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Here’s to new experiences, new goals, new opportunities and new beginnings!
As exciting a new website launch sounds, it requires a lot of time, research and communication on your part! You don’t have to limit yourself to just 3 questions, or these 3 specifically, but it will help to have a list that you can look to when thinking about your new site.
Do I need to integrate seo web design? – Search optimization isn’t something that just comes later, after the design and building process. Make sure that you understand the SEO capability of your site as it’s being built so that all the necessary elements can be added during or immediately after the design aspect is completed. Think of SEO as an ongoing campaign and not something that just done at the beginning of the website building process, such as the design.
Do you know your customers and what they want? – Do you know your target demographic? Once you’re able to answer this question, you’ll get a better idea of what content will best suit their needs. Remember, there are many trends such as QR codes and even certain social media sites. Will your customers even use these functions? Just because it exists doesn’t mean that you should use it. Case in point: QR codes have been spotted on the BACK of moving buses. Talk about a quick response!
What do I want my customers to do? Remember that your website has to have a point. Do you want to push calls, newsletter signups or contact form submissions? Make it clear so that customers know how to complete the action, but don’t be so pushy that they feel overwhelmed and leave. A good example is Neil Patel’s Quick Sprout blog. If anyone is familiar with it, it used to just be a marketing blog about different topics. Now, a re-vamp as focused the calls-to-action and has made users more familiar with Neil’s services and his other companies.
What type of website do I need? This depends entirely on your industry and business model. If you’re selling goods, an ecommerce store is the way to go. For services, information is key. Feel free to browse competitor sites or even look at our portfolio to see what kind of website will best suit your business.
Whatever questions you decide to use for pre-launch, remember to take that list back out and evaluate it post-launch. There are always things you can use to improve the customer experience and these seemingly simple questions can be the basis of marking your progress!
Now that 2011 is almost over, it’s time to think about some online marketing resolutions. Do you have any good ones? If not, here are some ideas. Remember, social and local are going to play a bigger role!
1) Share your content in the right places – If you’re going to have new content, it helps to promote it in updates, press releases and social sharing. And we’re not just talking about Facebook and Twitter. Since infographics are so “hot” right now, you’ll be missing out if you don’t take the next step and share it on sites like Visual.ly Your new content will do you know good if it just sits there on your site.
2) Learn about your marketing company – A few days ago, we saw the fatal blunder from Ocean Marketing, the PR company behind the popular Avenger controller. Long story short, the owner of this PR company treated a customer very disrespectfully and the email went viral on Penny Arcade. As a result, the controller, which had about a 4 star rating on Amazon has now dropped to a 1 star rating. There are many search marketing firms out there, so make sure to do your research before you choose one to represent your brand. After some more digging, users have found that Ocean Marketing’s website has blatantly plagiarized content from other SEO firm websites!
3) Pay more attention to social media – If you haven’t heard, Google+ Status Updates Now Appearing in Organic Search Results. Social factors has always played a big role in better search engine rankings, but they are becoming more important as search engines view this customer engagement as trust and relevancy.
4) Act natural when it comes to organic optimization – This one holds true from link building, blogging to social networking! For example, take a look at link building – you need a good mix of do follow and no follow links across a variety of trustworthy and related domains. Anchor text that you use shouldn’t be what you want it to be, but what customers are actually searching. And your social media updates shouldn’t be completely automated, but carefully thought out with the right personality behind your brand.
Get ready for a happy new year! When it comes to organic online marketing, let us know what are you looking forward to in 2012!
The Emarketed team wishes you a very Merry Christmas! Celebrate, relax and have a good time with your family and loved ones!
Have you been a good SEO this year? There are always things we would like to help us with web copywriting and content optimization. Here are 3 things that are on our wishlist this year!
Good Links from Niche Sites – Diversified links from high ranking and relevant sites are still important. It would be nice to get some links from sites with PR of 5+, don’t you think? How about some .edu and .gov links while you’re at it?
A Reputable Back Link Analyzer – Since we faced the tragic loss of Yahoo! Site Explorer last month, it would be great to get a free & reliable alternative. (Here are a few, but they don’t feel quite the same!
A Magic Touch to Work out all the Problems with Local – Local and social marketing go hand in hand nowadays. But don’t even get me started on fixing problems with local listings! Updating existing listings can be a pain and it’s no fun trying to work with suspended pages.
An Online Organic Keyword Generator – Sometimes, I’d like to imagine access to a self-populating list of terms that people actually look for online. But that would make things too easy, wouldn’t it? It’s a good thing that we have a formulaic and proven method for keyword research! (But a tool like this would be helpful…)
Feel free to share your other wishes and wants with us. Big or small, we’d like to hear them all!
There’s no other time of the year like the Christmas holiday season. My favorite thing about this time of the year (regarding marketing) are annual wrap up posts where we get to reminisce about all the interesting things that took place during 2011. Let’s take at 3 marketing trends that captivated customers this year:
1) Investing more time and resources into social media – Big businesses and small business alike invested more money into social media marketing this year. Not only that, but SMBs found that social media was helpful and an influential part of the decision making process. The introduction of Google +, Facebook’s Timeline and Twitter’s makeover for businesses are all a part of this social media revolution for customers and businesses.
2) Emphasis on local marketing – Geotargeting and local search marketing has become more important for SEO and PPC. Studies showed that mobile searches had more of a local emphasis, which spurred the growth of local sites like Groupon, LivingSocial and Yelp. This trend made it more inviting for businesses owner to reach out to locals and establish themselves as a part of the community.
3) Integration across different marketing mediums and platforms – 2011 showed us that an effective marketing campaign must be a coordinated effort. Old Spice’s manly man and Google Chrome’s Dear Sophie campaigns come to mind. These are all things you can learn in a typical business class but the horizon has expanded. Social and traditional. Written content and video. Desktop and mobile. What about tablets and video? All these things need to work together more than ever!
Do any other trends this year stand out in your mind?
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Keyword advertising. Does it only apply to the phrases on your site?
Believe it or not, it’s possible to rank (and rank well) for keyword phrases that aren’t on your site! This has nothing to do for black hat methods or other so-called spam SEO tactics. The reason that some businesses or entities are able to rank for these keywords is that many people are using the phrases to search for them.
As Matt Cutts explains, if you search for “Cal”, UC Berkeley is likely to show up because many people associate the term with the college. Even though this word isn’t used predominately, or it might not be used at all on the main page, it can still rank well for the Cal term because so many relevant searches are pointing it from there.
How does this relate to organic optimization for your site? If your competitor is outranking your site and showing up for a term that’s not even on their page, it means that they have quality content that other people are finding useful. The best way to go about this is not to obsess over just one ranking. SERPs fluctuate all the time and this concentrated effort in outdoing a competitor can cause you to lose site of your overall SEO goals.
So, what exactly can you do? If you’ve ever heard the saying, “Success is the best revenge”, now is the time to apply it. This is a learning opportunity for your small business and you can expand your online goals by not copying your competitor’s strategy but by doing better. This means diversifying your link building strategies and gaining social momentum through Likes, +1′s and even press releases. Using these other methods of online marketing will amplify your content and make it more visible to your potential customers.
If you love pictures, Pinterest is the new social networking/bookmarking/photosharing community for you! The site went live in March of 2010 but it’s gaining more attention for its potential for SEO.
Looking at it for the first time, the site reminds me of Tumblr and Chictopia. Think of it as a virtual pinboard where you can add pictures as well as links. For now, the links from the images are not nofollow, which means that your site can benefit from getting link juice here! Many people speculate that this tag could be added in the near future, so it’s best to take advantage of it now!
People post pictures of everything including: food, inspirational quotes, celebrity crushes, scenic shots and more. Check out this image I found of an iPad cover. Now to the SEO part that can benefit your online marketing campaign! With every picture you post, there are three links you can add: 1) the picture itself 2) the link on the top right 3) a link in the description.
Businesses can benefit from pinning pictures but the purpose is to not be so self-serving. Instead, the things you post should be interesting and shareable. E-commerce stores can post pictures of their products and local businesses can contribute to categories related to their city or local neighborhood. All of these things help with your online reputation, while gaining momentum from linked pictures at the same time.
If you’ve used Pinterest, let us know what you think. As for now, I’m eagerly awaiting my own Pinterest invite!
As the world patiently awaits the widespread release of the Facebook Timeline feature, your business can get a head start by using Facebook Video for online marketing. Here are just a few reasons why you should get started:
1) Accessibility – Be where your customers are. Video marketing on Facebook is beneficial because you’ll be able to reach your target audience. Your customers are on Facebook and videos are an attractive way to get their attention. This means getting more Likes on your Page, which will help establish authority and boost your search engine rankings.
2) Ease of sharing – Facebook’s tagging feature is a great way to optimize social media content. You can engage your fans, other businesses and partners by tagging them in relevant videos that will also show up on their Facebook Page.
3) Length of videos – From a technical standpoint, Facebook Videos allow up to 20 minutes of video, whereas YouTube only allows 5 minutes. This gives you more opportunity to add tutorials, Q&A sessions, and other content that will be helpful to your customers.
4) Internal resources for your business – Facebook’s video chat and group chat options will give you a more efficient ways of conducting webinars, meetings, and other conference calls. This option will save your business time and money!
5) Facebook’s Timeline – If you haven’t seen the Timeline Layout yet, check it out here. The design is pretty bold and in your face. When you tag friends in photos or videos, they’ll show up on their wall as normal… but not! The video will be predominant in their feed and show up as a larger thumbnail than just a normal update or tagged post. People already love videos and a bigger video will be even more eye-catching. Think about that for your business!
Let us know what you think of using Facebook Video for your business.
Can you believe it’s December already? If you haven’t already, it’s time to think about some seasonal specials that can help bring more customers to your business during this Christmas season. Depending on the different retail forecasts you look at, online sales are expected to rise up to 15%. What are you doing to prepare your online store for the surge of shoppers? Here are a few online promotions to think about:
Free shipping: Free shipping is enticing for customers who don’t want to actually go out to get their shopping done. Online stores also offer more variety in products than those that can be found in stores. You can encourage shoppers with free shipping after a minimum purchase of a set dollar amount.
Reward loyalty: From frozen yogurt to car washes, many businesses are taking advantage of punch cards that reward multiple visits. This doesn’t just apply to chain stores or big businesses. I visited my local jewelry for a battery replacement and was happy to find that he was giving out cards that offered 1 free replacement after 10 replacements.
BOGO: Also known as ‘buy one, get one free’ or ‘buy one, get one half off’. Customers love to see the word “free” and this will encourage them to look at other options to qualify for this special.
You can get more ideas from Stamps.com’s analysis of last year’s shopping season.
[ 50% off PPC landing page design and blog setup
with this code: #XMAS]
The normal price for landing page design is $500 and $800 for blog setup. Take advantage of this 50% off deal by calling us today at 323-340-4010 for a free consultation!
