business online. Brand names could get hijacked, causing millions in legal fees, and loss of business.
The entity that oversees the Web, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, plans to start selling the rights to an unlimited number of top-level domain names in the year 2009. The names would be those of popular subjects geographic locations, types of businesses.
Think about it this way. If you were a national restaurant with a cool branded name, for instance, like McWeener, and you already owned all the sites you thought you needed to own surrounding that name, like McWeener.com, McWeener.biz, and dot.org, dot.net, etc. Now you have to worry about owning McWeener (dot)restaurant, or McWeener (dot) Los Angeles and every other city where the franchises exist too!
Big companies are really worried that this situation could open the doors to Internet scams and fraud, and drastically increase their costs of doing business online. Brand names could get hijacked, causing millions in legal fees, and loss of business.
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.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Social Media Marketing Facts and Trends
Here is an interesting report with statistics for social media, which is the sharing of information and opinions online. The research firm called Datamonitor reveals an increase in the number of people participating in online social networking, and it is not all here in the United States.
In a separate report by Nielsen Research, the UK currently leads Europe and is expected to increase to 27 million users by 2012. In fact, in Britain, users spend the majority of their time online on social media sites. They spent four billion minutes on consumer generated content sites in April 2008, which is up 47 percent, according to Nielsen Research.
Social media sites that people visit include blogs, social networks and photo and video sharing sites. People are spending time online in community groups where they share common interests with one another on things that are important to them. The trend is that now, consumers are in control because they can choose what they want to read online. And they can share their thoughts, and opinions.
According to VNU.net, nearly half of the online adult population around the world is a member of at least one networking site, with Facebook and MySpace being the most popular. They have more than 170 million monthly active users combined.
People no longer log online just to read relevant news. Following are some other new stats on the latest social media activity:
In a separate report by Nielsen Research, the UK currently leads Europe and is expected to increase to 27 million users by 2012. In fact, in Britain, users spend the majority of their time online on social media sites. They spent four billion minutes on consumer generated content sites in April 2008, which is up 47 percent, according to Nielsen Research.
Social media sites that people visit include blogs, social networks and photo and video sharing sites. People are spending time online in community groups where they share common interests with one another on things that are important to them. The trend is that now, consumers are in control because they can choose what they want to read online. And they can share their thoughts, and opinions.
According to VNU.net, nearly half of the online adult population around the world is a member of at least one networking site, with Facebook and MySpace being the most popular. They have more than 170 million monthly active users combined.
People no longer log online just to read relevant news. Following are some other new stats on the latest social media activity:
394 million people watch video clips online
346 million people read blogs
321 million read personal blogs
307 million visit a friend's social network pages
303 million share video clips
272 million create and manage a profile on a social network
248 million upload photographs
216 million download video podcasts
215 million download podcasts
184 million start a own blog
83 million upload a video clip
160 million subscribe to an RSS feed
(Source: Wave3 research of active users)
It also appears as if blogging and reading blogs is big with 34 percent of bloggers posting opinions about products and brands quite often. This is why it is so important for companies to be part of those conversations, or even to start the conversations. In fact, 36 percent of online users state that they think more positively about companies who run their own blog.
MarCom has been testing a variety of social media approaches with our clients over the last couple of years. Social media helps clients with building their brand, and a community of people for things like opt in lists, relationship management, and that can include crisis and reputation management, product development and customer support. And last but not least is known as defensive SEO. Nicely put, this is when you can get rid of negative mentions on the Internet or bad press by building positive online mentions. We have done this successfully for one client who wishes to remain anonymous, through his educational and charity website, a blog and articles distributed on the Internet.
What we have learned, is the most important thing is to have a social media marketing strategy. And in order to develop a strategy here are some issues that need to be considered:
1) Determine your goals - SEO, PR, traffic, etc. Are you trying to drive awareness, or advertising click through? Or is a conversation your goal?
2) Who is your audience - where does your target demo hang out online?
3) What are your realistic resources and budget?
First you need to look at social media as one of many Internet marketing channels. Second, social media marketing both Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 sites- so you need to be anywhere that there are discussions, people are sharing, and users are generated content. This includes:
- Blogs, discussion boards and forums
- Consumer review websites
- Online Communities and social networks
- Social news websites (e.g. Yahoo or Google News, etc.)
- Social bookmarking websites
- Social photo/video and music websites
- Directories
- Article websites
- Wikis
At first you cannot expect social media to provide a return on investment (ROI). It will engage your audience(s), and should encourage user generated online conversations which increases your web presence, and can expand brand awareness. It also will generate publicity and provides measurable SEO benefits – but it will not necessarily convert. It can convert if you own the community, and can capture your own leads.
It is important to first gather all the blogs, forums, websites that are out there and monitor what people are saying. Then develop your strategy. Put a method in place to monitor what is being said. Then be prepared to go in and interact. However know that trust is a HUGE factor when it comes to social media marketing. It’s most effective when those in the community know and trust you, so you need to hire someone like MarCom to spend a lot of time online and track and manage your social web strategies.
Much of MarCom’s work is creating ghostwritten blogs, monitoring discussions in Forums, and knowing how to jump in with linking strategies back to our client’s websites using key words and phrases, which are picked up by Google and the other search engines.
This is evidenced by our client the Entertainment Career Connection, which is all about courses where you get a mentor. We have been improving their lead generation through SEO for over a year while reducing their Pay per Click budget. Now we have been able to take the funds saved, and invest in a social media network of writers that are building content on a special website. This site will be designed to track and capture leads. Once the community is flourishing, we can drive conversations, call-to-action, ads, promotions, and contests, anytime. Check out our MarCom Los Angeles SEO consultants case history.
Tactically, we also do blogger tours or we can gather a team to fan out into the blogosphere and engage in conversations, or go to forums with key messages for posts there.
Another method is via social sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Readit, or the Newsvine, where articles posted there work for you if your news item relates topics that the community likes.
Finally today’s press use these sites to troll for trends and story ideas, so your articles and news can get picked up by bloggers.
The bottom line is that sales are a secondary benefit of social media, which is mostly about awareness.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
MarCom's New Website - SEO Tips for Launching
Thanks to our strategic partner, Rigney Graphics, we just launched our new MarCom New Media website. The reason we changed our name from MarCom Broadband to MarCom New Media, is because today Internet marketing is all about the new media. The term has settled in, and we believe people understand what it means. But what many people still need guidance on, is what MarCom does - search engine optimization (SEO), online PR and social media marketing (SMM) strategies and tactics.
In designing a new website, there are a few rules we thought we'd share based on client experience, and our knowledge:
Be prepared. Have your navigation and content map ready before you meet with a web designer or web design firm. If you have tracking analytics on your old site, then take a look at where people come from and how they get around on your site. This is a good tool for what to do and what NOT to do on the new website.
Talk with an SEO expert early on. Many web designers don't know the details about SEO. They design, and you should not expect them to know what has taken us a decade to learn. So bring in an SEO expert team, like MarCom, to advise and work closely with your design team before it is too late. One client of ours decided to have a new firm redesign three of his sites into one master website. Despite having guidance from Mike Keesling, our resident SEO expert, they didn't listen. They used Flash, and they initially did not have the old websites redirect to the new one. This risked losing all the last year's SEO efforts. Now only time will tell what damage has been done.
Look for a good web design firm. Check their references, and look at sample sites. Do not expect miracles overnight. Our site took about 6 weeks. And any good site will take time. Rigney Graphics is one of our strategic partners, and they design excellent websites - including ours. Also make sure the copy you write and prepare for them is letter perfect before you have them add it to the design, or it will waste their time, and your money with revisions.
Tagging website Pages. This is the magic of what excellent SEO can do for your website so customers can find you. Typically you want your page content to each have focus for one keyword or key phrase in three places per page. Each page then gets meta tagged with that same keyword, so the engines will be able to find relevant content as people in Google look for what they want.
If you have a Flash website - note the search engines can't read it. But the good news is that Adobe Systems Incorporated just announced today that they have teamed up with search industry leaders to to improve search results of dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications (RIAs), which is currently undiscoverable by search engines. This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. It may take up to a year though, so keep an eye on the developments...
Embedded flash will work. Our client The Wiley Protocol uses this in their site with embedded Flash movies. The search engines read content, so the more content with your key words, the better your chances of being ranked on the first pages of the engines, so customers can find you. A trick is that you can post a blog on your home page as long as it is on your site and not on Blogger or WordPress. This will have an RSS function that can help Flash sites until later.
Make sure you have a tracking analytics program. There are free programs like Google Analytics, but others like HitsLink are better at tracking your website traffic. This will allow your SEO team to tweak key words, site content and link building strategies so your optimization will improve month to month.
You need a keyword analysis. Do you know what words your customers use to find you? For MarCom New Media as an example, people may search using Los Angeles Internet marketing firm, or search engine optimization firm in Los Angeles. Note how I have linked to this key word, and it goes to our website page about search engine optimization. That is called a link back to our site. You want many legitimate links to your new site.
Put up a Press Room and post articles and a newsletter. We find that Press-feed offers the best tool for a press room, that includes an excellent RSS feed built right in. Plus it is easy to post releases, newsletter or articles, that are then stored so people can review them later, and that offer excellent content with your relevant key words, which the search engines like. Check out our MarCom Press-feed.
Include an interactive function to get people's names. For future marketing, the best way to build your own opt in list is to have options for people to safely fill out a marketing survey, like we have on our MarCom home page, or an interactive newsletter sign up.
Re-skinning your website. This is a term for re-designing your site without disrupting its SEO. One of our other current clients is about ready to re-skin their three websites - so by the end of July, check back and you can see the before and after: http://www.film-connection.com/; http://www.recordingconnection.com/ and http://www.radioconnection.com/.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Ghostwriting Blogs for Clients for Link Building and Social Media
I have been writing blogs for quite some time. Blogs are a great link building tool, and they are also great for customer relationship building, reputation management, and a good survey tool to get a feel for what people think about new products and services. In order for a blog to be a good search engine optimization (SEO) link building tool, however, one must use linking strategies that are acceptable and effective with the engines like Google and Yahoo. Right now, one of my blogs is for our client Entertainment Career Connection.
Blogs are great for customer relations if done properly. And remember that anything you post on the Internet can come back and bite you later on. It will stay up for a long time. So be very careful what you say. Authenticity is very important, and starting conversations with your readers is what works today, and in fact, it is the shift in marketing all together.
I have a blog for one of our clients and as part of his campaign for reputation management we do an educational blog that talks about his activities on the Boards of two charities, and also serves as a research and information tool for trends in education, and enables link backs to his website. I use every single blog topic that I write to also revise it into a longer article for submission to article websites. But you cannot submit duplicate copy or the search engines will not count it.
There's one aspect of blog writing that people often do not understand - and that is the search engine optimization and PR value. Take for instance, Rocco's blog above. I post one to two times per week in his blog. Basically you can type in Rocco Basile on Google, and note that many of the items in the ranking list are now positive posts, and include both his official website as well as blog posts, some PR Web listings, and articles. Inside his blog posts I always provide links back to his website. And the linking strategy can be to specific pages in his website that are related about my topic - not just to the home page. There are times when we have seen blog posts get picked up by other bloggers, who link to the blog.
Blogging requires a goal, and they are a lot of work. But the beauty of blogging is that it provides a marketing vehicle that does NOT rely on a third party, such as an editor writing an article about you. Corporate blogs provide you with an opportunity to tell your company's story. Various executives in your company, large or small, can post to a corporate blog, so you can create a strategy ahead of time, then assign folks to write.
Blogs are a great "Crisis Management" tool. Just look at how popular Martha Stuart's blog was during her court battle. And blogs are a great way to build a database of interested people, users, etc. Just shoot folks over to a sign up form from your blog, and you are certain to get some opt ins.
And as for the return on investment for blog writing, it costs very little - you can set up a blog at blogger.com, for free. So it costs you in time - your time, the time of your employees, or the writing fees to hire someone like MarCom to ghostwrite your blogs. You can check to see if your blog is building website traffic, because of course, the better your blog's linking strategies are, the more folks will visit your website. Once a visitor comes in to your website from your blog, what path do they go down? do they ultimately get funneled to a sale? These things must be tracked on your website by programs like Google Analytics, which is free, or HitsLink, which is the one we like. And of course, you need the experience to be able to read and analyze the reports once they are generated on HitsLink, to track successes over a period of time.
Amazon Blog Strategy: Interview With Chris Brucia Get Elastic
Catalog Choice - Paperless Blog » Blog Archive » Speaking at..
Kinetic Ideas: Marketing Blog » Tap Into A Strategy of Abundance (Is ..
SEO Strategy : Classic Creations Graphic Design Blog
Blog Strategy and the Anonymity-Pseudonymity Continuum « extensions
Social Media Strategy- The Planning Stage chrisbrogan.com
B.L. Ochman's weblog: Internet marketing strategy, social media trends, new..
Clicks, Impressions, relationships, conversations: What̢۪s more important?
Blogs are great for customer relations if done properly. And remember that anything you post on the Internet can come back and bite you later on. It will stay up for a long time. So be very careful what you say. Authenticity is very important, and starting conversations with your readers is what works today, and in fact, it is the shift in marketing all together.
I have a blog for one of our clients and as part of his campaign for reputation management we do an educational blog that talks about his activities on the Boards of two charities, and also serves as a research and information tool for trends in education, and enables link backs to his website. I use every single blog topic that I write to also revise it into a longer article for submission to article websites. But you cannot submit duplicate copy or the search engines will not count it.
There's one aspect of blog writing that people often do not understand - and that is the search engine optimization and PR value. Take for instance, Rocco's blog above. I post one to two times per week in his blog. Basically you can type in Rocco Basile on Google, and note that many of the items in the ranking list are now positive posts, and include both his official website as well as blog posts, some PR Web listings, and articles. Inside his blog posts I always provide links back to his website. And the linking strategy can be to specific pages in his website that are related about my topic - not just to the home page. There are times when we have seen blog posts get picked up by other bloggers, who link to the blog.
Blogging requires a goal, and they are a lot of work. But the beauty of blogging is that it provides a marketing vehicle that does NOT rely on a third party, such as an editor writing an article about you. Corporate blogs provide you with an opportunity to tell your company's story. Various executives in your company, large or small, can post to a corporate blog, so you can create a strategy ahead of time, then assign folks to write.
Blogs are a great "Crisis Management" tool. Just look at how popular Martha Stuart's blog was during her court battle. And blogs are a great way to build a database of interested people, users, etc. Just shoot folks over to a sign up form from your blog, and you are certain to get some opt ins.
And as for the return on investment for blog writing, it costs very little - you can set up a blog at blogger.com, for free. So it costs you in time - your time, the time of your employees, or the writing fees to hire someone like MarCom to ghostwrite your blogs. You can check to see if your blog is building website traffic, because of course, the better your blog's linking strategies are, the more folks will visit your website. Once a visitor comes in to your website from your blog, what path do they go down? do they ultimately get funneled to a sale? These things must be tracked on your website by programs like Google Analytics, which is free, or HitsLink, which is the one we like. And of course, you need the experience to be able to read and analyze the reports once they are generated on HitsLink, to track successes over a period of time.
Amazon Blog Strategy: Interview With Chris Brucia Get Elastic
Catalog Choice - Paperless Blog » Blog Archive » Speaking at..
Kinetic Ideas: Marketing Blog » Tap Into A Strategy of Abundance (Is ..
SEO Strategy : Classic Creations Graphic Design Blog
Blog Strategy and the Anonymity-Pseudonymity Continuum « extensions
Social Media Strategy- The Planning Stage chrisbrogan.com
B.L. Ochman's weblog: Internet marketing strategy, social media trends, new..
Clicks, Impressions, relationships, conversations: What̢۪s more important?
Monday, June 2, 2008
The Best Link Building Practices
One of, if not the most important element in getting high search engine rankings for your Website is what is called link building. The search engines analyze and count links to your website - and they take a look at patterns for linking, linking profiles, deep-linking, and if you have used one-way versus the now old school reciprocal link building strategies.
As we have said many times before, content is king on your site. But right up there in importance is the quality of each link. That is more important than how many links you have.
Here are ten tips from our MarCom SEO expert, Mike Keesling's tips for link building.
1) Make your links inbound one-way links with anchor text that is related to your site.
2) Links should be from a site that’s related to the theme and content of your Website.
3) You need to vary the anchor text of your keywords and keyphrases when getting links from other sites.
4) Find your competition’s links at Yahoo.com -- type linkdomain:competition.com.
5) Do NOT do reciprocol links, but IF you do, create a special link swapping page on your site.
6) Don't use link farms, which are sites that host a large array of spam links.
7) There are some good directories for link building but most are worthless.
8) Links from social media websites like DIGG are fantastic. Getting an article on the front page might even cause your server to crash!
9)Electronic press releases are good links. Use PRweb.com.
10) Do NOT purchase links.
Basically, anyone can do these link building SEO strategies, however, those of us who have been doing SEO and social media for as long as we have, use other special tricks, and we know how to get the best links because we also link using your key words and phrases.
As we have said many times before, content is king on your site. But right up there in importance is the quality of each link. That is more important than how many links you have.
Here are ten tips from our MarCom SEO expert, Mike Keesling's tips for link building.
1) Make your links inbound one-way links with anchor text that is related to your site.
2) Links should be from a site that’s related to the theme and content of your Website.
3) You need to vary the anchor text of your keywords and keyphrases when getting links from other sites.
4) Find your competition’s links at Yahoo.com -- type linkdomain:competition.com.
5) Do NOT do reciprocol links, but IF you do, create a special link swapping page on your site.
6) Don't use link farms, which are sites that host a large array of spam links.
7) There are some good directories for link building but most are worthless.
8) Links from social media websites like DIGG are fantastic. Getting an article on the front page might even cause your server to crash!
9)Electronic press releases are good links. Use PRweb.com.
10) Do NOT purchase links.
Basically, anyone can do these link building SEO strategies, however, those of us who have been doing SEO and social media for as long as we have, use other special tricks, and we know how to get the best links because we also link using your key words and phrases.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Website Optimization and other Search Engine Tactics
The last year has been particularly interesting. Having been in this space now being called social media marketing, since before it even started, means that we have been able to test many of the practices that PR professionals are just now learning to use as mainstream. In fact, my associate Mike Keesling was doing Search Engine Optimization in Los Angeles for Pacific Island Reservations, a Hawaii Vacation Rentals site, back in 1996, when they only had one website. Today they have 12 websites, and for more than a decade he has helped them maintain a top ten ranking in Google, MSN and Yahoo. In fact - check it out if you are looking for a place to stay in Hawaii for vacation this summer! It'll save you money.
Onsite Search Engine Optimization (SEO) defines your website and targets your visitors. Whether you are a small business or a corporation you need an Internet marketing strategy that includes a website with interactive content that to attract your customers who are online using the search engines to find what they want. Then when your potential customers type in the keywords associated with your products and services, your website will come up within the first page of the search engines.
We call this Website Optimization – and just FYI, most web designers (no offense) do not install Meta, Title or Alt tags properly, and in fact they can cause more damage than good. For example, Flash websites cannot be SEOd, and this is critical to the search engines and your customers finding your website.
Another tip - with the right keywords we will make sure every page on your website is optimized properly with those words. More subject-specific content means better qualified traffic. This text is optimized if the search engines can find it via keyword-density. And your site should also be a good read.
Sitemaps are another thing you should consider. There are two types of sitemaps: 1) An HTML page listing the pages on your site by section so users can find the information they seek. 2) XML sitemaps, a way for Google to find all the pages on your site, and that includes URLs that may not be discoverable by their standard Web crawling processes.
Website Analytics –This tells us the behavior of your website visitors, allowing us to use data collected to determine which aspects of the website are working, such as which landing pages encourage people to take an action. We can use it to track visitors, sales or measure month-to-month SEO results and tweak online strategies.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) content syndication feeds are also a social media and Internet marketing must these days for better search engine visibility and better qualified traffic to your site.
And my favorite, being a PR professional, electronic press rooms and optimized releases are a must. Our eco-friendly electronic press kits are also optimized for the search engines making it easier for the media and your customers to find you. Here is another one of our client's online press kits that has been getting alot of attention lately. A company with a Los Angeles recording school, plus film schools and a radio DJ school known as the Entertainment Career Connection.
Onsite Search Engine Optimization (SEO) defines your website and targets your visitors. Whether you are a small business or a corporation you need an Internet marketing strategy that includes a website with interactive content that to attract your customers who are online using the search engines to find what they want. Then when your potential customers type in the keywords associated with your products and services, your website will come up within the first page of the search engines.
We call this Website Optimization – and just FYI, most web designers (no offense) do not install Meta, Title or Alt tags properly, and in fact they can cause more damage than good. For example, Flash websites cannot be SEOd, and this is critical to the search engines and your customers finding your website.
Another tip - with the right keywords we will make sure every page on your website is optimized properly with those words. More subject-specific content means better qualified traffic. This text is optimized if the search engines can find it via keyword-density. And your site should also be a good read.
Sitemaps are another thing you should consider. There are two types of sitemaps: 1) An HTML page listing the pages on your site by section so users can find the information they seek. 2) XML sitemaps, a way for Google to find all the pages on your site, and that includes URLs that may not be discoverable by their standard Web crawling processes.
Website Analytics –This tells us the behavior of your website visitors, allowing us to use data collected to determine which aspects of the website are working, such as which landing pages encourage people to take an action. We can use it to track visitors, sales or measure month-to-month SEO results and tweak online strategies.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) content syndication feeds are also a social media and Internet marketing must these days for better search engine visibility and better qualified traffic to your site.
And my favorite, being a PR professional, electronic press rooms and optimized releases are a must. Our eco-friendly electronic press kits are also optimized for the search engines making it easier for the media and your customers to find you. Here is another one of our client's online press kits that has been getting alot of attention lately. A company with a Los Angeles recording school, plus film schools and a radio DJ school known as the Entertainment Career Connection.
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