Google Local Business Center Categories

I just discovered another tool that could be very useful in optimizing a site for a local business. This is a list of the categories that Google uses to identify local business listings. The really handy part of this list is that it includes a list of keywords that are associated with each category. This makes it easy to scan the list for ideas of categories that might be relevant to your business. Using this in combination with the Google Toolbar, which allows you to highlight words on a page that match those entered in the Google search field, makes it very easy to scan the listing for occurrences of selected phrases to determine what categories Google thinks they are relevant to.

I came across this list while browsing the Search Engine Guide blog, which is another handy source of useful information. While not completely clear what the source of the list is, the information should be helpful as a reference for any of your keyword optimization efforts.

To see the complete listing, click on the title of this article.

Companies that Spend on Search Are Frustrated

"To improve results, the study recommended the use of dynamic landing pages, so that “users who click through find content, images, messages and offers that are customized and highly relevant to them.”"

This report always focuses on advertising (click on the title to see the report), which is not really what we do in our clinic, but the information about searcher behavior and marketers experience seems relevant just the same. What this report says is that marketers are not getting the results that they want from their efforts because searchers are not landing on pages that address their interests immediately and directly.

Remember that our approach to marketing on the web bypasses this problem completely. We always emphasize optimizing your pages to attract traffic on specific phrases that are relevant. Our goal is to have a searcher land directly on the page on the web site that is most relevant to the search. That is exactly what the recommendation in this article amounts to, and where we have been all along!

It is always rewarding to see our approach to Internet Marketing validated by these kinds of reports. The approach is sound, and that is why our participants report so much success for their web sites as a result of attending our marketing clinic and applying what they learn to their businesses.

Synergy of Search and Social Media

"Research has shown that display ad exposure can lift consumer response to paid search."

This research refers to paid search activity, but it seems fair to assume that organic search activity would be influenced in the same way. The point to take away from this article is that your marketing efforts through different approaches support and enhance one another. It is not a good idea to conduct all your marketing efforts through a single vehicle. The success that you have in each approach reinforces the success that you have in other approaches.

To put it another way, look at all the tools that you have available to promote your site and make use of several of them simultaneously rather than putting all your eggs in one basket. Your web site itself, is the core around which your other marketing revolves. This core effort is then supplemented and strengthened by your activities with blogging, newsletters, article publication, press releases, social media sites, reciprocal links, and, yes, even paid Internet ads! Plan to use several of these tools in concert based on your personal and business characteristics and capacities to support different approaches.

While our focus here is on Internet tools, don't overlook the importance of what you do in more traditional marketing through your use of business cards, letterhead, brochures, promotional gifts, and networking, which also reinforce your online marketing efforts. A well managed mixture of approaches could be more effective for your business than a single-minded focus on one strategy alone!

Demographics of Facebook Growth

"Facebook may have started as a site geared toward the college crowd, but as the most popular social network in the US, it has broadened its user base considerably."

Things are always changing on the web, and it is important to keep up! This report discusses the growth of users of Facebook and the shift in the descroiption of who is on the service.

What we see is a growth in older users and in female users. Facebook, like much of the web, began with a larger component of young male users. As their demographic appeal changes, so do the opportunities to make use of the medium to reach diferent audiences. Always remember that you have to go where your prospects are! If they are now on Facebook, you need to be there too!

Opportunity Abounds!

I am continually impressed by how the Internet allows small businesses to compete effectively with much larger companies. That characteristic is one of the things that draws me to this field.

I ran across an interesting sentence in a recent edition of The Economist that said, "Only 5% of European Union companies born since 1980 have made it into the list of the 1,000 biggest in the EU by market capitalisation (sic). In America, the figure is 22%."

Most of us in small businesses will never make it to this list, but I am impressed by the large number of companies started in the United States that have made the list. Most businesses don't have the reach to even aspire to this kind of growth, but I am inspired by the thought of the possibility.

One of my posts earlier this year referred to the ease of starting a business on the internet, and that ease certainly contributes something to the startling number of really successful companies compared to the experience in the European Union. Clearly, the environment in the United States is more favorable to start-ups than the environment in the EU, but the internet is definitely a part of that environment.

Never forget, while you are working away on improving the performance of your web site, that the potential rewards for learning to be effective on the web are huge!

SEO Isn't Only About Google??

"It will be at least nine months -- and probably closer to a year -- before Microsoft takes over Yahoo's search infrastructure, theoretically consolidating 28% of the U.S. search market and mounting the first credible challenge on Google in a decade."

Not to rush into anything. There is no real sign that Bing is going to make much difference for a while. There are a few signs of some change coming along. This article (click on the title to go to the full article) points out a few differences that we need to be aware of.

When I read it, a few points jumped out. The first was that this is all still under discussion and Microsoft is still actively tweaking their operation, so nothing that we might think we know is really "fixed" yet!

With that caveat in mind, here are the points of importance that I noted:

• Bing focuses more on the use of "categories", and those terms (names of the categories they use) become more important keyword phrases.
• Bing is friendlier to Flash sites. This may open things up a little for more use of those kinds of pages within a site(?)
• Bing offers different placements for photos and video.
• Bing favors linking out more than other engines as long as the links are relevant to the overall context of the site and keywords.
• Enable MSNBot onto your site and submit URLs for all sub-pages as it doesn't automatically crawl all pages.

One of the comments posted in response to this article provides a list of suggestions for focusing on Bing that I found interesting. What I tried to look for are things that might indicate some difference in how one approaches site management with the advent of Bing. Lots of the "tips" suggested things that I think we should be doing already in optimizing for Google, which still has to be the priority for the forseeable future.

Reciprocal and Directory Links, Still Good Practice?

Yes, these are both still good ideas!

Reciprocal links refers to the practice of exchanging links with other sites on the web, like, "you link to me and I 'll link to you." This practice has been questioned because of its potential for abuse. Those are definitely legitimate questions, and extensive proliferation of links through "reciprocal fishing" (my own made-up term) is not good. For one thing, it is a lot of work, and it can lead to a lot of links that you have to monitor to ensure that they are still alive and still point to the site that you agreed to link to. Sometimes sites "die off" and are replaced by sites that you would not want to be associated with, but your link to them survives if you have not been vigilant!

On the other hand, there is good evidence that sites that are properly related tend to link to one another or to other related sites in a pattern that search engines notice and make use of. Eric Ward has been around the web a long time and has posted some research on his site about the importance of linking relationships. This is some really good information and should provide some real food for thought when considering your own linking strategy and your program.

My take-away from his piece is that linking to people who have good sites that deal with the same material that your site does (or, maybe, sites that do business with you or are in your industry?) is a good practice that will reward you with better performance on your site. If you pursue links with these kinds of site, as opposed to just scanning the web for likely reciprocal partners that you really don't know, you are likely to have fewer problems with disappearing sites or "spammy" sites.

Directory links are those that you get by obtaining listings in web directories. Getting these listings can be a tedious process, because it is hard for anyone to automate the process, which probably is at least part of the reason that the links remain valuable! For some research that indicates how these links can actually boost your site, take a look at this case study. Three pages that were "orphaned" within a site were listed in directories and their search engine positioning followed to observe the impact that the directory listings had on their performance.

The study validates the importance of getting good links to your site from directories. As in the case of any links, try for positioning your links in places that bear some relevance to what your site is about. That means, obviously, the appropriate category in general directories, but it also means seeking out specialized directories that focus on your subject matter. There are many of these specialized directories around, and they are not typically household names.

Remember, in Internet Marketing, as in just about any other endeavor, the rewards go to those who are willing to work for them! That is why persistent webmasters with small budgets can outperform companies who only have big budgets, but not the know-how or persistence.

Making Money by Giving Things Away?

Sounds crazy, but the Internet has introduced some new ideas, and you need to understand the concept even if it is not for you.

The post at the other end of the title link outlines the principles of such a business model. Since this was posted (some years ago now) the concept has evolved and acquired a name. The term now being applied to the concept is "Freemium". In very simple terms, the concept is that you give something away (we are talking about services here, but the film industry used to give cameras away so that they could sell more film to the users, and they gave film away so they could earn the processing fees!), and then offer more elaborate or extended services at a cost to the consumer.

The author advises that you never make this into a "bait and switch" operation, where you provide something free and then later ask people to pay for it. The idea is, once free, always free, but as the free service becomes more valuable to you through use, you will be willing to pay for more features, or more capacity. In my personal experience, I have seem this work on me in regard to Picasaweb. I put all my vacation pictures up there so my family and friends can follow me on my travels. I find it so compelling that I have finally succumbed and bought more storage so I can keep adding pictures without having to manage the storage so tightly. With storage costs so low, I can get a lot for my money, and it doesn't bother me at all.

The NY Times recently did an article about another example of this business model being put into practice. In this story, the product is called Evernote, and it is an on-line database that one can use for storing all kinds of information of personal or business interest. I have not tried it (yet) so cannot provide any more reaction than what I read in the article, but it looks very interesting, and I will be there soon! You can read more about it on the Evernote website.

The entrepreneur who started the business describes the application as, “... a universal memory drawer”. He expects only a small number of users to ever pay for the enhanced service, but his metric that he is relying on is, "... the revenue from Evernote’s 500,000 active users is growing faster than the growth in the customer base." This means he is making money from the growth in the percentage of users who are paying.

This sounds to me like a real "cloud" application, where all your information and the application itself is part of the cloud, which you can get to from anywhere that you can get an Internet connection. This has a lot more appeal to me than having to remember to move material to the briefcase on my laptop before a trip, or making sure that I have material I might need or want while away up on the web somewhere that I can get to. I can see this being addictive, which is another feature of a good business model!

Not everyone will be in a field where this business model will work for them in the same way as described in these articles, but there are principles here that we can all benefit from if we can figure out a way to apply them to our own business model.

Social Media for the Executive

"How many times have you heard, 'Not on Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn? You're way behind.'"

Pierpont Communications, a leading marketing firm here in Houston, recently took a look at social media from the perspective of a business executive and posted some interesting reactions to their blog.

The author made four points:

1. You expand your reach with these tools and can learn more about the people that you are dealing with in your business. That is always helpful.
2. Social media provide an inexpensive and efficient means of gathering information and maintaining contact.
3. Social networks are growing every day and more and more of the people you would like to reach are becoming available through this medium.
4. These media can provide you with early warnings about negative comments about your business that can give you an opportunity to take some action to counter the effect of the comments on your business.

In another blog entry on the same date, other authors from the same company provided more suggestions about how to think about and integrate these new media resources into your marketing strategy.

Keep in mind that the world is always changing and it is important to keep up with the changes if you want to be in the action. The growth of what we call "social media" is only one of the recent developments that is having an impact on business. Look into it and think about how it can be useful to you and your business or you may be falling behind your competitors without realizing it!

Why People Go Online - eMarketer

"According to Ruder Finn, 100% of US Internet users surveyed in Q2 2009 went online to pass the time. Other popular reasons were education, connecting with others, researching and sharing. The least common intentions when logging on were to make purchases, manage finances, comparison shop and join causes. "

As Internet Marketers, we have to go where the people we are trying to reach are going. This survey tells us more about what people are doing when they are on the internet, and most of the time they are not there to buy things or do business! If we focus our efforts too narrowly on those kinds of activities, the people we are trying to reach are not going to be interested most of the time that they are on-line. That does not sound like a productive approach.

The message that this survey emphasizes once again is the importance of content to effective on-line marketing. Note that "Keep informed" was given as a reason for going online 79% of the time. Other similar reasons like "Research" and "Educate self" were cited more often. Entertainment reasons like "Pass time" and "Be entertained" also ranked very high. What this says is that if you provide interesting and informative content on your website, you will be in the zone that most of your prospects are seeking when they go online!

For effective outreach on the web, always keep in mind what the people you are trying to reach might find useful or entertaining. If you can communicate with them in that mode, you can be there when they are ready to make a purchase or another commitment that supports your business objectives.

The Future of the Internet?

"Today, the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet—its structure, design, and utility. For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithms—rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this "social graph" to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire—rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search. It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where Google is now."

Here is some food for thought! This article describes how Facebook is building a huge database of information about people and their activities and relationships. As described in this article, this platform could become the new way that people find information on the web, that is, by referrals from friends and connections rather than by search!

There is a lot of speculation in this article, and many things that might happen never do, but it appears that Google is taking this kind of threat seriously, indicating that there is something to the idea.

We are all aware that social media, of which Facebook is only one outstanding example, is playing a more and more significant role in marketing on the web. As active marketers, we all need to be aware of this new phenomenon, but the idea that Facebook could actually replace Google as the primary source of new traffic is a real paradigm shift.

Keyword-Driven Marketing for B2B

"Understanding what your customers want – and how they express that need – is the foundation of effective marketing, ..."

We all know that keywords are the most important element in ranking that generates traffic to your web site, but the trick is understanding how to make them work for you. The quote above makes the point well, that you have to understand how your prospective customers express themselves in order to be successful.

This author is telling his audience that keywords are important to B2B (business to business) marketing just as in B2C (business to consumer) marketing. He also has a good list of points included in his article.

• Use Keyword-Driven Marketing to truly understand the language of your customer.
• Understand user intent and provide an entry point as early in the buying cycle as possible.
• Develop integrated search marketing strategies to maximize return on investment.
• Provide compelling experiences – not just content.
• Test, test, and test again. Then, test, test and test again…

While these points are good, it is disappointing that there is no more detail provided to help one understand what these guidelines mean in practice.

I would elaborate on his points in this way.

It is crucial that you, as the marketer, understand what keyword phrases the prospect is like to use and what that choice of words indicates about his frame of mind at the time of the search. Specific terms pertaining to the product or service should never be overlooked in keyword marketing, but often the searcher is looking for information to understand a problem better or to get ideas for solutions. This orientation will lead to a different choice of keyword phrases for the search that must be anticipated.

As the author says, particularly in B2B marketing, it is important to enter the relationship with the prospect as early in the buying cycle as possible. With B2b, the cycle is likely to be longer, and the purpose of the marketing is to get into consideration before the purchasing decision begins to be made. Using your web site to convey your knowledge and understanding of the searchers' needs, and the professionalism to assist with them is the goal.

Applying the points described in the preceding paragraph is the strategic consideration. Creating compelling experiences means that you have to engage the interest of the prospect. Providing useful information in understandable form is the challenge.

Finally, testing is always important. One of the things that I liked about the website StartBreakingFree that I recommended in my previous post is the way Brian describes his testing efforts in great detail. It is through testing that you can discover which of various alternative approaches to your market will prove to be the most effective for you.

Start Your Own Web Business

"It’s always pays to get around like minded people and see what you can learn."

Brian Armstrong is an Internet entrepreneur who maintains an interesting blog that is worth visiting. He has spoken in our clinic int he past and has been invited to return for another session, but, unfortunately for us, he has since moved to Argentina!

His blog is called StartBreakingFree, and it is all about his effort to become independent via his Internet activities. If you are interested in starting a business on the web, you might find a lot of interesting ideas on his site.

I was initially attracted to Brian's blog because he published a series documenting his thirty day effort to increase traffic to his web site. This was a great series because you could follow his thought process day-by-day as he tried different strategies to boost his performance and reported back on whether they worked or not! You can take a look at the "build traffic, get more subscribers, and sell books" strategy series to see if there are ideas that might be helpful to you in your own efforts to improve.

Brian continues to post his experiments on his site, as well as references to other people who are doing interesting things on the web. His site is a great resource for researching topics about internet marketing. When he comes back to the US for a visit, I hope we can get him in to tell us some of his adventures directly.

Blogging Has Come a Long Way, Baby

"“Blogging activity presents new opportunities for marketers to monitor and influence conversations relevant to their businesses,” says Mr. Verna. “Opportunities no marketer should ignore.”"

Research cited in this article reports 86.8 million Internet users in 2008 who read blogs at least monthly. This is estimated to be 45% of Internet users! These are big numbers and command the attention of anyone who is marketing on the web. These numbers are projected to grow over the next five years, both the absolute count and the percentage of total users. One major rule of marketing is that you have to go where the audience goes. For someone interested in marketing on the web, that means you have to get involved in blogging!

To read the article, click on the title link...

Online Advertising Pushes Through

"“Digital marketing offers compelling benefits, especially for cash-conscious companies,” he says. “Marketers can more readily measure the results of Internet advertising than with most traditional media. This produces more-efficient advertising and higher ROI, which in turn pushes traditional media to compete with lower pricing.”

Which puts more pressure on traditional media’s bottom line.

“At the same time, successful Internet advertising creates a new paradigm for marketing on other media,” adds Mr. Hallerman. “Search is the prime example of the new model.”

When marketers link ads to an individual’s stated interest at the precise moment that interest is expressed—as happens with a search query—relevance breaks down the usual resistance."

More evidence of the changing impact of Internet marketing is shown in this article. There is a chart in the article showing an increasing growth in the rate of spending on online advertising in the years from 2008 through 2013.

Note the explanation of at least one of the reasons for the movement toward online activity; the information is presented at the exact moment when the prospect is expressing interest in the topic! This is one of the keys to effective promotion on the web.

In our clinic presentations, we continually emphasize the importance of bringing the searcher directly to the page that is most directly relevant to the search term used. We do not want visitors going to the home page on the site! We want them to immediately see the part of our site that is most relevant to what they were searching for.

Local Search Growth Outpaces Overall Online Search

"The study found that local search -- the practice of using online search tools to find local businesses, products, or services -- grew 58 percent in 2008, reaching an annual total of 15.7 billion searches."

Interesting statistic from an article pumping the value of internet yellow pages. What they are promoting in the press release is the idea that it is important to be listed in online yellow pages. I am not going to say that this is not a good idea, but it is one that you will have to pay for. I am interested in how you can improve your web site to perform better in these local searches without having to pay extra for the traffic increase!

The first interesting aspect of this report is simply the growth in use of the internet for searching for things in the neighborhood (that is, "locally"). Since the Internet covers the entire world, we often lose sight of the fact that it is useful in finding things that are near to us. The user community is waking up to this fact, as shown by the growth in those kinds of searches.

The question is, "How do I make my site more productive for local searches?" That really brings up another question, "What distinguishes a local search from any other search?" No doubt people will search for something they are interested in and scan the results for something that might be considered "local", but is that really a "local" search? I would say not.

To me, a local search is one that contains a local reference such as the name of a community or a zip code. I know in my own use of the web, that is how I focus my searching if I specifically want local results.

In our bi-monthly clinics, we teach the use of specific community names and zip codes on the site as a means of ensuring that the site will perform well for people searching in that fashion. There are specific techniques that we use to get the impact without cluttering up the site with redundant place names.

But there is another technique worthy of mention in this arena, and that is the use of Google and Yahoo Local features. Both search engines allow the free placement of business information on the web in a way that often comes up when users are searching for neighborhood specific resources. With a little effort, you might also find other local oriented directories that you can post your business information in without charge. These are very good ways to draw in that local traffic without breaking your budget. All it takes is a little effort on your part and you can boost your traffic substantially!

And then, you can always pay for another listing in the Yellow Pages!

Summary Report on Marketing Practices

eMarketer has just made their Benchmark Guidelines available for download, and it contains some interesting information. They offer a free newsletter that I read on a regular basis.

The report is extensive and includes some complex charts, so I can only give you a few of the points that I found most interesting to think about. I recommend the report to anyone who is interested in getting a better understanding of what marketing professionals are thinking about the effectiveness of different marketing tools. I believe it is a free download. It may have been free to me because I am a subscriber, but that is a free subscription, if you are interested in the report.

A lot of the article is devoted to web analytics; what tools are available, what people use and why, and how they compare to one another.

Further down in the report, they begin to talk about what techniques marketers use to reach their audience and which tool they consider to be most effective. It is this part of the article that I found most interesting.

My general observation from all the information they provide is that SEO is one of the best deals available for marketing your business. The comparisons made in the charts include noon-Internet techniques such as

Chart 4.09 shows that SEO and email are considered to have the best ROI by Marketing professionals. That definitely makes sense, since the investment is so low!

4.10 shows that marketers find both SEO and PPC more effective in 2008 than in 2007. This probably reflects increasing familiarity with the tools and a better sense of how to use them. It is also interesting to note that SEO was considered a stronger marketing tool in both years than PPC!

4.11 and 4.12 focus on marketers spending over $25,000 per month on search and on those spending under $10,000 per month. For those with the big budgets, the ranking of strongest tactic ran from PPC to SEO to Email marketing. For smaller operations spending below $10,000 per month, the ranking was Email, SEO and PPC.

Marketers Moving to Social Media

"Companies are learning how to leverage social media and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter."

This article documents the continuing trend toward businesses utilizing social media for reaching their prospects. As with any new movement, there are still issues about how best to use the medium in any individual business, and how to evaluate the results. The trend is driven by the continuing increase in the sue of these media sites by the public. As always, effective marketing means that you have to go where your customers are!

The article illustrates the research findings with several charts showing the rate of growth projected through 2013, and the kinds of issues that businesses are finding with using social media effectively. To see the article, click on the title, above.

The Internet Is Getting Gray

"... the largest jump in adoption of Internet usage was by users ages 70 and older."

Older users are getting more comfortable with and active on the Internet. What this amounts to is an expansion of the marketplace for businesses trying to reach that older segment of the population. The web is becoming a more and more useful tool for reaching older audiences.

In the first table in this article, usage by age sector is displayed. Most sectors increased their participation rate from 2005 to 2008. Only the age group 65-69 showed a decrease in participation, and that was by 1%. This is probably some kind of anomaly resulting from demographic factors, but a very minor change in any event.

The next table breaks down Internet usage by age groups. The surprising fact to me in this table was that the age groups that spend the most time on the web are 35-49, 55+, and 65+, in that order. What surprised me was that the younger segments of the audience did not dominate the usage. Now this is due largely to the numbers of users in each age segment, but the overall image of the user base seemed different to me from what I might have assumed. To me, that points up the value of looking at these kinds of numbers. My perception of the audience on the web changed somewhat.

The last table broke down Internet usage by activities for two age groups, 64-72 and 73+. In both groups, email and search were the top activities. The interesting observation I took away from this table was that the younger age group spent much more time looking at government sites, banking, and viewing religious sites than the older group. What this means to me as a marketer requires a little more thinking than I have had time to devote to it now, but it seems to point to the kinds of issues that the different age groups are dealing with. The younger group, it would seem, is facing issues of adjusting to questions of retirement and changing lifestyle, while the older group had more likely resolved lots of those issues. For a business offering solutions to changes in lifestyle, this could be important information.

As always, the important issue is for marketers to understand their target audience so they can find the best way to reach that audience effectively.

Click on the title at the top to see the article.

Social Nets and Blogs More Popular Than E-Mail

"... time spent on social networks and blogging sites is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet growth."

A new segment of the Internet is experiencing substantial growth with implications for all Internet marketing. This announcement shows the change in participation for various segments of the web. The segment showing the most growth from December 2007 to December 2008 is "Member Communities", otherwise known as "social media". This information is important to marketers because it indicates the movement of the audience to a new area of the web.

At the same time, the article has more statistics that document the fact that e-mail is still the most effective medium in terms of customer acquisition. It seems that the rates of people on social media clicking on ads and following through with purchases is quite low.

All this information focuses on ads and selling. The article does not mention search engine optimization or its place in this environment. What all this information suggest to me is that search engine optimization and social media are both important in reaching an audience, educating the audience, and establishing an image for a business, with the actual sale or production of revenue assumed as a natural outgrowth of that kind of positioning.

Search is listed as the top sector in terms of "reach", moving from 84% in 2007 to 85.9% in 2008. The statistic refers to the "popularity of activity" of five sectors. The significant change that is being reported here is that in 2008, "Member Communities" moved up above "E-mail" in the rankings for the first time.

As different sectors become more or less important, the savvy marketer will make adjustments in his or her program to stay ahead of those competitors who are not as responsive to the changes.

Click on the title at the top to see the article.

US Local Ad Market Shrinking

"The good news is that the local online ad market is growing, and will continue to make up a larger percentage of the local advertising sector."

More data from eMarketer shows how the local Internet market will be changing. While they predict that local advertising overall will drop (dramatically in 2009!), they also believe that the Internet share will increase over the projected time period (through 2013). While the bulk of what makes up their prediction is advertising, the impact on search optimization focused on local activity will certainly also follow this pattern.

We have emphasized in our clinics various techniques for reaching searchers interested in local services and products. Employing these techniques effectively will become more and more important for businesses with a local orientation. "Local", of course, means wherever you sell or deliver your services or products. It has more to do with the market you are trying to reach than it does to where you are physically located. Keep that in mind as you devise your strategy!

Click on the title at the top to see the article.

Searching for New Customers in the Recession? - eMarketer

"As marketers better understand the purpose of Website optimization in their overall campaigns, compared with the other three types of search marketing, SEO spending will grow at a higher yearly rate.

“Customers are going to search engines because they are looking for better deals,” says Mr. Hallerman. “And marketers are going to search engines because that’s where the customers are.”"

A research report indicates a new and growing interest in SEO activity on the web.

The article has an interesting chart showing how much money is spent on different types of web marketing. In 2008, expenditures on paid search marketing are about 7 times what is spent on SEO. By 2013, the author expects that ratio to drop to just over 5 to one.

Looking at it in a different light, expenditures on paid marketing will be about 1.8 times the 2008 amounts, while expenditures on SEO will be 2.5 times the 2008 amounts.

His explanation for the faster growth in SEO? As he says in the quote above, better value and "...that’s where the customers are."

What this means to us is that the environment we are working in on the web will be come more and more competitive, making it all the more important that we stay on top of what works in the field!

Click on the title at the top to see the article.

Is SEO no longer important?

Here is an article with a catchy title that goes on to make the point that, "... search engine optimization is not the be-all end-all of Internet success that it was a few years ago."

The author's point is that there are a lot of techniques available on the Internet now that one can use to market that are not technically "SEO". His discussion focused on the question of readable url's and how and why they are important. He did talk about the fact that these url's are not read as thoroughly by the search engines as the dynamic url's (for example, www.jamseed.com/ musicianProfile.php?id=126). This is a point that we have covered often in our Internet Marketing Clinic sessions, but he went on to describe how more readable url's attract more quotes in the social media. This is a valuable point that we have not really taken up much in the clinic. Social media is a rapidly developing and fairly recent phenomenon with a lot of opportunities for productive marketing efforts. We have only begun to touch on methods of exploiting this new arena effectively.

Just to make the point clear, SEO is still very important to your success! The techniques that you employ to make your site search engine friendly create the foundation that all your other marketing techniques can rest upon.

The world of Internet marketing is constantly changing presenting new challenges and opportunities. Our clinic is one of the best ways available for keeping in touch with that changing environment to help you stay on top of your field!

One Social Network I Couldn't Work Without

"... if I had to pick just one, LinkedIn would win, hands down."

We recently had a presentation in our Internet marketing clinic on social media and how small businesses can use it to their advantage. In this presentation, there seemed to be a bias toward Facebook. For a different point of view, check out this link.

Jennifer, who has been around a while and has lots of good advice, gives a good example of how to use LinkedIn as a business tool. She provides the kind of concrete detail that makes it easy to see how to relate her experience to your own situation. No two people have exactly the same situation or circumstances to deal with. We all have to adjust these stories to our own needs, and this is the kind of report that makes it easy to do so.

The bigger point, of course, is that the Internet is a huge resource, and the trick is to figure out how to exploit it most effectively for your own business requirements.

Paying for Creativity in a Digital World

"Esther Dyson, made a striking prediction: that the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product — software, books, music, movies — the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to “distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships.”"

This is a concept that is central to promoting your business over the Internet, and one that businesses new to the web frequently have to struggle to understand. As we emphasize constantly in our free Internet Marketing classes, content is the key to success on the web, and the content must be meaningful and valuable to the targets of the outreach effort that the web site is.

Businesses that are accustomed to selling their knowledge have to realize that their model of promotion over the web involves giving knowledge away in order to attract prospects. This often requires an adjustment in understanding the business model. Different businesses have different problems with adjusting to this proposition. In the article cited, sales of ancillary products are used to make up the difference in income production. Krugman describes how the Grateful Dead gave away their music, but made up for that through sale of "hats, T-shirts and performance tickets." That model will not work for many professional businesses that are now marketing over the Internet.

Attorneys, CPA's, counselors of all kinds who have specialized knowledge have to learn how to present their services with a different value proposition. One idea is that what they are really selling is not their knowledge of a particular environment, but the expert application of that knowledge to a specific situation that the prospect is facing! Anyone should be able to understand the difference between getting general advice over a website and the value of having a knowledgeable professional examine your particular case and help you determine how to deal with whatever problem you are attempting to solve. It is this sort of distinction that professionals have to get comfortable with in order to be successful in marketing over the Internet.

Using SEO as an example, we give away a great deal of knowledge about optimizing a site for substantial performance, but there is no substitute for having a professional SEO marketer work with the particular requirements of your business, your marketplace, and your site to achieve a dominance on the web that rewards your business with a high level of targeted traffic. Every business faces slightly different challenges, and knowing the tools that are available and identifying the best way to utilize them in each particular situation is where the value of the professional practitioner comes into play!

Local Search Improves Your Business!

"You only have to compete with similar businesses in your AREA."

Many businesses are strictly local in their reach and competing on the worldwide web does not contribute much to the bottom line. However, the web is a great source of locally oriented inquiries as well. The important thing is knowing how to reach those locally oriented searchers effectively.

This article from Derek Gehl's newsletter discusses how people search for local services by adding city, state, community or neighborhood-specific terms to more general searches in order to find the businesses or services that are relevant to their needs.

Derek provides a very useful listing of sites where you can submit your site to acquire links that are oriented to your locale. I have incorporated his listing in my spreadsheet of useful links for your convenience.

In addition, Jay recently (April 9, 2008) presented a new technique in our clinic for enhancing your site for local searches. This technique relies upon how Google responds to particular combinations of text and links within your site. Join us twice a month in our free Internet Marketing Class at UH SBDC for regular updates on the best way to make your site into an efficient prospect-gathering tool for your business!

The Open Secret of Success: Toyota and the Web

"The principle is often known by its Japanese name, kaizen—continuous improvement."

The New Yorker had an article talking about the fact that Toyota has just overtaken General Motors as the world's leading seller of automobiles, 160,000 more cars in the first 3 months of 2008 than GM! The article goes on to discuss how Toyota has achieved this landmark not through "cool new products and technological breakthroughs" but through innovations in process.

What the writer attributes Toyota's success to is the fact that they excel at continually making incremental improvements to their operations. In reading this, it struck me that this is the same approach that we always recommend for making a web site into a powerful and dynamic marketing tool. The techniques that we teach in our Internet Marketing class get their power and effectiveness from persistence in application of the principles to the creation and maintenance of the site.

Near the end of the article, I found these statements:

"Toyota’s innovative methods may seem mundane, but their sheer relentlessness defeats many companies. That’s why Toyota can afford to hide in plain sight: it knows the system is easy to understand but hard to follow."

This illustrates another point from our workshops, which is, the same techniques that we employ to create powerful sites are available to larger companies with much larger budgets, but for a variety of reasons, they do not use them! This is what makes it possible for s small site with a small budget to compete effectively with bigger operations.

How Much is a Top Google Ranking Worth to Your Business?

"In 2004 at the New York Search Engine Strategies conference a JupiterMedia analyst stated that 5 out of 6 commercial purchases which originated from search originated from the organic search results. They also stated 'algorithmic listings in search indexes generate an estimated six in seven commercially natured search referrals.'

2008 Penn State research titled Determining the informational, navigational and transactional intent of Web queries [PDF] found that roughly 80% of search queries were informational, while approximately 10% were each navigational and transactional. With so many searches being informational and navigational, it is unsurprising that people click the organic search results more often than the associated PPC ads."

This is a very extensive article with a lot of information about how to estimate a value for different ranking positions. There is more in this article than I can summarize in a single entry, but the quote above jumped out at me.

To summarize briefly what I found interesting in this selected quote:

1. Most commercial activity originated from search is due to organic results!
2. Ranking determines 6 out of 7 commercially oriented referrals!
3. Some 80% of searches are informational in nature as opposed to transactional or navigational!

These points really emphasize how important performing on organic searches can be to a business. Participants in our free Internet Marketing Clinic receive current information on the best techniques for making your web site perform well in this crucial arena!

This article is well worth some time to study, but be forewarned that it is full of information and will take some concentration.

Using Press Releases Effectively

I just read an excellent article offered on the site above as a free eBook download. this piece is chock full of great advice and links that everyone should know about. I recommend that everyone interested in enhancing his/her site performance read, no, study, the complete document, but I will attempt to summarize below the concepts that particularly caught my attention in it.

"New" means marketing directly to the user, not just through the media that press releases used to be addressed to. Media attention now becomes a "fringe benefit" of your press releases!

Press releases used to be about "big news", but no more. Anything your organization is doing can be fodder for a release now. For example (as the author suggests),

• CEO speaking at a conference? Write a release.
• Win an award? Write a release.
• Have a new take on an old problem? Write a release.
• Add a product feature? Write a release.
• Win a new customer? Write a release.
• Publish a white paper? Write a release.
• Get out of bed this morning? Okay, maybe not… but you are thinking the right way now!

Use distribution services to get your news out to the broad audience available. The article suggests four well known services, which can also be found in my file of useful links (Search the links page in the file for the phrase "press release sites".)

Don't forget to include the news on your web site. You should have a PR section of your site where you collect all your releases. Keep them there for as long as the information is relevant (why not forever?)

Consider "answering questions" and "browsability" in creating content! Keywords emphasize the first, but navigation and suggestions emphasize the second. Suggest things to people that they didn't think to ask!

Include the Press Release as a PDF in case people want to print it for any reason.

Pay attention to links in the PR. That gets people to your site, and increases your ranking. This means that you have to have the appropriate content on your site. That may mean writing something for the site before creating the PR.

Speak in terms that your buyers/users/clients use. That may include jargon, but mostly does not.

"On the best sites, content does more than just sell product – it directly contributes to an organization’s positive reputation by showing thought-leadership in the marketplace of ideas."

Segment your audience and release to every segment specifically!

Create something of interest that you can "mail" to people. Yes, snail mail, so you get their real addresses! Downloading is good, but sometimes people will want printed content that you can add value to.

Blogging’s a Low-Cost, High Return Marketing Tool

"But by far the most successful blog, in terms of traffic, turned out to be Free Money Finance, a blog that has nothing to do with Denali’s business. Mr. Nardini’s plan was to create a blog with so much traffic that it could serve as an independent media outlet owned by Denali Flavors, where the company could be the sole sponsor and advertiser.

He chose personal finance because it is a popular search category on the Web and because he knew he would not tire of posting about it. And post he does, about five times each weekday."

We are always on the lookout for new ways to utilize Internet "features" to improve the marketing of our businesses. this article had a new twist described in it that I thought was really interesting.

In all of our classes about blogging, we have emphasized the idea of informing readers about some aspect of your principle business. This article, by contrast, points out how someone can choose a popular topic to blog about in order to attract traffic that the business can benefit from simply by being the sponsor of the blog. This strikes me as being the same approach as used in traditional advertising, where the shows that businesses sponsor on television and radio are not about the business, but attract demographics that are of interest to the business. Education about the business itself takes place only in the ads that the sponsor has attracted traffic to!

This is one of those ideas that seem so simple and obvious that I cannot understand why we have not seen it and talked about it before this time!

One other element of this story also needs to be emphasized, and that is the frequency with which the author of this blog posts to the blog. Note that he posts to the blog "... about five times each weekday." That is a lot of posting, but that is a big part of what makes it work for the author!

Google's “Query Deserves Freshness” or QDF

"QDF is clearly a very interesting model but what really interests me is how I can use it to drive traffic to my websites."

Some time ago in a previous post I wrote about Google tweaking its algorithm to place more emphasis on current information when search volume points to a particular interest in a topic. At that point, I didn't have a name for this feature, but in this blog post I found the name and a more in-depth description of that feature.

What this whole discussion is about, in short, is that if Google notices an increase in search volume for a particular topic, it will boost the rankings for new information that meets the search criteria so that newer information ear at the top of the rankings. Without this artificial boost, the basic algorithm tends to prefer better established pages, that is, older information!

This phenomenon can be quite relevant to sites that have something to do with something that might be mentioned in news stories that draw a lot of attention. For example (I know this seems like a bit of a stretch, but it is for real), if you sell equipment to monitor earthquake activity (how many people do?), you should realize that any reports of earthquakes will trigger a response on the search engines looking for more information. If you have a current posting on your blog about your equipment that would rank on the kinds of searches that people do to find out about current earthquake activity, you will likely see a surge in traffic as a result.

To take another example, the article says, "... what happens when cities suffer power failures. “When there is a blackout in New York, the first articles appear in 15 minutes; we get queries in two seconds,”. The quote is from a Google engineer named Amit Singhal, who was also quoted in the New York Times article about Google. That illustrates how quickly all this happpens and tells you something about how quickly you need to respond to news items in order to get the benefit for your site!

This same article (the main article referenced in the title link), led me to an interesting tool, which, unfortunately, I cannot seem to find my way back to at the moment. This tool was called "Hot Topics" and is something one can use to see what topics are "hot" on various locations.

What happened when I was on the page of this tool was that I typed in a phrase and hit "Search", and it began opening a series of windows for various other sites where it had submitted my phrase as a search. These other sites included Google, digg, Reddit, and many more. On the results pages, I could see an indication of what activity these was going on related to the search phrase I had submitted. This is a quick way to cover a lot of sites to see what is going on around the web in relation to a particular phrase, and to find what you might want to write about yourself to get your own 'buzz" effet going. I found the whole thing very interesting, but, unfortunately, closed the window before I had captured the link, and now I can't find it again. If anyone reading this comes across this tool, I would appreciate a referral!

Web Presence Leverage!

"... the Web's influence on offline purchasing could outpace even the rapid growth of online spending. the Web's influence on offline purchasing could outpace even the rapid growth of online spending."

According to this research, visibility on the Internet impacts sales almost 3.5 times more than retail sales figures indicate! In other words, buyers in "brick & mortar stores" are heavily influenced by information that they have collected over the web!

This characteristic makes it harder to measure the return on our investment in your rankings and visibility on the Internet, but you can feel comfortable that it is greater than your web statistics can document.

This means that performance measurement for your site improvement has to be more sophisticated than simply tracking sales on the site. Site statistics have to be correlated with information about your sales performance. This is not very different from traditional advertising where one has to evaluate the impact that an ad has had by measuring other changes in activity, but it is different in the respect that your web site offers more ability to follow activity on your site such as traffic, keyword activity, and site content, that can give you a more focused set of data on which to base your measurements.

One thing that this observation might relate to is the traditional assignment of the responsibility for the web site to the technology group in the business. For a site to really become effective, it has to be at least a joint responsibility of the marketing and the technology groups. Neither group alone can create a truly effective vehicle for the enterprise!

Internet Retail Growth Continues!

"... retailers should be worrying about a real long-term threat: the Internet. The 1990s-vintage boast that e-tailers would destroy bricks-and-mortar retailers all but disappeared after the NASDAQ went bust in 2001. But e-commerce has quietly been growing at a rate far higher than that of the overall economy. For the past four years, online retail sales have grown at an annual rate of more than 20 percent. In 2007, such sales, excluding travel, rose 21 percent to $175 billion, accounting for 7 percent of total retail sales. "Online retail is growing a heck of a lot faster than the rest of the pie," says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research. Last year online sales accounted for 45 percent of computer hardware, software and peripheral sales, 19 percent of toys and videogames, and 19 percent of baby products. In the coming years, retailers, who are integrating online sales into their business models, simply won't need the same amount of acreage."

Another report shows how the Internet continues to grow. We have been observing this steady growth for years and talking about what it means to businesses, large and small. This article reflects the impact that this changing aspect of our world will have on real estate in the future.

I attended a real estate presentation years ago where the presenter talked about how the Internet was going to "kill" shopping malls. That warning has proved to be premature, but the speaker was certainly on the right track!

What does this mean to those of us involved in Internet Marketing? It means that the future is bright! The work that we are doing is more and more relevant to the economy, and the potential rewards are greater than ever! Stay current with the industry best practices through our free internet marketing class, offered twice monthly in downtown Houston.

Make Your Blog Work Better!

"Google shows more recent results if a search query that wasn't popular before suddenly gets many searches. Google analyzes the search volume and the blog post volume to decide if a special search term or topic is hot or not."

A recent newsletter posting points to a way to make your blog perform better for your site. The key seems to be to stay aware of what is "hot" that might be relevant to your site, and make sure that you get a blog posted immediately. What this article says is that Google provides additional ranking emphasis for current blog entries for searches that suddenly take a jump in volume. What this means is that if there is a news item, for example, that attracts a lot of attention to a subject that is relevant to your business, it is to your advantage to put something up on your blog commenting on the event.

Suppose, for example, that you are selling coffee on the web. One day you see a news report saying that coffee has been determined to be good for your health in some way that was not realized previously (a story that was prominent recently). News stories like that attract a lot of attention to a topic for a short while, and you can anticipate that this will be reflected in search volume.

What you should do is to think about what people who hear about that story and want more information might search for, and post a blog immediately using those words to make some comment or observation about the story. You don't have to have anything earth-shattering to say about it, a simple article mentioning the story line and saying what you think about it will be sufficient. The point is to get something on-line immediately to take advantage of the boost that Google will give the topic for a short window of time.

If you are lucky and the story does attract attention, and if you have picked the right terms, you could get a huge boost for your blog in a very short period of time. This kind of short term volume increase for your site can also have a persistent, lingering effect on your rankings in searches over time.

As always, the advantage goes to those of us who stay on top of our field and are persistent in applying the right principles to our marketing eforts!

Google: The Search Party

"the idea is to anticipate a user’s intent in a search query."

I just watched the author, Ken Auletta, at the New Yorker magazine, talk about Google with Charlie Rose, and a thought came to me about this concept. It seemed more obvious in the show than it does in this article, but the question is, "With Google customizing searches based on what it knows about different searchers, are we coming to a point where different searchers will get different results on the exact same search?" And, if the answer to that is "yes", what does it mean to web masters who are trying to optimize sites for the broadest possible reach? I don't have an answer to that question, but will certainly be thinking about it.

This article makes very interesting reading for general information about Google, how important it is, and where it is going. For example, it reports that Google has a market value of just over two hundred billion dollars. By comparison, ExxonMobil, the richest corporation, has a value just under five hundred billion. Google is only about ten years old!

This year, 2008, their ad revenues are expected to reach sixteen billion dollars, close to the combined revenues of the four top television broadcast networks. Google's ad revenues are increasing, while revenues for other players is declining.

Andy Grove, the former chairman and C.E.O. of Intel,says, “Google’s power is shaping what’s happening to other industries.” According to ComScore, Google does an estimated four hundred billion searches a year, which amounts to about sixty percent of the searches worldwide.

One other interesting point in the article is that "Americans spend the same number of hours a week online as they do watching television—fourteen..."

What does this mean to those of us who are working in the SEO field? For one thing, it emphasizes the absolute dominance of Google on our results, and suggests that this will not change in the immediate future, but, in fact, will probably become more pronounced! It says that we have to stay on our toes with the way Google rates our work, because that rating is constantly changing, with possibly serious impact on our results. And, finally, it illustrates the importance that the Internet has taken on in everyone's lives, and how that presence will likely become more significant rather than less significant, as we tie in more devices to the Internet (cell phones, for example!) Our field, while continually challenging, is only beginning to become what it will be in the future!

Eyetracking Shows Web Audience Ignores Ads

More evidence of the importance of ranking in the "natural" or "organic" results! We continually talk in class about how searchers ignore ads. Here is some hard evidence on the point.

In the study cited in this article, the focus was on banner ads, and with some discussion of "annoying" ads and how people respond to them. The posting shows the results of some eyetracking studies. These are tests that are done by having subjects open web pages, then having machines follow their eye movements to see what parts of the page they actually look at. In the three sharts shown, it is clear that people don't even look at the ads sections of the pages!

This is entirely consistent with my observations of my own experience when browsing the web. I can assure you that I could not even tell you what the ads on the page referred to in most cases. They are just not a part of my "scan pattern" on a page!

All studies that I have seen of searcher behavior have always reinforced this point. With this kind of information in hand, one wonders how paid ads ever contribute anything to the success of a site!

Optimizing your site properly so that the search engines present you in their unpaid listings is still the best investment of your marketing efforts! Not only will you get better results for your efforts, but the results don't stop when you stop paying for them!!

So Does Blogging Really Work? Here's the Proof.

An interesting post provides some insights to using blogs to promote your business. The first part of the posting is all about Dell turning around its attitude to blogging for businesses, and is an interesting story about the impact hat blogging can have on a company. It is not really too relevant to most small businesses except in that it shows that the wrong kind of attention can really hurt you! In most cases, small businesses don't have the visibility for that to be much of an issue. Attention is what they are trying to get!

To me, the more interesting part of this post has to do with the South African winery that took up blogging. If you read the details, they increased their business volume by more than a factor of ten! Yes, I did say ten! They state that they were selling some 40,000 cases of wine per year when they began their blog, and are now approaching 40,000 cases per week. Who would not like this result!

Their efforts in marketing through their blog go well beyond posting information on the blog, but that was the starting point. In their case, they began giving wine away to people on the blog, which is sure to get attention, but, for a tenfold increase in sales, it makes a lot of sense! The lesson here is that by using your blog creatively in your business arena, you can have a huge impact. You can be sure that these people are believers in the power of the Internet to promote business.

For more information about blogging and how to use the Internet effectively, browse some of our presentations that we have made in our free Internet Marketing Clinic at the University of Houston Small business Development Center.

Which elements lead to high Google rankings?

Axandra reported back in a May 2007 newsletter on the results of a ranking study performed by the German firm Sistrix. They include a link to the study report, but, unfortunately for me, that page is in German!

The summary is good, however, and reinforces the lessons that we have consistently promoted in our clinic, with only one new note.

Sistrix analyzed the influence of the following web page elements: web page title, web page body, headline tags, bold and strong tags, image file names, images alt text, domain name, path, parameters, file size, inbound links and PageRank.

In summary, the importance of these elements follows the order in which they are listed with the exception of inbound links, which are cited as being quite important. As with any such study, it is impossible to assign any specific measure of impact to the different elements. We emphasize understanding the concept of which is more important, and utilizing them all.

The one note that stood out from our general understanding of element significance was that H1 headline tags appeared to show less significance that the effects of tags H2-H6! This point really jumped out at me from the findings, and could be explained by Google continuing to battle the efforts of search engine optimizers.

Underlying all of this information is the understanding of the importance of getting the right keywords in use on the site in the first place! The elements discussed all relate to the proper use and placement of the keyword phrases.

Almost as an aside in the report, there was a mention that sites with very few parameters in the URL appear to rank higher than sites many parameters in the URL. This is interesting, as it is slightly different from the perspective that we have always taken on the structure of the URL, which is that it seems to inhibit the depth of crawl of a site. These are two slightly different perspectives on the issue, but with the same bottom line: complicated, parameter driven URL's don't perform as well!

Why Big Guys Don't Do Search!

I often wonder why big companies with big budgets and staffs don't dominate the search field. After all, they have the resources to get the job done, and "it ain't rocket science"!

SearchInsider has an article that summarizes my thoughts pretty well. The basics are:

1. Search is small.
   
2. Search is measurable.
   
3. Search is hard.
   
4. Search is utilitarian.

When you think about this, it is good news for most small businesses. It means that you will not have to compete head-to-head against these organizations until their mindset changes.

Search Insider » Blog Archive » Will Agencies Get Search? Don’t Hold Your Breath

Google Experimental Search Adds Personalized Page Ranking | Compiler from Wired.com

"Google has rolled out a new option in its Labs-based experimental search program which allows you to rank and re-order search results. The new experiment is reportedly showing up for select users only, but the help page says that the goal is to allow you to 'influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results.'"

This article in Wired magazine illustrates the constantly changing nature of the search engine environment. As the article indicates, this is not available to the general public yet, and may never be, but it points the direction to where Google is going with its thinking about searching.

As the article states, this feature is available only to select users at present. If it does make it into the public experience, it adds a level of customization to the search experience. If users have this kind of control over their settings in Google, and if they find the feature useful in improving the quality of their searches, it will tie them more firmly to Google to help maintain the current dominance that Google has over the search arena.

I can also imagine the possibility that Google will be aware of how its users apply this customization and somehow figure out how to incorporate that information into its public algorithm. What that might mean to webmasters is that the importance of community building is reinforced. Assume that your community of users makes changes to their search parameters to favor your site or sites like yours. If this filters back to the Google algorithm, it could become another factor in achieving the high rankings that make your site outperform your competition!

How the Web Interacts with Brick & Mortar!

"Now, one company is planning 3-D-like tours of Cambridge, Mass., and other cities that not only venture down streets, but also inside some local businesses. Tourists to this virtual Cambridge will be able to click their way along a Brattle Street rendered in realistic detail, and move through the computer-generated interiors of dozens of nearby shops and institutions."

This story is really interesting because it shows how the web is influencing and changing how brick and mortar stores conduct their businesses. If you think about this for just a minute, you realize that prospects on the web no longer even have to visit a store to see the displays and promotions!

The more people can do about their shopping on the web, the better it is for web sites that have effectively built their web sites to respond to searcher interests.

Online Sales Continue to Jump

"ComScore Inc. reported on Tuesday that consumers spent $733 million online on Monday, a 21 percent gain from the same day a year ago. ComScore had expected that sales would exceed the $700 million figure."

Internet sales continue to set records in increases! Several reports (this is one) have cited gains over last year in Internet sales this year. This kind of increase over prior year results is consistent with the long term pattern that we have observed now for several years.

The truly significant aspect of this news this time is that retail sales for this retail season are not increasing over last year sales in the same . Loren Steffy reported in his column that, "During the weekend after Thanksgiving, a barometer of holiday retail spending, consumers spent an average of $347.44, according to the National Retail Federation. That's down 3.5 percent from a year earlier."

This kind of news should encourage every small business owner to keep working on improving the company website. There is plenty of opportunity to be taken advantage of in this arena of marketing!

Matt Cutts Interviewed about Link Building, etc.

"We really think of these things as trying to provide as many opportunities as possible to sculpt where you want your PageRank to flow, or where you want Googlebot to spend more time and attention."

This is an extended interview with Matt Cutts where a number of interesting topics are covered, such as link building, PageRank management, hidden text on pages, adjustments made to the Google algorithm, and so on. I recommend reading the full interview, as I am only mentioning a small part of what was covered.

The discussion of link building was of particular interest to me and covered items like the NoIndex and NoFollow tags as well as a discussion of the Robots.txt file. In brief:

• NoIndex - can accumulate and pass on Page Rank, but will not show in Google index.
• NoFollow - stops the spider from following the link, so the target page will not be crawled and indexed (although it could still be based on a link from elsewhere!)
• Robots.txt - allows for management of the spider activity from a single location, but with some differences in application.

Note that the description of each of these features is limited to one point of view, and that it pertains only to how Google handles them. There is more to know about them, and other search engines may not treat them the same way!

Why I found this interesting is in reading about how these tools can be applied to redirect the pagerank within a site to emphasize the importance of the important pages and de-emphasize the importance of pages that are not relevant to search engine results. Specifically, when examining the link structure on a site, it is common to see many links point to such pages as "Contact Us" or "About Us". Neither of these pages will typically carry much information about the business focus of a site (sometimes you will see relevant material on the About us page, but that is an exception), so it is not important for these pages to rank in searches. These tools allow the site manager to take the pagerank value that is being sent to these pages and redirect it to pages that will do much more for the business if they can be made to rank well.

Attention to this kind of detail in creating your site is what will set you apart from your competition! Learn to use these techniques to your best benefit and apply them consistently as you create your site and you will be successful! Review our postings from past Internet Marketing Classes to find help on how to apply these principles to help yourbusiness.

Mastering Both Kinds Of Link Building - Authority & Reputation

"... presence builds presence - simply being present in more channels will lead to you getting more links, more authority, more PageRank."

Here is a nice article outlining several important points about successful link building approaches.

The author makes a distinction between pursuing links based on page rank versus links based on anchor text. I have never made that sort of distinction in my own campaigns, but it is an interesting perspective.

What I like about this article is that he talks about the importance of getting good anchor text on internal links (those on the same site) as well as on external links (those on other sites that point to yours.) He also emphasizes the benefits of LOTS of promotion, that is, getting your presence out on the web in as many ways as you possibly can (see the quote above)!

Many of our classes have addressed such tools as article sites, press release sites, and blogs. These are all valuable tools for increasing your visibility on the web, and part of their appeal is their residual power once you have gotten them out there! With this residual power, the placements are also accumulative, that is, they all add up to more and more power for your site.

For effective marketing, the lessons are still, "Content, content, content" and "persistence" in pursuing good techniques for your site.

Improve Your Newsletter Performance

Many factors go into the creation of an effective newsletter, but deliverability is one of the more important. If your newsletter does not reach your subscriber for any reason, nothing else that you have done in the newsletter to enhance your business will matter.

Two good articles from Constant Contact describe the elements that contribute to better deliverability for your mailings.

The first article discusses the steps that ISP's take to identify "spam" on the Internet, and the steps that you can take with your mailings to avoid that designation and get your mail through the system.

The things that are examined to identify spam include:
1. The number of complaints made against the IP address
2. The consistency in numbers of email sent
3. Unknown user rate
4. Spam trap hits

The second article points out some good mailing practices you should observe to help your clients recognize your mailings in their Inbox as legitimate correspondence that they should look at.

These suggestions include:
1. Use a recognizable "from" name
2. Use a clear subject line
3. Make it relevant
4. Keep a clean list
5. Authenticate
6. Offer confirmed opt-in

One of the things that we often emphasize in our clinic presentations is the importance of "building a community" around your web site. Having an effective and dynamic newsletter can be a significant component of this strategy. Read these articles for more detail and a better understanding of how to make your newsletters work for your business!

Scientific American Mind: When Words Decide

"Researchers are discovering the myriad ways in which language can have a profound effect on the choices we make..."

A recent article in this magazine points out three ideas that can influence people in the choices that they make. These can be applied to how your web site is set up to encourage more conversions by your visitors. Unfortunately, the article is not available on-line without a subscription, but you can subscribe at the link if you are interested.

The ideas are:
1. People are more inclined to avoid pain than to gain something.
2. Most people will take the default option.
3. A more expensive option makes other options seem like bargains.

One: Avoiding pain motivates people. People are more motivated by the idea of avoiding losing $100 that they are by the idea of gaining $100. If your product or service can help people avoid losses, that should be emphasized in your marketing pitch.

Two: Defaults rule. A study of 401(k) participation rates showed that participation increased from 49 to 86 percent when people were required to opt out of the choice rather than being asked to opt in to the plan. When you offer your users a choice, it is better to ask them to opt out if they don't want it than to have to ask to be included.

Three: Always have a more expensive choice. Several years ago, Williams-Sonoma offered an automatic bread maker for $275. That seemed an expensive way to make bread. Months later, they introduced a "deluxe" version of the item for $429, and sales of the regular breadmaker shot up, because it now looked like a good deal!

In summary, how you present things to your readers will have a lot of influence on how they respond. Put yourself in the best position to make your web site marketing efforts pay off for your business's.

Google Corporate Information: Our Philosophy

Google describes its philosophy on a web site, and the first four points directly address the kind of search engine optimization that we teach in our clinic sessions.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
As we emphasize in class, "Content is King!" Your site has to provide value to the end users.

2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
As we put it, "focus your site on what it is about!" In fact, we emphasize focusing each page on your site on a specific topic to better address the desires of the users.

3. Fast is better than slow.
Another point we emphasize, "be careful with graphics tha slow down your page loading." Not just graphics, of course, but they tend to be the prime offender on this point.

4. Democracy on the web works.
This is about links and the impact they have on rankings.

The rest of their philosophy is interesting, but the previous points are directly applicable to optimization.

5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.

6. You can make money without doing evil.

7. There's always more information out there.

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

9. You can be serious without a suit.

10. Great just isn't good enough.

For those interested, the site I took these notes from also lists several links to Google information that may also be of interest. This site is a "Google forum" with a lot of other good information. Topics linked to include:
* Google Today
* How Do I Get My Site Listed on Google?
* My Web Pages Are Not Currently Listed
* PageRank Information
* Webmaster Guidelines
* Google Facts & Fiction
* Search Engine Optimizers
* Frequently Asked Questions
* Remove Content from Google's Index

New Google rankings study

"The German company Sistrix analyzed the web page elements of top ranked pages in Google to find out which elements lead to high Google rankings. They analyzed 10,000 random keywords, and for every keyword, they analyzed the top 100 Google search results."

Another recent study re-confirms the information that we provide in our weekly free Internet marketing class at the Small Business Development Center in Houston! (We always enjoy getting confirmation of our approach from other authorities!)

The study analyzed the following web page elements: web page title, web page body, headline tags, bold and strong tags, image file names, images alt text, domain name, path, parameters, file size, inbound links and PageRank. All were found to have an influence on rankings.

While the article did not emphasize this point, it seems relevant to point out the importance of finding and using the right keywords. The study focused on what you do with the words in the construction of the web site in order to gain the most impact, but did not stress the importance of finding and using the right words to begin with.

This might be a harder fact to study and report on, but the importance lies in understanding the thought processes of the people that you are trying to attract to your site. Optimization is a matter of finding the "edge" over your competition in every small way possible and making use of that in constructing your site. Begin by understanding your target audience, then use the information presented in this report to communicate to the search engines in the most effective way!

Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine - New York Times

Here is an article that everyone interested in search engine optimization should read and think about. I took away from this several thoughts about how to improve my own optimization, which I will point out below, but you should read and think about this article from the perspective of your own practices and experiences to see what you can glean from it.

"Recently, a search for “French Revolution” returned too many sites about the recent French presidential election campaign — in which candidates opined on various policy revolutions — rather than the ouster of King Louis XVI. A search-engine tweak gave more weight to pages with phrases like “French Revolution” rather than pages that simply had both words."

This description leads me to believe that the specificity with which we place keyword phrases on our pages will become more important in ranking. We talk about this every time we cover use of keyword phrases in our clinic, but this tweak seems to make those lessons more important! It also emphasizes the importance of finding those "low ranking" or little used phrases to include in the site, because this tweak can cause them to float right to the top on any particular search.

"... Google’s formulas were not giving enough importance to links from other sites about Palo Alto."

This seems to say that links will become more important, particularly links that are related to your site from what we refer to as a "neighborhood" on the web. One indication of a neighborhood relationship is that a number of sites all link to similar sites. This is one of the things that we know Google takes into account when looking fr relationships between sites. It seems that it may be more important in the future.

"... Google has preferred pages old enough to attract others to link to them."

This point tells us that we have some special opportunities whenever something on our site is related to current news. If there is a surge in searches for a topic that is related to something on your site, it may be much more important that you have some fresh content pertaining to that topic. In other words, you can't rely on having been prescient and having information already on your site. Google looks like it will add emphasis to sites that have new content relating to the topic!

"Once Google corrals its myriad signals, it feeds them into formulas it calls classifiers that try to infer useful information about the type of search, in order to send the user to the most helpful pages."

I am not sure what to make of this comment except that what Google is doing with its algorithm is very complex and fluid, meaning that making the optimal use of techniques requires continual updating!

The influence of semantic indexing on your search engine rankings

"Semantic indexing means that search engines try to associate certain terms with concepts when indexing web pages."

Semantic indexing is something that webmasters and developers should understand in order to more effectively utilize the keyword research that should underlie all site development efforts. Semantic indexing is another technique that search engines use to try to "understand" better what particular web pages are "about".

The technique is built on associations between words that the search engines find in their crawling of the web. Words that are frequently found together on pages are taken to bear some meaningful relationship to one another. Simple, but effective and reasonable!

How do you make us of this knowledge to improve your site? Consider it when creating your focus for your pages and the keyword emphasis on the page. Consider it also when you create your links within your site for site navigation. And, finally, consider it whenever you look for related sites with which to exchange links. Finding sites with the same words on them that characterize your site will help you join "web neighborhoods" that are relevant to your business.

U.S. Search Engine Rankings, April 2007

"Google continued to build on its lead in U.S. search market share, claiming nearly half of all searches conducted in April..."

New data shows that Google continues to dominate the search market. Experience within our class indicates that Google typically produces 80% or more of the search traffic that class participants get to their sites. This consistently exceeds the figures reported by these surveys.

One point reported in the survey may help to explain this phenomenon. When data was broken down by industry segment, and the traffic produced by Google compared to the traffic produced by search engines, Google's reported share rose dramatically.

In any event, the message is clear, "To compete effectively, you must focus your SEO efforts on Google!" Our weekly free Internet Marketing Clinic is your best tool for learning how to do this.

Link Building is Hard Work!

"This post will talk about the process for getting a link from site by using a relationship building process."

Everyone agrees that links are a very important element in achieving high ranking for your site, and it is clear that authoritative links mean much more than links from less influential sites. This article describes a process for getting good links that makes it clear why so few people ever achieve the kinds of inbound link relationships that can be solid gold to your site.

The author describes a nine step process, but what it amounts to, in short, is cultivating a relationship with the site owner you have identified as a good link before ever attempting to obtain a link. Think about the effort involved and you will understand why so few people ever do it!

SEO Site Analysis: Knowing the Score, Part 1

"... prepare a report card for your current Web site. Think of the process as a scorecard of sorts, though the analysis could become a blueprint for any online marketing project.prepare a report card for your current Web site. Think of the process as a scorecard of sorts, though the analysis could become a blueprint for any online marketing project."

The author of this article provides an outline for evaluating the effectiveness of your web site. In the process, she describes, or mentions, many of the points that we regularly stress in our Internet Marketing Clinic in teaching how to create a powerful web site from scratch.

Two of her points that I found particularly interesting were, "If you don't have access to any information about your site, give your site a zero for Web metrics ..." and "... if you site is entirely Flash- or AJAX-based and doesn't produce an alternative site for non-JavaScript users, give your site a zero." She was unequivocal about these points, making it clear how important it is to avoid the mistake of Flash style sites, and how important it is to have statistics that your regularly utilize to understand what is going on with your site.

Some of the evaluation she recommends will require some tools that go beyond site statistics, but she offers some suggestions and links to places where they can be obtained. Some of the analysis may also go beyond the capability of many site owners, but we offer help on those points through our free internet marketing classes.

Using Keywords Effectively in Copy!

"One primary goal is to write copy so that the keyphrases are virtually undetectable when read by someone with no knowledge of SEO. "

Here is an article with some nice tips on how to utilize keywords in the copy that you write for your web site.

As we point out in our clinic, the point of your copy is to provide valuable information to your readers, and not to offend them with padded or unreadable content. The author of this piece, associated with Wordtracker, one of the sources of keyword information on the web, makes some very useful suggestions about how to write copy that makes use of keyword focus without being offensive to the reader.

Her suggestions?

• Keep It Sounding Natural
• Don't Use Keyphrases To Describe Your Products/Services
• Add A Word
• Break It Up

Natural: Keeping it natural is common sense. If it doesn't read right to you, it won't to your reader Don't feel compelled to add in keywords to meet some quantitative measure.

Keyphrases: "DON'T use keyphrases to describe your own products or services. Instead, use them to describe what your product or service is not, or what it is similar to or what it is better than."

Add: "The phrase "web design for small business" seems out of place because, most often, we would use the plural term (small businesses) when we were writing. To correct the problem, just add a plural word to the end of the phrase. Perhaps you might talk about web design for small business startups or web design for small business owners. "

Break: "One keyphrase I had to work with was "Texas Hill Country real estate." That would get pretty cumbersome if it were left as it is seen there. But by breaking it up with some punctuation, it sounds perfectly natural. Here's how it can be done."

There is no more beautiful place than the Texas Hill Country. Real estate listings in this area are filled with stunning homes that …

Note that the search engine will not notice the period. It will consider the phrase to be coherent.

*****

Always remember that you are writing to the reader (while considering how the search engine reads).

Top firms fail search engine test

"The official sites for top FTSE 100 companies are failing to capture their slice of the search market, with the financial sector yielding the biggest culprits, according to new research..."

"Despite the poor performance of some firms, there have nbben some improvements. Similar research carried out in 2003 found that nearly one third of FTSE 100 company websites did not even appear in the top 30 results when searched for by name. But in 2005, 100% of those currently ranked in the FTSE 100 appear in the first page of all search engine results when a name search is conducted. "

Once again, we see evidence of the opportunity for small businesses to compete effectively with large busineses in the new marketing arena of the Internet. All research agrees that searchers rarely go past the first page of search results to find what they are looking for. If a small business can rank on important search terms, they will get a chance at capturing the searcher's attention before the large companies can do so.

Using the right techniques and providing valuable content on your website can result in high rankings for your business and can turn your efforts into profits for your business!

How search engines affect purchases.

comScore Study Reveals the Impact of Search Engine Usage on Consumer Buying: "The comScore research studied the buying activity of Internet users who conducted a consumer electronics or computer (CE/C) search at one of the top 25 search engines in Q1 2004. Among the other findings, the study revealed that 25 percent of searchers ultimately purchased a CE/C product and that an estimated 92 percent of these purchases occurred offline. Among the 8 percent of post-search purchases that were made online, the vast majority occurred in subsequent user sessions (not directly after a search click-through). "

The study goes on to point out that most (85%) of purchases occurred later than the original search, in other words, the user came back another time before making a purchase!

They also point out that few purchasers utilize product specific search terms (for example, "Sony Plasma KE-42M1”). Their finding emphasizes that marketers have to appeal to their prospects on the basis of more general terms (such as, “plasma TV”). This is consistent with our recommendation that webmasters utilize both general and specific terms on their sites.

In our classes, we have shown how to utilize "down-list" terms, or, those terms that appear in your site statistics further down the list of keywords that have brought visitors to your site. Previous classes have also covered the concept of the "sales funnel", where prospects enter the funnel on more general search terms and work their way down the funnel to the purchase decision, often by refining their search terms. Capturing traffic on the general terms at the beginning of the funnel is an important element in converting the traffic later in the process!

As the representative of Overture (who sponsored the study) said, “This research supports the theory that all types of terms play an important role in influencing the consumer’s purchase decision.”

A new marketing tool arrives!

The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuaders -_"a growing number of marketers organizing veritable armies of hired ''trendsetters'' or ''influencers'' or ''street teams'' to execute ''seeding programs,'' ''viral marketing,'' ''guerrilla marketing.'' What were once fringe tactics are now increasingly mainstream; there is even a Word of Mouth Marketing Association. "

This article describes a promotion method that utilizes people who like your product to expand your marketing efforts. This is similar to what we talk about in encouraging you to create an effective newsletter for your site, but it goes a little further. The "agents" in this approach are encouraged to report back on their activities and are supported with suggestions for ways that they can spread the word about the product.

Some are offered incentives to participate, but the article points out that many of them do not claim the rewards that are set up for them. Participation in the promotion of a product that they like is sufficient reward for them. It is great to have marketing reps who will work for free!