Written on September 3, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: searchengineguide
by Mike Fleming
If you manage a PPC account, you know that for several years now
AdWords has had three match types: exact, phrase, and broad.
Written on August 31, 2010 by admin
The right idea paired with the right execution carry incredible power. Get enough people interested and they ll start spreading it themselves. That is the essence of viral marketing. So how can you put that to work for you In this article we ll take a look at a few viral marketing ideas and see what elements help make them stand out….
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Viral Marketing Ideas
Written on August 31, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: Advertising, book, marketing, seo
Posted by Dana Lookadoo
This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
Day 1 of SEOmoz Pro Training was like being at a race track. The course careened from clicks to conversions and from search results to landing pages. The audience watched 9 speakers drive their search marketing race cars at speeds faster than fingers can type. Given the finger-breaking speeds, it was fortunate all SEO fans were well fueled - beginning with a healthy breakfast buffet, mid-morning energy bars, lunch (more all-you-can-eat) and a scrumptious mid-afternoon pit stop with fresh cookies and treats. After everyone was fed each time, it was off to the races.
Todd Freisen was in the sports booth service as emcee, host of ceremonies, referee, judge and time keeper. The event was like a well-oiled machine. Maybe that’s why they call Todd, “Oilman.”
When I said “yes” to attending the Mozinar on a Press Pass, I didn’t realize I was going to be covering a sporting event. GoodNewsCowboy asked me how I was going to recap and condense this “wild ride.” I realized there was a lot of horsepower on-stage and that we were at the SEOmoz Training Raceway.
Mozinar fans experienced exhilaration and gleaned insights as we watched performance race car drivers present their seminar presentations. The following race highlights are condensed from 32 pages of notes. I strongly suggest you buy the Pro Seminar DVD when it’s produced so you can see under the hood for yourself.
From Clicks to Conversions with Local, Social, Analytics and SEO in Between
1st up: Rand Fishkin had pole position and drove a car with a most unusual name, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad SERP.”
The results we are seeing in blended search results are even more unusual, starting with changes of the past 2 weeks. For those who attend SEO races regularly and are watching Google, this may be old news. For others, brace yourself. A branded search can have more than 2 results. Rand explained:
Changes to Image SEO was next, and guess what? Google has a new image search interface.
The image below results from clicking on one of the images for the artist “manet” and clicking on an image
Tip: Write some JavaScript that breaks the overlay to avoid having the image overlay. Not only does it produce the longest, ugliest URL, but “it’s just an invite to right click and steal this image.”
Rand covered 10 Tips for Image Rankings. (Since we are in race synopsis mode, we’ll speed through this.) One quick takeaway was the minimum image size:
Image Pixel Size - If you go smaller than 400×300 pixels your chances to show in image search are dramatically decreased.
So you don’t have to remember any formulas, basic on-page SEO factors for image SEO include page title and surrounding text.
Video SERPs
It’s or easier to get into video SERPs than to get into the regular SERPS. There is lower competition than ordinary results (most of the time), so take the opportunity. Follow this inclusion process to enter your video race for top ranking:
Step #1: Embed Video Content on Your Pages
Step #2: Create Thumbnail Images for Videos
Step #3: Build a Video XML Sitemap & Submit
Step #4: PROFIT $$$
See Google Webmaster Tools for Video to learn more.
Rand’s foot stayed pedal-to-the-metal as he showed how to produce Rich Snippets in the SERPs. Why is this important? This is where you get most of your clicks. His closing remarks were retweeted with fervor:
“If you can stay on top of this, you will have a big win. It demands full-time SEO.”
2nd up: David Mihm was full-speed as he raced through “Ranking in Competitive Local Results.” He explained:
Straight from Google’s mouth:
Local intent is 20% of total search volume (April 2010)
And who would imagine that local results could equal 100% of page 1? Try a search for “dentist chicago.” (If it’s not 100%, it’s close.)
Google organic results are not, however, the dominate factor for local search. Neither are results from Yahoo! or Bing. Local search is now:
Understand that local requires a different mindset from traditional SEO, because the ecosystems vary:
Takeaway:
“It is essential to have a holistic local search marketing strategy.”
“Even if all your boss cares about is that friggin’ 7-pack!”
Resources to claim your listings:
“The Big Three” major data providers:
Citations - David recommended a new citation finder tool by Darren Shaw & Garrett French: Whitespark.ca Citation Finder
Find local SEO resources on GetListed.org.
3rd up to race: Dan Zarrella racing in the “Science of Twitter” car. Dan warned us he talked fast. Pro Seminar attendees listened attentively, but given the subject was Twitter … many tweeted insights into how one can get clicks and retweets.
Written on August 28, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: book, marketing, searchengineguide
by Eric Brown
Several camps are starting to chant that 2011 may well be the year of
Written on August 25, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: Object
In a previous article, I discussed why every business should embrace blogging. I mentioned the concept of a “Social Media Boomerang” and now would like to expand on this topic and explain why it’s the secret sauce to every successful B2B blog.
Consider your business’s website for a moment. In your effort to optimize [...]
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B2B Blogging: Your “Social Media Boomerang”
Written on August 25, 2010 by admin
Last week, Groupon members got a great deal, $50 worth of clothing at The Gap for only $25. More than 440,000 subscribers took advantage of the deal and they did it so quickly, they temporarily stalled the servers at the popular new deal site.
Part of the reason for the huge influx was that it wasn’t just Groupon members who were clicking. Shortly after the deal was announced, the news spread over thousands of mommy blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. I came across more than twenty mentions of the deal during my usual travels around the web and it looks like I was one of the rare few who resisted. Still, I’d venture to say that Groupon got a lot of new signups that day.
The site, which is known for delivering hyperlocal deals, got its first big taste of stardom and Groupon President and Chief Operating Officer Rob Solomon is ready for another big bite. In a recent interview with Reuters,Solomon says that he’s not changing the business model. . . completely.
“There’s a lot of room to remain hyper-local, but . . . Gap is a testament to demand for the big guys.”
Unfortunately, the small company may not be ready for the big leagues just yet. Solomon says that the site takes a large amount of manpower. He knows that they’ll have to find a way to automate things if they want to pull in the big brands and still turn a profit.
The trouble may come if Groupon tries to grow too big too fast. It’s obvious that they didn’t anticipate the kind of traffic they got with The Gap deal and they’re lucky that they didn’t end up with a large outage as a result. Nothing frustrates a deal seeker more than hitting a page that won’t load.
What’s really interesting about this whole scenario is that for a year now everyone’s been talking local, local, local. So here’s a site that was created to fill that need and yet their first big, site breaking, wow moment is on a national coupon. It’s enough to make you wonder if any site can survive on just local alone.
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Gap Deal Blitz’s Groupon Servers
Written on August 24, 2010 by admin
This is an introductory lesson for new SEOs that are not familiar with how the Internet and websites work. An SEO with a clear understanding of Internet technology will be able to understand a lot of technical processes that can help to diagnose SEO-related issues….
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Internet Technology Lessons for SEO
Written on August 23, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: chat
If you ve ever wondered why certain websites rank high in Google — or more specifically why certain website are ranking higher in Google than yours — wonder no more. This article will show you how to find out and quickly. Once you know you can take steps to fix your own site s standing in Google….
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Google: Why Websites Rank High
Written on August 20, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
It’s the “Year of Mobile” v. 2010 remember? Whether it is or isn’t officially is irrelevant. What is important is just how much mobile is continuing to influence the lives of many Internet users. While not as ubiquitous as many in the industry would like us to believe, it is still a very strong component of the online world and one that has seemingly limitless upside for years to come.
Evidence of just how influential the mobile world is comes from Google who announced that they have hit the 100 million users per month using Google Maps in some form. No matter who you are, that is a big number. From the Google Mobile Blog
Almost five years ago, we launched Google Maps for mobile to help you get where you needed to go from your phone instead of a paper map. Today, more than 100 million people a month are now using Google Maps for mobile to get from point A to point B, find nearby places, and more.
Below is an infographic (notice the use of the hottest Internet marketing buzzword) that shows the evolution of Google Maps for mobile until this point.
What is happening today with this Google service is even more important as the usage continues to rise. The trouble is that the vast majority of the businesses that could benefit from this service don’t even have a clue that it exists let alone how important it could be to promoting their business.
Lately, we’ve been especially focused on helping you find the right place at the right time. With recent additions such as Place Pages, you can now pick a nearby place by browsing information such as opening hours and review snippets for the places around you. It’s easier than ever to find those places with Search by voice or the new Places icon on Android. With this latest Android version, we’re happy to see that you’re now searching for places almost three times as often, doubling how many Place Pages are seen a day.
Place Pages are going to be more and more important to the local player and to the BtoB space as well because they will are a supplemental source of data that may actually be used before a web site or even, gulp, instead of one, by people looking for whatever it is they need.
I believe though that unless Google becomes a better marketer themselves this service will not be fully utilized in the way it could be. Google unfortunately just expects people to know this stuff then even puts the following at the end of this post
If you’re a business owner, help millions of people find you by claiming your free Place Page available in Google Maps and our most used mobile “app” — Google Search. Get started at places.google.com/businesses.
It’s a nice touch but the actual numbers of business owners reading any Google blog are likely to be pretty low. Most readers of Google’s blogs are the industry / tech geek type that can get the word out for sure, if that was their job. In most cases it’s not the business owner reading this so these ‘notifications’ are nice but they are not getting the word out……at all.
Even despite that, a lot of people are using Google Maps though, right? Imagine what it would be like if those people using it had even better information to retrieve because the people they were trying to find were there (and in control of their information) too.
One can dream, can’t one?
Read more from the original source:
100 Million A Month Using Google Maps for Mobile
Tags: a-big-number ,a-fair-share ,business ,marketing ,mobile ,online ,parking ,post ,service ,social ,using-the-exact
Written on August 18, 2010 by admin
The average elevator ride in New York City is 110 seconds and the average person’s attention span is 8 seconds. Put them together and you have the formula for the perfect pitch.
The concept itself was pitched by former Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett during his keynote speech at SES San Francisco. According to a report by ClickZ, Hayzlett really drove home the idea that elevator pitches are getting too long winded. He says that we need to tighten our focus and make every word count so consumers understand the value of the brand.
What is Kodak’s pitch?
“Only Kodak creates emotional technology that makes it easier to make, manage and move images and information so people can strengthen relationships.”
That one is a little corporate, but Hayzlett had a few more including:
“People don’t take pictures. They capture memories, moments.”
Ah, now that one is a hit.
Looking at these two pitches, you can see two very specific elements. The first one is very much about function. Kodak helps me “make” images, “manage” images and “move” images from place to place. In this modern world, those last two are particularly important. Back in the day, photos were shot, printed and stored in an album or box. The only way to share them was to mail them or open the album when folks came over. But with this pitch, Kodak is showing that they’re no longer old school. They don’t just help you take the pictures, they help you make the most of them using modern technology.
The second pitch steps away from function and goes to the emotional impact of the company’s products. “Capture memories, moments” just tugs at the heart-strings, doesn’t it? Visions of baby’s first step, graduation day, cutting the wedding cake. You get a whole flood of images and emotions in under 118 seconds.
The emotional pitch is one you often see being used by Hallmark and McDonalds. It’s not the burger, it’s the happy family time. It’s not the card, it’s the love.
Time to take a look at your elevator pitch. Sum up your business in under 118 seconds. Create a pitch that emphasizes function, then try one that hits the emotional outcome. Don’t sell yourself short on that last one. Giving customers a smile or a sense of accomplishment can be just as effective as serenity, security or love.
What’s your 118? We’d like to hear it.
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
See more here:
Can You Pitch Your Company in Under 118 Seconds?
Tags: advice ,book ,business ,community ,emotional ,home-the-idea ,kodak ,love ,make-the-most ,marketing ,modern ,pictures ,speech-at-ses ,wedding
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