Friday, March 12, 2010
Don’t Market At Me! I’m Not Listening…
“How do I use social media as an online marketing tool for my company?”
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who continuously talks about themselves? Of course you have. We all have. These one way conversations are quite the monologue and often leave the other party frustrated. I find myself tuning out to what that person is saying and just trying to find a “Pinter Pause”, or at least, a slight moment of silence to jump in with a few simple words. It’s quite annoying and leaves you feeling bored and frustrated.
As we get older we understand that it could be a personality flaw or just a lack of courtesy. And if we use the same comparison, with relation to traditional and online marketing, we are left with ineffective results. When we speak about Social Media we are not just tweeting our latest sale for products and service. Lord knows there are a ton of those out there within the now 10 billion tweets. These are the first ones we overlook as they offer no value.
So that leaves us with the open ended question, “How do I use social media as an online marketing tool for my company?”
And when I ask this question it has more to do with driving online traffic and capturing new leads. Social Media offers us the most advanced form of real time communication for us to speak with potential customers, clients, employees and the general public. But that is not the best part about it.
An effective Social Media campaign begins with listening to what is out there. What are people talking about? A quick search.twitter.com of your keywords and phrases produces results where you can listen to what type of chatter is occurring. Sales101 teaches us if you’re not listening then you’re not selling. Sales and Marketing are directly related to one another and this is no exception.
When we are delivered results the first instinct may be to hit up as many replies as possible for instant traffic. Oh wouldn’t that be nice? And in a sense, sure – it most certainly would. But, if it sounds to good to be true than it most likely is. Remember your reputation is always on the line. People are listening to your tweets and what you say is an impression that you may never have the chance to retract.
When we listen to what the community is speaking about we can become an active member with valuable replys or retweets. A good ratio for retweets vs. tweets about your self is 12:1. That means listen and reply naturally 12 times before you tweet yourself. This is an effective formula which leaves you looking like an expert by providing valuable content to the community and not just sending out tweet spam.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who continuously talks about themselves? Of course you have. We all have. These one way conversations are quite the monologue and often leave the other party frustrated. I find myself tuning out to what that person is saying and just trying to find a “Pinter Pause”, or at least, a slight moment of silence to jump in with a few simple words. It’s quite annoying and leaves you feeling bored and frustrated.
As we get older we understand that it could be a personality flaw or just a lack of courtesy. And if we use the same comparison, with relation to traditional and online marketing, we are left with ineffective results. When we speak about Social Media we are not just tweeting our latest sale for products and service. Lord knows there are a ton of those out there within the now 10 billion tweets. These are the first ones we overlook as they offer no value.
So that leaves us with the open ended question, “How do I use social media as an online marketing tool for my company?”
And when I ask this question it has more to do with driving online traffic and capturing new leads. Social Media offers us the most advanced form of real time communication for us to speak with potential customers, clients, employees and the general public. But that is not the best part about it.
An effective Social Media campaign begins with listening to what is out there. What are people talking about? A quick search.twitter.com of your keywords and phrases produces results where you can listen to what type of chatter is occurring. Sales101 teaches us if you’re not listening then you’re not selling. Sales and Marketing are directly related to one another and this is no exception.
When we are delivered results the first instinct may be to hit up as many replies as possible for instant traffic. Oh wouldn’t that be nice? And in a sense, sure – it most certainly would. But, if it sounds to good to be true than it most likely is. Remember your reputation is always on the line. People are listening to your tweets and what you say is an impression that you may never have the chance to retract.
When we listen to what the community is speaking about we can become an active member with valuable replys or retweets. A good ratio for retweets vs. tweets about your self is 12:1. That means listen and reply naturally 12 times before you tweet yourself. This is an effective formula which leaves you looking like an expert by providing valuable content to the community and not just sending out tweet spam.
Labels: online marketing, seo
Monday, February 1, 2010
5 Common SEO Mistakes
While there is no true road map that we can pull from the glove compartment and unfold to help us navigate the search engines, it has been proven that these common pitfalls will be detrimental to your organic search engine marketing efforts. As always, hire an expert to handle these services for optimal performance and continued results.
1) Starting Too Late
SEM should be well thought out as early as when you first register your domain name or plan your new web design or re-design. The concept of customizing your web pages content toward targeted keywords and key phrases has become more apparent and rewarded with top position results given by major search engines. These results are in no way an accident nor are they necessarily just a trick used to fool your way to the top. They more importantly benefit the visitors of your web site.
Advice: Give thought to your prospective customers and the keywords you want to focus on early in the marketing development stage.
2) Spy vs. Spy
In the wild, wild west days of SEO there were plenty of agencies offering top results, and getting it, by font matching (hidden keywords stuffed on a page that match the color of the background of a page), soliciting links from link farms as well as generating duplicate content (multiple pages with the same content). These practices are labeled “black hat” (as opposed to wearing a white hat and being the good guy) and quickly may cause penalization toward your site and in some cases lead to being banned.
Advice: Let a professional SEO company do what they do. Industry professionals have seen what works and will be able to adapt a campaign to meet your companies’ needs.
3) Less Is More
OK, you’ve got your site up and running. You’ve seen some traffic coming in. Now is the time that you decided to do some research on how to optimize your web site. That’s fantastic! Problem is, you took every single suggestion you found on the web and applied it toward your pages. Over optimizing a web page or web site can and will be detrimental to your SE results.
Advice: When in doubt, natural is best. A properly optimized site will feel natural to read and navigate. Don’t force keywords in where they shouldn’t be.
4) Too Much Coffee
Considering the evolution of the webs interactive features and web 2.0 functionality we need not neglect the inclusion of a little bit of javascript. The fantastic thing about this type of code is in the way it encourages our visitors to interact with our sites for a variety of purposes. That being said, many novice or intermediate developers will simply copy/paste code directly into the page. While this works it is not best practice for SEO
Advice: Use external files (or unobtrusive javascript – DOM scripting) at all times. Also place CSS in external files.
5) What’s In Your Head?
There are tags used for specific reasons when it comes to search engine placement. Regarding the most important element on the page, the content, there are header tags and paragraph tags. A page without header or paragraph tags is a missed opportunity. Optimizing the layout of your page by utilizing the correct components is essential in assisting with identifying the more important elements on that page.
Advice: Try not to use any lower than an h2 tag for identifying a header and make certain that your targeted keywords and phrases are evident within them.
1) Starting Too Late
SEM should be well thought out as early as when you first register your domain name or plan your new web design or re-design. The concept of customizing your web pages content toward targeted keywords and key phrases has become more apparent and rewarded with top position results given by major search engines. These results are in no way an accident nor are they necessarily just a trick used to fool your way to the top. They more importantly benefit the visitors of your web site.
Advice: Give thought to your prospective customers and the keywords you want to focus on early in the marketing development stage.
2) Spy vs. Spy
In the wild, wild west days of SEO there were plenty of agencies offering top results, and getting it, by font matching (hidden keywords stuffed on a page that match the color of the background of a page), soliciting links from link farms as well as generating duplicate content (multiple pages with the same content). These practices are labeled “black hat” (as opposed to wearing a white hat and being the good guy) and quickly may cause penalization toward your site and in some cases lead to being banned.
Advice: Let a professional SEO company do what they do. Industry professionals have seen what works and will be able to adapt a campaign to meet your companies’ needs.
3) Less Is More
OK, you’ve got your site up and running. You’ve seen some traffic coming in. Now is the time that you decided to do some research on how to optimize your web site. That’s fantastic! Problem is, you took every single suggestion you found on the web and applied it toward your pages. Over optimizing a web page or web site can and will be detrimental to your SE results.
Advice: When in doubt, natural is best. A properly optimized site will feel natural to read and navigate. Don’t force keywords in where they shouldn’t be.
4) Too Much Coffee
Considering the evolution of the webs interactive features and web 2.0 functionality we need not neglect the inclusion of a little bit of javascript. The fantastic thing about this type of code is in the way it encourages our visitors to interact with our sites for a variety of purposes. That being said, many novice or intermediate developers will simply copy/paste code directly into the page. While this works it is not best practice for SEO
Advice: Use external files (or unobtrusive javascript – DOM scripting) at all times. Also place CSS in external files.
5) What’s In Your Head?
There are tags used for specific reasons when it comes to search engine placement. Regarding the most important element on the page, the content, there are header tags and paragraph tags. A page without header or paragraph tags is a missed opportunity. Optimizing the layout of your page by utilizing the correct components is essential in assisting with identifying the more important elements on that page.
Advice: Try not to use any lower than an h2 tag for identifying a header and make certain that your targeted keywords and phrases are evident within them.
Labels: choosing the right seo company, online marketing, search engine optimization, seo
Monday, December 7, 2009
How to Avoid Common Misconceptions in SEO
The world of Search Engine Optimization has grown so quickly that it has enabled less than reputable firms to try and "cash in" on it's widespread interest. Google itself even references this notion in their Webmaster Central comments on SEO. Some of the most common instances of this I have found include the following scenarios:
1) Guaranteed First Page Results: No one can guarantee first page rankings, Google itself says so but what some companies will do is play the semantics of this and attempt to get your business ranked for terms that are not frequently searched and have a large amount of keywords, such as Search Engine Optimization Firms in Mount Laurel NJ which is obviously not searched all that often. Make certain to clarify how the keyword selection process will be handled. Make certain that you have a solid understanding as to what keywords the firm is actually attempting to have you rank well for.
2) Firms Referencing They Have Relationships with Google: We often hear of Search Engine Optimization Companies that claim to have a "special relationship" with Google that enables them to do things such as post their clients directly to the Google platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. Google offers no sort of special relationship to receive increased rankings but rather require websites to meet a large amount of specific criteria to gain high natural search results. The notion of "special relationships" should be considered a major red flag.
3) Automated Platforms which Directly Feed Google Information: The idea of any sort of automated software or platform working with providing Google with information is again a major concern. There are no short cuts in obtaining high natural search results, it is a process that is time consuming but will yield great results when actually done correctly. All of our work in done "manually" and while it can be rather laborious at times, the fact remains that is a very good use of time.
4) Outsourcing Services Overseas Helps Save You Money: While there is something to be said that overseas firms can offer services at a lower cost the reality of it is that the quality of the work is always poor and the end result is that you won't see the type of results you are looking for. Be very wary of firms that outsource their services overseas, it is something that should be clarified with them early on.
5) Different Plan Levels: The notion of the Gold, Silver and Bronze plans that some SEO firms offer is something that confuses me. Does a bronze plan only get you certain results? SEO is not a one-size fits all situation. Each customer is unique in what it specifically needs. Some clients need more of one thing and less of another. Don't be fooled by the different plan levels, any reputable firm needs to customize a program that will meet your website's needs.
As in choosing any type of vendor to work with, always ask for references and make sure you have the ability to "opt-out" if the vendor is not providing the type of quality work you would like them to. We work with a month to month program which we feel makes us accountable for our work and we live by the notion "what have you done for me lately"!
1) Guaranteed First Page Results: No one can guarantee first page rankings, Google itself says so but what some companies will do is play the semantics of this and attempt to get your business ranked for terms that are not frequently searched and have a large amount of keywords, such as Search Engine Optimization Firms in Mount Laurel NJ which is obviously not searched all that often. Make certain to clarify how the keyword selection process will be handled. Make certain that you have a solid understanding as to what keywords the firm is actually attempting to have you rank well for.
2) Firms Referencing They Have Relationships with Google: We often hear of Search Engine Optimization Companies that claim to have a "special relationship" with Google that enables them to do things such as post their clients directly to the Google platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. Google offers no sort of special relationship to receive increased rankings but rather require websites to meet a large amount of specific criteria to gain high natural search results. The notion of "special relationships" should be considered a major red flag.
3) Automated Platforms which Directly Feed Google Information: The idea of any sort of automated software or platform working with providing Google with information is again a major concern. There are no short cuts in obtaining high natural search results, it is a process that is time consuming but will yield great results when actually done correctly. All of our work in done "manually" and while it can be rather laborious at times, the fact remains that is a very good use of time.
4) Outsourcing Services Overseas Helps Save You Money: While there is something to be said that overseas firms can offer services at a lower cost the reality of it is that the quality of the work is always poor and the end result is that you won't see the type of results you are looking for. Be very wary of firms that outsource their services overseas, it is something that should be clarified with them early on.
5) Different Plan Levels: The notion of the Gold, Silver and Bronze plans that some SEO firms offer is something that confuses me. Does a bronze plan only get you certain results? SEO is not a one-size fits all situation. Each customer is unique in what it specifically needs. Some clients need more of one thing and less of another. Don't be fooled by the different plan levels, any reputable firm needs to customize a program that will meet your website's needs.
As in choosing any type of vendor to work with, always ask for references and make sure you have the ability to "opt-out" if the vendor is not providing the type of quality work you would like them to. We work with a month to month program which we feel makes us accountable for our work and we live by the notion "what have you done for me lately"!
Labels: choosing the right seo company, finding an seo firm, search engine optimization, seo, seo companies, seo firms
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Taking the "Magic" Out of SEO
One of the most frustrating aspects of being involved in the online marketing industry is the fact that many "experts" in the SEO field act as if there is a certain "magic" behind SEO that only a few select individuals possess. These "experts" guard this information as a magician would protect his secret magic tricks. These "experts" also build fear in potential customers by claiming that only they can get them results and that other companies will get them "blacklisted" by search engines.
These practices are what in many ways have given the Search Engine Optimization industry a bit of a black eye. The reality of it all is that many people don't understand what goes in to getting good natural search results and they rely on "experts" to help them get those results and some companies take advantage of this lack of knowledge to exploit these customers.
While every company you speak with will claim to be "the best", keep in mind that very few companies will actually get you blacklisted but at the same time, very few companies actually get you results. WebiMax applies the core principles that we have put in place for years to get our customers the type of results they are seeking. Proper site structure, well written content, frequently updated content, proper meta and h1 tags, strong relevant inbound links from quality websites and comprehensive site map which interlinks your website pages correctly. While there is obviously more that goes in to this process beyond these points, it really isn't "magic", is it?
These practices are what in many ways have given the Search Engine Optimization industry a bit of a black eye. The reality of it all is that many people don't understand what goes in to getting good natural search results and they rely on "experts" to help them get those results and some companies take advantage of this lack of knowledge to exploit these customers.
While every company you speak with will claim to be "the best", keep in mind that very few companies will actually get you blacklisted but at the same time, very few companies actually get you results. WebiMax applies the core principles that we have put in place for years to get our customers the type of results they are seeking. Proper site structure, well written content, frequently updated content, proper meta and h1 tags, strong relevant inbound links from quality websites and comprehensive site map which interlinks your website pages correctly. While there is obviously more that goes in to this process beyond these points, it really isn't "magic", is it?
Labels: online marketing, search engine optimization, seo
