We recently had an inquiry from a new business client about doing blogger relations, and or blog marketing. As MarCom has been doing search engine marketing and blogs since the beginning, we have some sweet case histories, or success stories, if you will, but what came up is that it is often hard to write a case history when you don't even know how many bloggers have picked up your story without tracking them on Google. This era of new media marketing is still processing some of the measurement techniques - and the reality is - these results can take more than just a few months to track.
So as an exercise to do a "Client Successes" document for blogger relations, we used our client The Wiley Protocol, and believe it or not, even just in this year of 2008, I tracked back on Google - at least ten pages - and found that we have logged about 50 plus blog mentions since January. Some of these hits were picked up from our SEO press releases and articles. That said, blogger marketing actually goes hand in hand with SEO. And, that said, it should be part of, not separate from, your SEO and Social Media Marketing strategy. Figure out your objectives first - such as reaching brand advocates, or reaching consumers versus young medical doctors online. Or it could be getting more media, or promoting a special offer for a specific product or service.
As for how we can measure our successes? My associate Mike Keesling suggested that some measurement can be quantitative (such as the number of mentions on blogs below) and also qualitative. For example, you can measure traffic stats on your website and track (using HitsLink or Google Analytics tracking) how many people come to your website because of a blog post. Did traffic increase? You can also measure key words used on the blogs, and the SEO results. Again a strategy is required. And the results must be reviewed over a couple of months. It all takes time.
Another one of our clients - Peternity.com - has been optimizing mostly for the key word pet urns, or pet urn, dog urn, cat urn. Of course we also optimize for the words "pet memorials." It is working. She is finally getting customers buying more urns when their pets die. She writers her own blog, but if she didn't, MarCom would ghostwrite it for her, and the bottom line is that we are all on the same page with the SEO and social media marketing strategy. I write optimized press releases and SEO articles as well for this client. Check it out. Also note how I am linking in this blog (see links) for MarCom as well as our clients.
Our excellent results are below for The Wiley Protocol (www.thewileyprotocol.com). We started working with her on SEO about a year and a half ago. Now, our key word strategy has paid off, because she is in the top pages of Google for most of her most important key words. This client now has tens of thousands of consumer customers. The list of close to 50 blog mentions is below – mostly since Jan 08. And this may be only part of them.
http://www.bobyoungmd.com/wiley.htm
http://www.womensvoicesforchange.org/2007/01/ask_dr_pat_bioi.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/94472.php
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Wiley_T._522431849.aspx
http://www.therealcougarwoman.com/2006/11/wiley_protocol_.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/fashion/15suzanne.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=health&pagewanted=all
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Wiley_T._522431849.aspx
http://health.propeller.com/story/2008/06/01/ts-wiley-showcases-the-wiley-protocol-bio-mimedic-bio-identical-hormone-restoration-thera
http://www.riverwalkma.com/womenhealth.htm
http://www.topix.com/health/womens-health/2008/01/t-s-wiley-showcases-the-wiley-protocol-bio-mimedic
http://www.thespiritedwoman.com/newsletter/2005/10/august_2004.html
http://www.blogtoplist.com/rss/wiley.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0049567.html
http://www.onlypunjab.com/fitness/fullstory-insight-fitness+healthcare-newsID-247310.html
http://www.exploringcollege.com/article.cfm/id/179879
http://menopause.gaia.com/blog/2006/8/bioidentical_hormones_-_the_wiley_protocol
http://www.nature.com/ijir/journal/v20/n1/full/3901622a.html
http://online-pharm-review.blogspot.com/2008/01/ts-wiley-showcases-wiley-protocol-bio_18.html
http://www.griffinmedical.com/thewileyprotocol.htm
http://www.health78.com/health-news/TS-Wiley-Showcases-The-Wiley-Protocol-Bio-Mimedic-Bio-Identical-Hormone-Restoration-Therapy-BHRT-At-The-Integrative-Healthcare-Symposium-IHS/83796/
http://menopause.gaia.com/blog/2006/8/bioidentical_hormones_-_the_wiley_protocol?printable=1
http://www.westmoreland-pharmacy.com/retailer/store_templates/ret_custom_page2.asp?storeID=EE488B11DB25472285D10D6CC02CA42A
http://spa-namaste.com/article.cfm/id/252071
http://www.tummytucksurgery.co.uk/news/article_t_s_wiley_offers_physicians_039_two_days_back_on.php
http://www.myhormonereplacement.info/article.cfm/id/207103
http://www.myhormonereplacement.info/article.cfm/id/181820
http://menopause.gaia.com/blog/tags/bioidentical+hormones
http://www.escapecollege.com/article.cfm/id/179879
http://www.bobyoungmd.com/documents/OHN10-FemaleHormoneReplacementTherapy.htm
http://www.bio2000.com/article.cfm/id/252870
http://www.searchdisease.com/article.cfm/id/252870
http://personallifemedia.com/guests/740-ts-wiley
http://digg.com/podcasts/Beauty_Now_The_Intersection_of_Cosmetic_Surgery_Longevity_Bio_Medical_Innovation/318151
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/stlog/2006/11/weird_and_wiley_science.php
http://www.mjmls.com/viewtopic.php?t=86004
http://www.blogcatalog.com/posts/replacement%20protocol
http://www.heartlandhealing.com/pages/News/flier_OHE.pdf
http://www.bionity.com/lexikon/e/?ps=T.+S.+Wiley&didsearch=1&defop=and&wild=yes&d=none&dienst=lexikon
Oh and just FYI there are also blog posting services for $20 to $75 per blog where you are guaranteed blog posts. So just like anything else in life, you can buy your way onto a blog, and it would be a legitimate link (back to your site) which is great for your SEO results. But that requires a strategy and money. You can get a couple of hundred blogs with a good budget, or you can hire MarCom for blogger relations for much less per month.
Showing posts with label public relations social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public relations social media. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Our Small Business SEO and Social Media Teleseminar
Last week our MarCom associate Carole Hodges hosted a free teleseminar where I focused on small business websites, SEO and social media marketing. Carole's latest venture is The Yes Connection at http://www.carolehodges.com where she assists business partners and individuals with their start-ups and small business decisions.
There is a lot of confusion these days about what is needed on the Internet to market new and existing websites. So our teleseminar addressed the questions that the non-techie business owner may have.
The free teleseminar is about 40 minutes long, but in the end has some really good tips and information. To listen online: go to http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WXcl1C3s
In summary, some of the points we covered included how you should spend your marketing dollars wisely insofar as the complexity of web marketing. We answered questions including:
Does every business need a website? Are there times when an inexpensive “Website Tonight” type product from GoDaddy is an appropriate choice? If you don’t have a lot of money, is a free Blog a good starting place? How do you differentiate between the types of websites? For example: Brochure – e-commerce – Membership Site – Services (online purchase and not.) Do you NEED to be selling something online to benefit from a website? What brings traffic to a website? Why do I care about SEO – Couldn’t I just pay for clicks to my site? What are traffic statistics? What are keywords? How do I know what keywords are right for my business? How do I determine how much traffic I really want on my site? What makes people STAY on your website and look around? Why should I look for competitors on the web? What if I have BIG plans for growth... is there a way to structure my website so that I start out simple and later add product sales or a membership site? What advice do you give to someone who is starting out and does not yet have a website? What advice do you give to someone who has spent a lot of money on their website but it is not giving them the results that they want?
There is a lot of confusion these days about what is needed on the Internet to market new and existing websites. So our teleseminar addressed the questions that the non-techie business owner may have.
The free teleseminar is about 40 minutes long, but in the end has some really good tips and information. To listen online: go to http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WXcl1C3s
In summary, some of the points we covered included how you should spend your marketing dollars wisely insofar as the complexity of web marketing. We answered questions including:
Does every business need a website? Are there times when an inexpensive “Website Tonight” type product from GoDaddy is an appropriate choice? If you don’t have a lot of money, is a free Blog a good starting place? How do you differentiate between the types of websites? For example: Brochure – e-commerce – Membership Site – Services (online purchase and not.) Do you NEED to be selling something online to benefit from a website? What brings traffic to a website? Why do I care about SEO – Couldn’t I just pay for clicks to my site? What are traffic statistics? What are keywords? How do I know what keywords are right for my business? How do I determine how much traffic I really want on my site? What makes people STAY on your website and look around? Why should I look for competitors on the web? What if I have BIG plans for growth... is there a way to structure my website so that I start out simple and later add product sales or a membership site? What advice do you give to someone who is starting out and does not yet have a website? What advice do you give to someone who has spent a lot of money on their website but it is not giving them the results that they want?
Friday, April 11, 2008
Ten Steps: Defining Social Media Marketing
The Internet is not just a different advertising channel, but an entirely new and unique culture with a multitude of online communities. Although there are many folks that think social media marketing is just the latest fad, it is not. The reality is, it is changing how we do business.
Although traditional marketing and new media strategies continue to morph, the Internet has emerged into a tremendous platform for direct and open communications among the media, businesses, and individuals worldwide.
Many of our new clients need some basic education on what we recommend, why and how we do what we do. We have been using these ten steps in most of our proposals for quite some time now.
Search engine optimization, social media marketing and online PR tactics include:
1) Fully analyze your situation, including competition, market, etc.
2) Conduct keyword research to determine the keywords associated with your name most likely to achieve high search-engine rankings and create a keyword strategy to map the keywords to specific website pages.
3) Optimize the pages of the website, www.meridianlasercare.com.
4) Create a blog and ghostwrite apx. -1 to 2 posts per week recommended.
5) Social Media Marketing: Create additional site content through writing and publishing articles to disseminate over the Internet
6.) Post and distribute electronic press releases (Using wires such as MarketWire or PRWeb)
7.) Create bookmarked posts to social media sites. (DIGG, Del.ic.ious, Stumble Upon, etc.)
8.) Optimize existing and new content over the next three months and execute the social media PR plan.
9.) Acquire reciprocal links and incoming links via article submissions, electronic press releases and a blog.
10.) Purchase directory listings for your new website to provide additional, high page rank links. Directories include Yahoo! Directory, Superpages as well as any industry specific directories with high page rank. (Yahoo is $299/Year Superpages runs $22/month)
The real truth is that although these basic steps are usually recommended, there is no single template for every client, because every client's situation, website, and place among thier competition is unique. MarCom's Social Media Marketing proposals are customized for each new client, and then throughout the yearly campaign tweak their strategies based on results we are seeing from the tracking results.
Although traditional marketing and new media strategies continue to morph, the Internet has emerged into a tremendous platform for direct and open communications among the media, businesses, and individuals worldwide.
Many of our new clients need some basic education on what we recommend, why and how we do what we do. We have been using these ten steps in most of our proposals for quite some time now.
Search engine optimization, social media marketing and online PR tactics include:
1) Fully analyze your situation, including competition, market, etc.
2) Conduct keyword research to determine the keywords associated with your name most likely to achieve high search-engine rankings and create a keyword strategy to map the keywords to specific website pages.
3) Optimize the pages of the website, www.meridianlasercare.com.
4) Create a blog and ghostwrite apx. -1 to 2 posts per week recommended.
5) Social Media Marketing: Create additional site content through writing and publishing articles to disseminate over the Internet
6.) Post and distribute electronic press releases (Using wires such as MarketWire or PRWeb)
7.) Create bookmarked posts to social media sites. (DIGG, Del.ic.ious, Stumble Upon, etc.)
8.) Optimize existing and new content over the next three months and execute the social media PR plan.
9.) Acquire reciprocal links and incoming links via article submissions, electronic press releases and a blog.
10.) Purchase directory listings for your new website to provide additional, high page rank links. Directories include Yahoo! Directory, Superpages as well as any industry specific directories with high page rank. (Yahoo is $299/Year Superpages runs $22/month)
The real truth is that although these basic steps are usually recommended, there is no single template for every client, because every client's situation, website, and place among thier competition is unique. MarCom's Social Media Marketing proposals are customized for each new client, and then throughout the yearly campaign tweak their strategies based on results we are seeing from the tracking results.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Social Media Marketing and Revising Websites
Given the fact that folks are beginning to notice some changes in business and the economy, MarCom Broadband is getting lots of new business referrals. I think it is because we have little experienced competition out there. Few companies have been doing search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing as long as we have, which is basically since it all started.
I got a call today from a prospect who is planning on revising his website. This often happens. We even had one client who refused to listen to us a couple of years ago, and they redid their website, ditched half the content and lost traction with their rankings on Google, even though we warned them!
Point is that you do not want to change the name of your url if you don't have to, but if you do, then certain SEO tactics must be put in place. My associate Mike Keesling often works very closely with website design firms, like Rigney Graphics, right from the start of a client's redesign on their site to make sure their site SEO is done right. Their newsletter, called LunchMeat" is pretty fun BTW.
As an example, MarCom is about to change our company name from MarCom Broadband to MarCom New Media -- and we have a new url, so we will be redesigning our own website. The only way we can salvage our current ranking with Google is to point the old site to the new site. And we need to salvage much of the old site content and rework it with our key words on the new website.
Also what many people do not understand is that the Meta tags on each website page must correspond to content and keywords inside that particular page. There are many other little intricate tactics that we have learned to use to improve client rankings.
I got a call today from a prospect who is planning on revising his website. This often happens. We even had one client who refused to listen to us a couple of years ago, and they redid their website, ditched half the content and lost traction with their rankings on Google, even though we warned them!
Point is that you do not want to change the name of your url if you don't have to, but if you do, then certain SEO tactics must be put in place. My associate Mike Keesling often works very closely with website design firms, like Rigney Graphics, right from the start of a client's redesign on their site to make sure their site SEO is done right. Their newsletter, called LunchMeat" is pretty fun BTW.
As an example, MarCom is about to change our company name from MarCom Broadband to MarCom New Media -- and we have a new url, so we will be redesigning our own website. The only way we can salvage our current ranking with Google is to point the old site to the new site. And we need to salvage much of the old site content and rework it with our key words on the new website.
Also what many people do not understand is that the Meta tags on each website page must correspond to content and keywords inside that particular page. There are many other little intricate tactics that we have learned to use to improve client rankings.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Blog ?s from our Search Engine Optimization Clients
We always get quesitons from our clients about how they can improve their skills on tactics that they are doing. Yesterday for example, I had a quesiton from my client at Peternity.com
a place where people honor their pets for eternity by offering pet memorial products like pet urns, garden statue pet memorials, and other pet memorials.
Colleen asked, "Do you think it's okay for me to do my blog posting thanking another blog for featuring me on their blog. It would give me an opportunity to put in links to product pages on my site through my blog."
We get this and other questions often. Basically the answer is yes, however it's common courtesy to actually link to the other person's blog. Here are the rules about blogging ethics… Another thing you may want to do is blogroll folks that have other blogs that you want to promote. In your blog that means you list other blogs that you recommend.
And of course, MarCom Broadband is all about search engine optimization and it's critical that if you want folks to even FIND your blog, your keywords need to be in it. Make wure that you list them in headlines, close to the beginning of the sentence in para one and close to the beginning middle and end of the blog in general.
a place where people honor their pets for eternity by offering pet memorial products like pet urns, garden statue pet memorials, and other pet memorials.
Colleen asked, "Do you think it's okay for me to do my blog posting thanking another blog for featuring me on their blog. It would give me an opportunity to put in links to product pages on my site through my blog."
We get this and other questions often. Basically the answer is yes, however it's common courtesy to actually link to the other person's blog. Here are the rules about blogging ethics… Another thing you may want to do is blogroll folks that have other blogs that you want to promote. In your blog that means you list other blogs that you recommend.
And of course, MarCom Broadband is all about search engine optimization and it's critical that if you want folks to even FIND your blog, your keywords need to be in it. Make wure that you list them in headlines, close to the beginning of the sentence in para one and close to the beginning middle and end of the blog in general.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
News from a Social Media Survey
Tanya Irwin at www.mediapost.com mentioned a recent survey indicating that nearly one third of Web marketers plan to increase spending significantly on social media, including blogs and discussion boards. This survey was conducted in September by Prospero Technologies, LLC (www.prospero.com).
According to their 2007 Social Media Survey, 59 percent of respondents reported that social media performance in 2007 met or exceeded their marketing objectives, boosting future spending expectations--with 31 percent planning to spend significantly more on social media applications in 2008.
The survey also mentioned that current challenges include integrating community-generated content with the rest of the Web site and understanding best practices for new and evolving technologies as well as keeping up with new social media technology advances.
This is the area that MarCom Broadband is getting alot of new business. Writing content, adding key words properly, and nd making sure the meta and alt tags have been done properly.
Regarding the types of social media applications currently in use, respondents said blogs and discussion boards topped the list. And for 2008, they say that discussion boards and blogs still top the list for Web and brand marketers followed closely by ratings and reviews and then social networking applications.
That's why we ghostwrite for our cients blogs, such as Rocco Basile's new blog on his charity work with Children of the City in Brooklyn.
Happy New Year!
According to their 2007 Social Media Survey, 59 percent of respondents reported that social media performance in 2007 met or exceeded their marketing objectives, boosting future spending expectations--with 31 percent planning to spend significantly more on social media applications in 2008.
The survey also mentioned that current challenges include integrating community-generated content with the rest of the Web site and understanding best practices for new and evolving technologies as well as keeping up with new social media technology advances.
This is the area that MarCom Broadband is getting alot of new business. Writing content, adding key words properly, and nd making sure the meta and alt tags have been done properly.
Regarding the types of social media applications currently in use, respondents said blogs and discussion boards topped the list. And for 2008, they say that discussion boards and blogs still top the list for Web and brand marketers followed closely by ratings and reviews and then social networking applications.
That's why we ghostwrite for our cients blogs, such as Rocco Basile's new blog on his charity work with Children of the City in Brooklyn.
Happy New Year!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Navigating the Online World Via Search Engine Marketing
According to search engine marketing firm iProspect’s Search Marketer Measurement and Performance Study, eighty eight percent of search marketers measure the ROI of their campaigns, 9 percent more than in 2005. The company said that they commissioned the study to get a better understanding of search marketer behavior regarding results measurement and personal-performance evaluations. The study was fielded in March of 2007 by Jupiter Research.
It seems like most of our MarCom Broadband clients require much more than just public relations or search engine marketing these days. In order to navigate the online world, smaller businesses, and emerging technology clients like Acutrack, Inc. need marketers like us to help them with an entire host of other marketing dilemmas.
Hopefully, since 2005, the industry is doing a better job educating and providing resources for search marketers, and that’s why MarCom’s business model is ever changing. Just today we proposed that an affiliate marketing campaign might be of interest for Acutrack’s On Demand Production model, which gives their customers the ability to produce and ship custom packaged CDs or DVDs one at a time. On Demand targets recording artists and filmmakers, photo-service providers, software companies, marketing and PR professionals, authors, and self help businesses.
Keyword analysis and implementation and public relations tactics are only a part of what we do today as online marketers. Some people need to know how to build or rebuild a website. We get questions all the time about affiliate marketing, email marketing, and the value, or not, of direct mail. And though many small businesses can’t afford traditional print advertising, there are lots of questions about online advertising and banner ads.
Many smaller businesses are still wrapped up in the web challenges on the Web, fighting with organizational or technical challenges keeping them from measuring return on investment (ROI). And with this said, they should have an eye towards the future when it comes to putting these practices in place.
For those companies that we represent who are a bit more sophisticated, if the number of search marketers that now measure the ROI of their campaigns has risen to 88 percent, it would seem that these same marketers are motivated to understand the financial gains from their efforts.
Of course, in order to measure online results, there’s a need for web tracking and analytics tools, and professionals like us with services that support clients so that we can all evaluate the success of their efforts. Catch our newsletter for some tips in that area.
MarCom’s website has a Cool Tools section you might want to take a look at. In addition, back issues of this blog share data about social media marketing and how that can drive traffic to websites and help sell products and services.
It seems like most of our MarCom Broadband clients require much more than just public relations or search engine marketing these days. In order to navigate the online world, smaller businesses, and emerging technology clients like Acutrack, Inc. need marketers like us to help them with an entire host of other marketing dilemmas.
Hopefully, since 2005, the industry is doing a better job educating and providing resources for search marketers, and that’s why MarCom’s business model is ever changing. Just today we proposed that an affiliate marketing campaign might be of interest for Acutrack’s On Demand Production model, which gives their customers the ability to produce and ship custom packaged CDs or DVDs one at a time. On Demand targets recording artists and filmmakers, photo-service providers, software companies, marketing and PR professionals, authors, and self help businesses.
Keyword analysis and implementation and public relations tactics are only a part of what we do today as online marketers. Some people need to know how to build or rebuild a website. We get questions all the time about affiliate marketing, email marketing, and the value, or not, of direct mail. And though many small businesses can’t afford traditional print advertising, there are lots of questions about online advertising and banner ads.
Many smaller businesses are still wrapped up in the web challenges on the Web, fighting with organizational or technical challenges keeping them from measuring return on investment (ROI). And with this said, they should have an eye towards the future when it comes to putting these practices in place.
For those companies that we represent who are a bit more sophisticated, if the number of search marketers that now measure the ROI of their campaigns has risen to 88 percent, it would seem that these same marketers are motivated to understand the financial gains from their efforts.
Of course, in order to measure online results, there’s a need for web tracking and analytics tools, and professionals like us with services that support clients so that we can all evaluate the success of their efforts. Catch our newsletter for some tips in that area.
MarCom’s website has a Cool Tools section you might want to take a look at. In addition, back issues of this blog share data about social media marketing and how that can drive traffic to websites and help sell products and services.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
New Social Media Marketing Guidelines
I find it of interest to keep up with others in our marketplace. As a public relations (PR) professional I see so many changes taking place that just as soon as something new and interesting is published, it's already old news.
But with that said, I bought a new book called The New Influencers, A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media, by Paul Gillin because the book has been praised by The Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News and the BBC. Once I read it I can report back...
However, here's something you might want to check out. Over the last two months I have been conducting an initial social media campaign for our client Acutrack, Inc. I've been posting weekly article submissions and blog items, several times a week, and we got a hit today about their On Demand DVD Production service on another blog site, who picked up one of my PR Web releases. BTW if you are not using PRWeb (www.prweb.com) you should be, in addition to PR Newswire, for press release distribution. I use the $360 version, and it goes out to all the RSS feeds, and to select media outlets. PRWeb, a leader in online news and press release distribution, has been used by more than 40,000 organizations of all sizes to increase the visibility of their news, improve their search engine rankings and drive traffic to their Web site.
Also here are some tips on social networks:
Digg (http://www.digg.com) -- a technical social network, that focuses its resources on technical topics.
Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) -- is a social network that focuses on a consumer topics, and is often easier for average users. Here are a few of the other hot social media networks:
StumbleUpon - http://www.stumbleupon.com
Reddit - http://www.reddit.com
Furl - http://www.furl.com
Happy networking!
But with that said, I bought a new book called The New Influencers, A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media, by Paul Gillin because the book has been praised by The Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News and the BBC. Once I read it I can report back...
However, here's something you might want to check out. Over the last two months I have been conducting an initial social media campaign for our client Acutrack, Inc. I've been posting weekly article submissions and blog items, several times a week, and we got a hit today about their On Demand DVD Production service on another blog site, who picked up one of my PR Web releases. BTW if you are not using PRWeb (www.prweb.com) you should be, in addition to PR Newswire, for press release distribution. I use the $360 version, and it goes out to all the RSS feeds, and to select media outlets. PRWeb, a leader in online news and press release distribution, has been used by more than 40,000 organizations of all sizes to increase the visibility of their news, improve their search engine rankings and drive traffic to their Web site.
Also here are some tips on social networks:
Digg (http://www.digg.com) -- a technical social network, that focuses its resources on technical topics.
Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) -- is a social network that focuses on a consumer topics, and is often easier for average users. Here are a few of the other hot social media networks:
StumbleUpon - http://www.stumbleupon.com
Reddit - http://www.reddit.com
Furl - http://www.furl.com
Happy networking!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Google's Social Meltdown
Today’s post is courtesy of my associate Mike Keesling… who is MarCom Broadband’s search engine optimization expert, and a creative guru out of TV production and advertising. We don’t always agree on issues related to marketing, but I will admit that he’s right more than not.
Said Keesling, “It was only a matter of time before Google came to their senses and re-evaluated using social media as one of their weighted algorithms. To me the whole proposition of giving any weight to social media was what we call in the trade, an ass idea. It's the same thing as comparing reality TV to something worth watching (and if you're one of the morons who sees nothing wrong with wasting hours on irrelevant people doing ludicrous things then please stop reading, right now! This article is not for you.) Let's face it, reality TV is impossible to achieve once you let people know there's a camera on them.”
I don’t agree, for instance with Mike’s next comment basically because I am seeing the content we build and place in article submission sites and blogs, linking back to our client websites, work. “Social Media has always been a lowest common denominator content form, lots of volume, all noise...in other words a bunch of crap.”
He continues, “Why on earth (no, not Google earth which is cool) Google ever entertained the idea that a site's SEO should be influenced by social media content is beyond me...it reeked too much of the blind leading the seeing eye dog. To me, the purpose of a search engine is to help you find the information you seek, the answers to questions you ask; and how and why Google figured that MySpace Content, amateur videos and the like could be of help in my searches is perplexing to me. To their credit, this misguided experiment only lasted about three months before Google silently gave up the concept.”
And he wraps it up with this summary… “Apparently, Google fell victim to the Web 2.0 hype. Newer does not mean better, and much of Web 2.0 is the same-old, same-old with a new name or acronym to describe an existing practice or concept. I find no fault with Google; in fact I commend them for being one of those rare corporations in the top spot that is not willing to rest on their laurels, and is always trying to raise the bar. When you do that, invariably you will have some ill-advised choices, I just think Google could have spotted this one as a lemon before they ever 'went to press' with it. As it came down in the real world, it served solely to justify more idiots putting up more crap.”
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Content. Content. Content. The Future of Online Marketing
It’s growing more and more important for companies to produce content for the Internet. We have one emerging technology client who recently asked how we can product 500 pages of content for their website so they can compete with their competition. Easy. Start writing. BUT there are some tips that you need to be aware of first.
The first and foremost challenge, and there’s a reason that I am saying this, is that you MUST know your customer. Content marketing is all about producing content that addresses the concerns of your customer. Your Internet content can and should include web pages, traditional press releases, PRWeb releases, articles, white papers, blogs, forum posts, and podcasts. Content marketing is relevant information delivered by a company to a targeted audience with the goal of changing behaviors. The Internet offers plenty of opportunities for placing relevant content. But it MUST be optimized properly first, or Google can't rank it for when a customer searches for what they want to know using key words and phrases.
First you need to dedicate one person or group to the editorial content you create. Whether this is an internal communications specialist or a contracted team of social media marketing and SEO experts like MarCom Broadband, you must create great content for customers and prospects – and you need to have someone who knows how to optimize the content with your keywords perform their magic.
Next, invest in a good design team. Your customers deserve to enjoy looking at your website and reading your material, so make sure to use designers who have a good understanding of user behavior and preferences.
Use microsites – you don’t need all of this content on your main domain. Vertical portals or microsites are a great way to add content to a site. But for Google and the search engines to be able to read these pages, make sure they are meta-tagged properly and that they don’t go any deeper than three clicks. Make each micro page on one topic, and optimize each page with relevant key words.
I always say that I can take one single topic for a client, and write and use content for that topic – six ways to Sunday. Have fun.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Pay-per-Click versus SEO and Social Media Marketing
Pay-per-click (PPC) can be an excellent way to expand your search engine awareness about products or services in an early stage company and before the SEO and social media marketing tactical results kick in. But keep in mind, as the Internet has matured, so has the cost of pay-per-click advertising. The more viewers/listeners/readers, the more it costs to reach them, so it’s important to know when and when not to use pay per click ads.
PPC is good when you need to supplement key words that are harder to optimize. As an example, the word “antivirus,” which is a popular and hard to optimize key word, could be part of a PPC campaign. The goal however, in many cases, is to raise the bar on the traditional SEO results, and eventually reduce the amount of money spent on PPC. Because if you quit paying for PPC, the visibility goes away completely, whereas if you stop doing traditional SEO, it’ll take awhile for the page results -- where you are on the first pages of the search engines -- to diminish.
PPC is also good when doing targeted regional market rollouts. I recently did an online media plan for one of MarCom Broadband's clients known as Dogtor Paco, with new mortgage payment calculator technology. I like the fact that online newspaper classified advertising in large regional markets, such as the Los Angeles Times online real estate advertising, seems to be cost effective, but the one I really like is CitiSearch because it offers a no risk pay-per-performance (PPP) model - and the fact that it offers a national scope - with ads that run on its partner channels as well.
Companies definitely need a budget for PPC. It’s a day to day tracking experience requiring a lot of time, and in our experience, measurement for results is an essential key component. Often times campaigns require “tweaking” and adjustments before they work. Measurement for results is an essential key component.
On the other hand, an excellent way to expand awareness about your products and services, and to provide link backs to your website is via article submissions, PRWeb, PR Newswire, and a number of free online wire services.
According to Arbitron, 27 million Americans have listened to a podcast, or online radio and TV which has become very popular. Early adopters in any category are going to benefit from this. I recently did a podcast tour for my healthcare client and she’s already done three interviews. The beauty is that they provide links right back to the most popular pages on their website. In fact, check out our client http://www.bigmediausa.com/ provides this service.
In the end, the more content you have on the Internet with your key words, the better chance you will have to attract communities of people searching for your topic.
PPC is good when you need to supplement key words that are harder to optimize. As an example, the word “antivirus,” which is a popular and hard to optimize key word, could be part of a PPC campaign. The goal however, in many cases, is to raise the bar on the traditional SEO results, and eventually reduce the amount of money spent on PPC. Because if you quit paying for PPC, the visibility goes away completely, whereas if you stop doing traditional SEO, it’ll take awhile for the page results -- where you are on the first pages of the search engines -- to diminish.
PPC is also good when doing targeted regional market rollouts. I recently did an online media plan for one of MarCom Broadband's clients known as Dogtor Paco, with new mortgage payment calculator technology. I like the fact that online newspaper classified advertising in large regional markets, such as the Los Angeles Times online real estate advertising, seems to be cost effective, but the one I really like is CitiSearch because it offers a no risk pay-per-performance (PPP) model - and the fact that it offers a national scope - with ads that run on its partner channels as well.
Companies definitely need a budget for PPC. It’s a day to day tracking experience requiring a lot of time, and in our experience, measurement for results is an essential key component. Often times campaigns require “tweaking” and adjustments before they work. Measurement for results is an essential key component.
On the other hand, an excellent way to expand awareness about your products and services, and to provide link backs to your website is via article submissions, PRWeb, PR Newswire, and a number of free online wire services.
According to Arbitron, 27 million Americans have listened to a podcast, or online radio and TV which has become very popular. Early adopters in any category are going to benefit from this. I recently did a podcast tour for my healthcare client and she’s already done three interviews. The beauty is that they provide links right back to the most popular pages on their website. In fact, check out our client http://www.bigmediausa.com/ provides this service.
In the end, the more content you have on the Internet with your key words, the better chance you will have to attract communities of people searching for your topic.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Article Submissions for Social MEdia Marketing
Lately it seems pretty clear that the media don't really need PR folks pitching to them. We still do, however, most media are Internet savy enough to research their topics online and find articles about companies out there on the Web. And so that means that we, as marketers, need to make sure that our clients are also out there - accessable even by the media. What does this mean?
You start with a good press room on your website with press releases that include your key words embedded in each release. You add a press kit with documents that describe what your company is all about - that means press releases, company backgrounders or profiles, frequently asked questions (FAQ), product or services profiles, and customer testimonials, etc. Each of these documents too must be key worded.
Next you post your press releases by the wire service companies, and write articles and post them throughout the web in article submission sites. Its important that you not "copy" any documents that are posted. The rule of thumb is to change the content of each artcle on the web about 30 percent because Google will not "count" duplicates.
Just like in the old days, people said retail was all about location, location, location -- well, search engine optimization and social media marketing is all about content, content, content on the Internet.
You start with a good press room on your website with press releases that include your key words embedded in each release. You add a press kit with documents that describe what your company is all about - that means press releases, company backgrounders or profiles, frequently asked questions (FAQ), product or services profiles, and customer testimonials, etc. Each of these documents too must be key worded.
Next you post your press releases by the wire service companies, and write articles and post them throughout the web in article submission sites. Its important that you not "copy" any documents that are posted. The rule of thumb is to change the content of each artcle on the web about 30 percent because Google will not "count" duplicates.
Just like in the old days, people said retail was all about location, location, location -- well, search engine optimization and social media marketing is all about content, content, content on the Internet.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Optimizing Your Website for the Search Engines
Once you have chosen applicable keyword phrases (see previous blog item) that have a high search volume, but a corresponding low number in the "competition" column, the next important search engine optimization (SEO) tip is that you can now incorporate these key words and phrases to optimize your website. Website optimization is one of the most important things you can do to make your website more visible to the search engines.
When optimizing any website the goal should be to choose one or two of your top keyword phrases for each page in your website. You can make your choices by matching the subject matter of your web pages to the keyword phrases.
Then you can plug your keyword phrases into the appropriate place on each web page. The appropriate places are your title tag (approx 70 characters long), your meta description tag (approx 100 characters long), your headline or page title (preferably as an H2 tag), in the first sentence of your body copy, somewhere in the middle of your body copy, and in the last sentence of your body copy.
You can also use keyword phrases in the alt image tags -- and you get bonus points for using your keyword phrase as link text. Repeat this for each page on your website. Just remember not to duplicate tags, or exact content, because with anything you do on the Internet, the search engines will only count content one time, so you won’t get credit for duplications.
Applicable keyword phrases can also be used to guide your website content. This means you can use your keyword phrases to define what your website content should be about -- one web page per keyword phrase. So, while looking over your keyword phrases, figure out those that you already have content for, which ones you need to write content for, and then add content pages for those keyword phrases where you are lacking content.
Ultimately, good search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing will gain better search engine visibility.
When optimizing any website the goal should be to choose one or two of your top keyword phrases for each page in your website. You can make your choices by matching the subject matter of your web pages to the keyword phrases.
Then you can plug your keyword phrases into the appropriate place on each web page. The appropriate places are your title tag (approx 70 characters long), your meta description tag (approx 100 characters long), your headline or page title (preferably as an H2 tag), in the first sentence of your body copy, somewhere in the middle of your body copy, and in the last sentence of your body copy.
You can also use keyword phrases in the alt image tags -- and you get bonus points for using your keyword phrase as link text. Repeat this for each page on your website. Just remember not to duplicate tags, or exact content, because with anything you do on the Internet, the search engines will only count content one time, so you won’t get credit for duplications.
Applicable keyword phrases can also be used to guide your website content. This means you can use your keyword phrases to define what your website content should be about -- one web page per keyword phrase. So, while looking over your keyword phrases, figure out those that you already have content for, which ones you need to write content for, and then add content pages for those keyword phrases where you are lacking content.
Ultimately, good search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing will gain better search engine visibility.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Technoratti Top 100 List - http://www.readwriteweb.com/
I was doing some research today on Technoratti, and came across a top 100 website called http://www.readwriteweb.com/ by Richard MacManus. It focuses on new website strategies, social media and SEO news.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
What Makes a Good SEO Client?
Too often clients are their own worst enemies when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO.) Either they are totally unknowledgeable about the SEO process, or they possess just enough knowledge to be truly dangerous. Or worse yet, they trust their website designer to know and understand SEO. This can lead to a lot of frustration as well as bad results.
Just as we listen at first, do our homework and get into our clients challenges, we expect our clients to do the same. Good clients listen to what we know, and let us do our jobs. Bad clients take weeks to OK something we recommend. What only takes us about two hours to do for a good client ends up taking a month or more for a bad client.
One universal truth is that clients expect instant gratification - no matter how much we explain that this is unrealistic when it comes to SEO. In the case of the good client, results start showing up in about 30 days from the start date. But in the case of the bad client, results start showing up in about 60 days from the start date. The good client is thrilled, and the bad client blames us for delays.
Sometimes it gets even worse. The bad client has a project traffic manager who is clueless. This person often vetos several critical steps to the SEO process because they can't seem to comprehend their necessity. For instance it doesn't matter how many times we explain that optimized copy has been carefully crafted for keyword inclusion, placement and density, the traffic manager sees themselves as a wordsmith so they endeavor to rewrite copy, leaving out keywords, ignoring keyword density, etc. Then, once again, they point to the SEO as failing when in fact it was their misguided efforts at writing that were the cause for failure.
How do bad clients become good clients? They understand that social media and SEO are simply the latest tactics being used online in marketing, and this is no different than marketing, PR and advertising was back in the old days. The Web is merely another channel in which to market through and we have many exciting new tools to use.
The bottom line is that what we do as marketing and PR professionals requires skills just like other professions, and if you didn’t study it back then, you probably won’t know how to do it today either. So good clients just let us do our jobs and report back with the good results we can now measure, unlike the old days where it was hard to measure the results. Check out the case history below for one of Mike's "good" clients, and see the "good results" they have been getting since 1996.
Challenge: In 1996, Pacific Islands Reservations represented three vacation rental properties in Hawaii. The challenge was to grow the business of Pacific Islands Reservations in a cost effective manner using the Internet.
Solution: Using SEO white hat tactics, PacificIslands Reservations has grown from one website in 1996 to twelve websites in 2006 while maintaining top ten rankings in Google, MSN and Yahoo! throughout the period. During the same period, Pacific Islands Reservations has increased the number of properties it represents from three to 250. As search engine optimization and marketing has evolved, so to have the tactics used. When pay-per-click made its debut with goto.com (now overture which is owned by Yahoo!) Pacific Islands Reservations was one of the first twenty clients. Pay-per-click advertising was dropped in December 2004 when the ROI could no longer be justified. Other tactics that have been employed with success have been blogs, RSS news feeds, electronic press releases, link building and continued application of white hat search engine optimization tactics.
Result: Pacific Islands Reservations has grown from one full time employee to six full time employees. Along the way it has bought out several competitors and is the acknowledged leader in vacation rental reservation services in Hawaii. Revenues have expanded 400 percent in the last three years alone.
Just as we listen at first, do our homework and get into our clients challenges, we expect our clients to do the same. Good clients listen to what we know, and let us do our jobs. Bad clients take weeks to OK something we recommend. What only takes us about two hours to do for a good client ends up taking a month or more for a bad client.
One universal truth is that clients expect instant gratification - no matter how much we explain that this is unrealistic when it comes to SEO. In the case of the good client, results start showing up in about 30 days from the start date. But in the case of the bad client, results start showing up in about 60 days from the start date. The good client is thrilled, and the bad client blames us for delays.
Sometimes it gets even worse. The bad client has a project traffic manager who is clueless. This person often vetos several critical steps to the SEO process because they can't seem to comprehend their necessity. For instance it doesn't matter how many times we explain that optimized copy has been carefully crafted for keyword inclusion, placement and density, the traffic manager sees themselves as a wordsmith so they endeavor to rewrite copy, leaving out keywords, ignoring keyword density, etc. Then, once again, they point to the SEO as failing when in fact it was their misguided efforts at writing that were the cause for failure.
How do bad clients become good clients? They understand that social media and SEO are simply the latest tactics being used online in marketing, and this is no different than marketing, PR and advertising was back in the old days. The Web is merely another channel in which to market through and we have many exciting new tools to use.
The bottom line is that what we do as marketing and PR professionals requires skills just like other professions, and if you didn’t study it back then, you probably won’t know how to do it today either. So good clients just let us do our jobs and report back with the good results we can now measure, unlike the old days where it was hard to measure the results. Check out the case history below for one of Mike's "good" clients, and see the "good results" they have been getting since 1996.
Challenge: In 1996, Pacific Islands Reservations represented three vacation rental properties in Hawaii. The challenge was to grow the business of Pacific Islands Reservations in a cost effective manner using the Internet.
Solution: Using SEO white hat tactics, PacificIslands Reservations has grown from one website in 1996 to twelve websites in 2006 while maintaining top ten rankings in Google, MSN and Yahoo! throughout the period. During the same period, Pacific Islands Reservations has increased the number of properties it represents from three to 250. As search engine optimization and marketing has evolved, so to have the tactics used. When pay-per-click made its debut with goto.com (now overture which is owned by Yahoo!) Pacific Islands Reservations was one of the first twenty clients. Pay-per-click advertising was dropped in December 2004 when the ROI could no longer be justified. Other tactics that have been employed with success have been blogs, RSS news feeds, electronic press releases, link building and continued application of white hat search engine optimization tactics.
Result: Pacific Islands Reservations has grown from one full time employee to six full time employees. Along the way it has bought out several competitors and is the acknowledged leader in vacation rental reservation services in Hawaii. Revenues have expanded 400 percent in the last three years alone.
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