Social Media is one of the biggest pieces to the internet marketing puzzle and yet the least understood. Many websites, that initially had nothing to do with marketing to the consumer, have developed as new resources for companies trying to connect on a personal level with their audiences. As the new trend was foreseen as an effective and strategic marketing tactic, websites emerged specifically for business to consumer marketing. Described in Wikipedia, “social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Face book (social networking), Youmeo (social network aggregation), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging), Tenporium (social polling and consumer product reviews) and other microblogs such as Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.”

Furthermore, there are two important aspects of social media marketing. The first is social media optimization which is where a webmaster optimizes a site using social media platforms such as Reddit and Digg. Pages can be easily save and submitted to the online communities providing not only exposure but back links to your site.

The second part, social media marketing, involves building communities within specific online venues. A business is able to brand them self by creating a voice that interacts with members of the community. Conversation is the keyword in this arena. The goal is to keep the momentum of the conversations about your company constantly going and to build trust in your community.

Social media marketers like Internet Marketing Inc. offer to build an online identity or presence and socially optimize your site to utilize the power of the social media venues.

Just so we are clear from the beginning of this blog, noone can guarantee results in Google.  Noone has a “special” relationship with Google or has the ability to offer “priority” submissions.  Any search engine optimization company stating otherwise is full of it.  Stay away!

These days, Google even offers guidelines for hiring professional SEO firms.  The guidelines include best practices, what to look for in an SEO firm and how to manage expectations.  When we talk about managing expectations, this is in reference to the firm managing the expectations of the client.  The first step in this process is education.  Good SEO companies will educate first, then develop a strategy and give you their pitch. 

The following tips are simple but valuable if you are interested in hiring an SEO company or Internet marketing company.

(1)  Look for a company whose sales representatives actually understand SEO:  Natually, people in a sales position may not have the technical expertise to actually implement your campaign, but a good company will have trained sales representatives that have a sound understanding of ALL aspects of search engine optimization.

(2)  Beware of firms whose only presentation is a list of rankings they achieved for clients:  While this is a valuable aspect to judging a company and the success they have achieved for other companies, it is not the only component.  Additionally, you have no real idea when they acheived those results, if the client is still a client, and how competitive the keywords really were.  You also do not know how well optimized the client’s webiste was prior to the SEO firm taking them on. 

(3)  Look for a company that will give you a presentation about YOUR website and what they can do for you:  If they have not taken the time to personalize a presentation and do research on your behalf, then they probably will not go the extra mile once they have your signature on their 30 page contract (that probably has very strict cancellation policies).

(4) NEVER work with a firm that makes guarantees unless they are reasonable guarantees and offer money back if milestones are not hit.  Keep in mind that this is very unusual and top firms do not usually offer this.  Many firms that offer VERY low monthly rates and guarantee top placements use Black Hat tactics and take short cuts that will hurt you in the long run.  Sometimes these short cuts take a while to catch up to you and by that time the company is long gone; and you really can’t pinpoint exactly what they did unless a new SEO firm takes the time to analayze the past campaign…by that time it is too late and it could take years to get rankings (depending on the penalties you may have incurred).

(5)  Look for SEO companies that are transparent about the campaign and their methods:  Communication should be fluid from Day 1.  The company should be honest about how challenging the campaign might be and help you understand what to except along the way.  This is one of the most difficult aspects because SEO takes time and patience.

The best thing a good SEO company can offer is education, best practices, communication, transparency, and hard work!

Google is a dynamic anmial that we will always be chasing but may never catch up to completely.  Both Google search engine optimization and Google AdWords are always updating algorithms, strategy and requirements.  Its like having a boss that you are always trying to figure out and impress.  As soon as you think you have figured him/her out are in their good graces, they all of a sudden no longer care about that particular skill you may have acquired (just to impress them).  It can be a frustrating path, but like anything else…all we can do is persevere!

First, lets define what the Quality Score is in reference to Google AdWords (PPC).  The Quality Score is a dynamic metric or calculation that assigns a score or rank to each keyword in your ad group.  The score is calculated to display how Google thinks that particular keyword fits within your ad group and the user’s search queries.  Basically, the higher the Quality Score is for a particular keyword, the lower the cost per click (CPC) and the higher the ad position will be on the page.  The Quality Score is yet another effort by Google to improve the quality and relevance of ads and results that appear in their SERPs.

With Google’s latest updates, it no longer uses the “inactive” classification for keywords in your ad group that have a maximum bid below what is required for first page placement.  Now Google assigns those keywords using the “first page bid” qualifier.  Before you could still tell when your keywords were not appearing on the first page but this defines it more clearly and puts it right there in front of your face. 

So why does Google do this?  In my opinion it is largely revenue based.  This shows Pay Per Click advertisers how much they have to increase the bid to appear on the first page.  Once you do, very soon others will follow.  By doing this, Google is creating a new sense of urgency among the bidders.  Previously, when you saw the inactive classification you might delete that keyword from your ad group.  Now, the ads are actually active but simply assigned a classification as “not being on the first page”.  This causes PPC bidders, Internet marketing firms, and PPC management companies to increase bids more frequently and sooner than they would have in the recent past.

So keeping all this in mind what can we do to “impress” Google now and make sure our keywords and ad groups are assigned good Quality Scores?

The best thing to do is always stick to the basics: 

(1) Do some keyword house cleaning.  You don’t need your Quality Score to tell you a keyword is not working well within your ad group.  You can simply look at click through rates, bounce rates, and conversion rates to see what is going on.  Sometimes you may have keywords that are assigned a “Poor” Quality Score but actually have decent conversions rates.  However, the click through rates are propbably so low that it may not be relevant enough to keep in the ad group.

(2) Look at your ad groups and make sure there is not too much redundancy in the keywords.  Naturally, you will want to have a bunch of different variations in keywords but consider separating them into different ad groups as Google might penalize you if you do not. 

(3) Always make sure your ads are targeted to the pages that are as relevant to the ad as possible.  Ideally, we would all be creating a landing page for every keyword but that of course is not at all realistic.  Laning pages are not just important anymore for conversion rates.  Google will take into consideration the pages that your ads are directed to.  Make sure those pages have the keywords at least once or twice in the meta tags and content.

Companies have been sending out press releases for over 100 years, but very few companies actually optimize their press release for the search engines. By embedding keywords into properly written press releases it can have a huge positive impact on your search engine rankings. If for example one of our clients www.newcondosonline.com is sending out a release on the San Diego Condo market, the term “San Diego Condo” should be coded and linked within the release to go back to the San Diego Condo page of www.newcondosonline.com. By doing this, each time a blogger or media outlet picks up the release they have a much stronger chance of linking back to the site and creating a positive SEO impact. You can only have about 1 coded link per every 100 words in the press release or it will be seen as spam.

We use prweb for almost every release because they have a huge reach and their press releases are always accepted by Google News. Pr Newswire is another very popular one. There are new sites popping up each week as I just read about onlineprnews.com which offeres SEO optimized releases for only $6 while some of the other sites are $200 to $400 for each release.

I reccomend you consult with your current Internet Marketing Company to make sure that all of your future press releases can undergo SEO work before they are sent out. Many existing public relations firms do not know how to do this and they don’t do it which is why it is very important to use a skilled Internet Marketing firm to help you get this done properly.

-Brandon

The Internet by definition is global, but are you really reaching the World Wide Web?  Back in the 80’s and early 90’s as the search engines grew from simple directories to powerful global search utilities, everything was based in the USA and primarily in English.  An interesting fact to note is that back in 1995-1996 75% of the web was in English.  Most people outside the US understood that search engines were a thing of the “West” and if they wanted to run a search it had to be done in English.  That is far from true now.

Now only about 25% of the world wide web is in English and about 99% of “foreigners” will first do searches online in their native tung.  Yes, there is a Japanese Yahoo and German Google!  So why is this important from an Internet marketing perspective? 

Technology and global commerce have create a “flat” world where we can communicate and trade in real time with anyone anywhere in the world.  For example, I just got off a conference call with a real estate developer in Panama.  I do not speak Spanish so we used translators and had the call using a combination of English and Spanish. 

The idea behind multilingual SEO is not to have to try to do business with foreigners in their native langual but to attract them to your site and ask them to do business with you in English.  So how is this accomplished if your site is written all in English?  The great part about this is that you do not need to translate your whole site into every language in order to submit to foreign search engines.

For example, let’s say that you are targeting consumers in Germany.  You do not need to translate the whole site into German, though you could if the site is not too large.  The easiest way to prepare your site for foreign search engine submission is to create one landing page in German that introduces the user to what your site is all about.  The page would include:

• All content written in German
• Content using your keywords in German
• Title tags, meta tags, and H1 tags in German
• And finally a call to action asking the user to click through to your English site

This will prepare your site to be submitted to the German Google for example and you can simply SEO that page alone to gradually acheive higher rankings for your target keywords.  This page acts as a “landing page” or portal which guides the user to your site.  By the time they get there they understand what your company does and why they should be doing business with you in Engish.  Most people around the world speak multiple languages anyway - except us Americans!  You can find people on the East Coast of Somalia who speak better English than some of us here at home!

It is also interesting to note that only about 10% to 15% of the users in foreign search engines won’t click through to the English site.  That is a pretty good conversion rate!  By utilizing multilingual SEO you can actually reach the global audience and increase your ROI on overall search engine optimization efforts.

These days in real estate, many media buying companies are recommending that their clients spend more of their budget with the online medium. Why? Well, the answer is quite simple. Print is losing traction as the primary advertising resource – it’s getting more expensive, consumers choose the internet over print 8 times out of 10 to search for real estate and the internet provides up to the minute data. All major real estate developments that advertise in print or other offline mediums, will always include a website in the add. I challenge you to show me any current luxury real estate development advertisement that doesn’t include a URL. A media buying company will most of the time recommend that if you have a luxury project, you will need a very flashy, cool, and hip site. What many media companies fail to really understand is the importance of how the website is built and when the website should be launched. This is why an Internet marketing company is vital for any luxury real estate campaign. Any good internet marketing company will agree that if you have a luxury real estate development project, the development website should convey that message. However, the site must be built correctly. That includes:

Many calls-to-action: Calls-to-action are extremely important as they will capture the viewers basic info – name, e-mail, phone and etc. These must be prevalent throughout the site and easy for the user to see. Leads in the market today are extremely valuable so collecting them is imperative.

Site must be SEO friendly: typically, luxury real estate development websites are done entirely in flash with very little consideration for Search Engine Optimization. It makes no sense to build a site for a luxury development and not build it for search engines to find. We live in a global market and buyers are coming from all corners of the world so having your site appear organically for competitive terms can only help your chances of securing a buyer.

Build the site first: Once a developer gets the needed funding and permits, the website is not one of the most important things to cross his/her mind. Well, it should be! The sooner you can start building the site and optimizing it correctly, the less money you’ll be spending on PPC.

A good media company that understands the global real estate market is very important these days. Having a solid Internet marketing company to help guide the way of the website is equally important and should not be overlooked.

Pay Per Click advertising is of course one of the fastest ways to achieve quick results in the search engines.  Natually, we all want our sites to be number one in Google organic rankings for all our most popular search terms but that just isn’t realistic.  PPC campaigns are a great way to bridge that gap while waiting for more natural rankings (assuming your are properly optimizing your site with SEO) or to launch a specific online ad campaign centered around a specific product launch, event, etc. 

Part of the job of a qualified Internet marketing company is to educate the client on how their PPC campaign should be run, what keywords will be most effective, and how to acheive the best ROI.  Yes, we all want the best ROI possible but there are many subtle variations in every campaign that can save (or waste) tons of money.  Here are a few tips on how to put together a reasonable campaign with a limited budget in a highly competitive industry.  Keep in mind, these days, the more competitive the industry is out in the “real” world, the more competitive it usually is in the “virtual” world.

Don’t Be Unrealistic:  This is where the education piece comes into play.  The first part of putting together an effective PPC campaign within a given daily/monthly/weekly budget is to research and analyze the industry and keywords associated.  The keywords searched the most each month will usually have the highest cost per click.  If you are in fact in a very competitive industry with terms running at $3 per click and up, you may want to consider starting with broader “long tail” keywords that focus on a specific niche within your industry.  Long tail keywords are generally searched less but are more specific and can actually result in a better conversion.  The keywords searched the most may drive tons of traffic but you have to then have the ability to maintain visibility for your listings and convert what traffic you do get to decrease the overall cost per conversion. 

For example, if you only set a budget of $20 per day for a popular key term your campaign might reach its limit by 10 am and then you are done for the day!  Another aspect to consider is that if you are a little fish in a big pond, and your product does not compare well with the giants in the industry you may want to take that into consideration.  I am not saying don’t go for it, because I am extremely competitive by nature.  However, research where your competition falls short (and you excell) and consider starting there first. 

So the bottom line is to be realistic in your choices of keywords at first.  Go after ones you can afford and follow some of the additional steps in order to use those less expensive key words to generate conversions (sales) and use that revenue to go after some of the more expensive terms.

Create a Budget and Stay Committed to it:  If you are not the one directly handling the campaign, you may have hired a PPC management company or Internet marketing firm to do the job.  But you should know the details so you can plan accordingly.  If you are in a competitive industry with expensive keywords you need to consider what budget you allocate to the PPC effort.  Sometimes people are just way too unrealistic and commit only a small amount of money.  This is important to note because you need to consider all the aspects of a good PPC camapign:  research, website preparation (landing pages), implementation, analysis, adjustments, and more analysis. 

If you are bidding $3 per click but selling a $5 item, it may not be worth it.  Ongoing analysis of the bounce rates and conversion rates will help with this process.  Additionally, continually monitoring your titles and descriptions is important for seeing which keywords are giving you the best return.  Sticking to the budget can be difficult if you are not seeing the ROI you want immediately but it takes some time to analyze the results before you can make adjustments that will improve those results.

The Six P’s:  I am prior military and this might not be a common saying among civilians, but I know some of you have heard it.  Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.  It can never be more true than when spending money on PPC.  Let’s face it, organic SEO is much more of an “investment” as it takes time to see results.  PPC may take time to assess conversions and increased revenue but the visibiltiy in the SERPs happens at the flip of a swicth.

When I refer to planning I am really referring to the development of solid landing pages that will help convert that user who clicked on your PPC ad into a sale.  A landing page is basically a page on your site that is very specific to the ad and has very ovbious calls to action.  For example, if your ad appears for the term “Wedding Invitations” then your landing page should be specific ONLY to your wedding invitation products and services with calls to action like “BUY NOW”…you get the idea.  Sending specific PPC ads to your home page (especially the long tail terms mentioned above) will not result in good conversions as it requires too much extra effort for the user to find what you want them to find.

Timing is Everything:  During the research process and throughout the whole campaign you need to research the best times of day for when people are searching for your product or service.  You may notice for example during the campaign that your click through rates are higher from 11 am to 2 pm and then pick up again at 7 PM.  Whatever it turns out to be, turn off the campaigns during the dead times so your visibiltiy will be more prominent during the more active hours.

Location, Location, Location:  The great thing about Internet marketing using PPC is that you can further dial down on your target audience and stretch your budget using GEO-targeting.  For example, if you are a flower shop in downtown Chicago and only targeting people who live and work in the city, you probably do not want to run a competitive national campaign for “flowers”.  You can GEO-target the campaign so that only people within a given mile radius see the ads.  That way you are not wasting clicks on people who will most likely not be your customers.

All of these tips can be useful for any campaign…but are most useful when launching a campaign in a competitive industry.  Keep in mind for the most part pay per click marketing will only get more expensive, so plan accordingly.  Happy bidding!

Well, it finally happened.  I earned a traffic violation this morning because I was driving while talking on my phone.  As many of you may know, in California it is no longer legal to drive while talking on your cell phone.  Hands free devices are fine but you certainly can not hold the phone to your ear like I was doing when I was pulled over this morning!  I was on my way in to the office around 7 am and natually was pulled over just a couple blocks from home.  Now I know better!

What is interesting is that no law has been passed yet about text messaging, using your iPhone to update your Facebook status, or Tweeting while driving.  I am sure the authorities of the fine state of California have this in the works because this is seemingly more dangerous that talking on the phone. 

It is amazing what one can control from the palm of their hand…hopefully not while driving.  We can check email, surf the web, download and read/edit documents, instant message, and even chat on social media platforms.  Twitter is one of these social media platforms that has become increasingly popular over the past year.  This is something that can easily be done from the palm of your hand as it is a micro blogging site that limits characters for each post to just 140. 

When first introduced to Twitter, it may seem a bit silly as many of the postings and categories are just random comments and thoughts by people you have never heard of.  Who cares, right?!

However, with the rapid/explosive growth of Web 2.0 systems, social media marketing, and sites based on user generated content, a system like Twitter can be transformed into a “social utility” with endless possibilities.  For the purposes of Internet marketing it can be quite powerful to help create a following and build a community.  Once a community and trusted following is created, marketing angles can be utilized as long as it adds value to the community. 

Of course, a social platform like Twitter is only as powerful as the following you can create so it must be natural and valuable to your contacts if you plan to use it as a marketing tool.  As far as social media optimization and marketing go, the more traffic and followers a community has, the more possiblities there are.

Any good search engine optimization company will include a link building aspect to every SEO campaign.  SEO strategies involve optimizing site structure, unique content, internal linking, and building solid inbound links.  All of these components must be crafted utilizing best practices so the search engines “know” that your site is relevant, valuable, and trustworthy.  Missing any piece of the overall SEO strategy can keep your site from acheiving page one rankings.  One of the most important ongoing pieces of the campaign is to continually and natually build good inbound links to your website.

Before we go any further let’s do a quick review of the definitions and go over WHAT links are:

Internal Links:  links within a website (basic navigation from page to page)

Inbound Link:  links coming in to your website from another URL

Outbound Links:  links from your site to another URL

External Links:  links between different URLs

Now that we have established the basic definitions, let’s focus on inbound links.  All of these are important but one of the key factors when the search engines are reviewing your site and deciding whether to give you good rankings for your search terms, is the number and quality of inbound links. 

So WHY is this important for search engine optimization? 

Search engines will define a site as more relevant, valuable, and trustworthy if the site has a good number of links from other reputible sites.  The number of links necessary for rankings depends and the competitiveness of the keywords and the other sites you are competing against.  Both quantity and quality are important but any good SEO company or Internet marketing firm would prefer 10 great links over 100 poor inbound links.  The search engines will review the quality and number of your inbound links and where they link to your website.  Generally, most of the links a site has coming in go to the home page.  It is even more effective if a site has inbound links going to many different pages within the site because this tells the search engines that the site has many different pages of content that are valuable.  They search engines will do a quick evaluation of the site linking to your site and may look at the content on your page as well. 

Many times the actual anchor text for the link provides enough “content” for that page in order for the search engines to deem the link as valuable (usually this happens when the anchor text uses your proper keywords and is from a site with a high page rank).  For example, if you have a page in your site about new condos in downtown Dallas and that page has an inbound link from a reputible site using the anchor text “new condos in downtown Dallas” you are off to a great start!

So WHEN does a site build links and how quickly should this process be pursued?

A professional search engine optimization company will do this process gradually and naturally.  The days of link farming and link trading (reciprocal links) are over…in short, no more short cuts!  The best practice for link building is the good old fashion way.  Much of this is done through social platforms, article submissions, press releases, blogs, forum posts, directories, etc.  We can go into the details of each of these later but the lesson to take away from this is that natural link building is the only way to go. 

So how do you define “natural” methods?

Natural link building takes time.  If the search engines see a nice steady upward progress in the number and quality of your links, they will assign better rankings over time.  Unnatural link building may be defined as a rapid or drammatic increase in links in a short period of time, sites that link to one another (or link trading) or unqualified paid links (this does not include legitimate advertising or directories). 

OK, so you are ready to start link building.  HOW do you define what the good links are?

Generally companies will outsouce this to an Internet marketing company or SEO firm but you should know the basics so you can understand the process.  There are many tools out there to assess what the proper links would be for a certain campaign (varies depending on keywords targeted).  The best and most used tools are usually Yahoo Site Explorer, Google Page Rank, sites like Compete.com or Alexa.com that show traffic levels and give rankings, Digg, Technorati, etc.  Other things to consider when assessing value are the age of the domain and possibly seeking links from government or school websites (.gov sites are very valuable). 

The best way to attack this process is with an experienced link building team beacuse it can take time and man power.  Yahoo is much quicker to recognize links than Google so keep in mind that you can check this throughout the process.  For example, a quick way to see how many inbound links Google is recognizing for your site is to type “site:domainname.com” into the Google search box.  The top right portion of the page will give you the number if links recognized.  The bottom line is that to keep improving your rankings, this is a never ending process…so stay at it!

All of your marketing components need to compliment and support one another.  This is increasingly true for print advertising.  Most searches online are prompted by some type of offline stimulation.  Print advertising, the oldest and most traditional form of media placement, is also now one of the most expensive forms of advertising.  In this economy, you need to carefully consider every ad placement to ensure that you will generate a good return on that investment.  You have to spend money for your business to grow - but spend wisely.

Designing the perfect print ad can generate fantastic results for any campaign but it is only one piece of the puzzle.  There is a lot of preparation that should be done before launching a print ad campaign.  One of these steps is to prepare your website for new visitors that will result from the print media.  Internet marketing should directly support the concepts in your print marketing which means you will have to make some changes/updates to the current website. 

When preparing the print ad you must consider the following:

• The direct message to your target audience
• Where you are going to direct people for more information (i.e. phone number/website)
• The page on the website that you will be sending people
• How to define the ROI from the overall campaign

These days, Internet marketing is one of the easiest forms of media in which to accurately judge ROI and it can support measuring the effectiveness of print advertising as well if done correctly.  Notice the third bullet point mentions the “page” on the website where you will be sending people to learn more or take the next step.  If you are thinking that that page would be your home page then generally you would be wrong.  A home page usually carries a general message to your target audience and has many links to many different place on your site.  This of course can be distracting and the user can get lost - meaning you will probably not make the “sale”.

When launching a print campaign you should consider hiring a professional Internet marketing company that can help carry the message over to the online audience.  Every print campaign should be supported by a well optimized landing page that is specific primarily to the message in the print ad. 

For example, if you own a sporting good store and you run an ad campaign about the new summer recreational equipment that the store is selling then you want to send that potential buyer to a page only about that equipment.  For the best ROI, this landing page on your site should support the message from the print ad, deliver on the promises, and give them more.  Additionally and most importantly, it should have a few distinct calls to action (i.e. BUY NOW).  The call to action is the most important piece as it is where a conversion or sale will be prompted.

If your URL for example is sportinggoods.com, then you could use a unique URL for that page like sportinggoods.com/summer-equipment.  The added benefits are that your will increase ROI and add new valuable pages and content to your website!

The key factors to remember when running a media campaign are:

• ensure that all offline pieces are supported by the online pieces
• the online portions like your website and landing pages have powerful calls to action
• you monitor results continually and make adjustments when needed to optimize ROI