As 2010 comes to a close, there is no better time than now to plan for the future ahead. The best way to ensure profitable marketing in 2011, is to reflect on the successes and failures of the past. To begin, take a look at the Marketing strategies you have implemented over the past year, and make note of what has worked for you and what hasn’t. For your successful initiatives consider increasing their budgets or testing new opportunities within their realm. For your not so successful strategies, consider ways of optimizing their performance or shifting those budgets elsewhere. Next, be sure to take a look at what your competitors are doing and if there are areas in which you need to expand your marketing to stay competitive. This past month, SEMPO released its annual State of Search Engine Marketing Report which documents projected search marketing trends. While some of … Continue reading
Category Archives: Wprogram
SEO Tools & Tactics, From A Beginner’s Perspective Onward
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) should be present in every website’s effort to be more relevant online, but too often it falls by the waist side. A few typical reasons why this happens is because people do not have the time, money or the know how to achieve a substantial SEO campaign. This article will walk you through a handful of free SEO tactics that only require an hour to set up and a small amount of time to maintain. As the year-end nears, make it a goal to complete some of these basics, so that you can check it off your 2010 to-do list and have a great start to 2011. Also you don’t need to be an expert to start on SEO, but if your business ‘depends’ on it, we recommend hiring a professional. 1. Back to the basics This initial information is basic but essential for various search … Continue reading
Three Lessons To Help You Master The Corporate Blogging Challenge
The company blog. In the beginning, it sounds like a great idea. “We’ll put a face to our name, connect with our customers, share our expertise, and we’ll have fun doing it!” Not to mention the online branding and SEO benefits that come with active blogging. Then reality sets in. “We don’t have any writers on staff. All our writers are busy. We need more structure. Is anyone reading this thing? How is our traffic? Why are we doing this again?” If you are having a tougher time than expected keeping your corporate blog updated regularly, you are not alone. We struggled to figure out the best way to manage our own blog, but with a little unconventional thinking and some good, old-fashioned hard work, running the blog became easier and now, the blog pretty much runs itself. To help you master the corporate blogging challenge, we’ve decided to share … Continue reading
4 Worthwhile Ways to Successfully Leverage Social Media
According to a recent study on social media and dating behavior, more than one in six marriages over the past three years were the result of relationships begun online. In 2010, the rising popularity of social networks like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter simply cannot be ignored. When people are turning to the Internet to find their soul mates, you can rest assured they are looking online for everything else – from their next pair of Oakley’s to their new optometrist – and if you are a business seeking customers, you are well-advised to look online, too. All in all, social media is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. But don’t just take my word for it. Nielsen recently published a study stating that 79% of Fortune 100 companies are leveraging social media to engage their audience, and they are doing it in innovative ways to build buzz, establish relationships, … Continue reading
5 Secrets to Selecting Highly Effective SEO and PPC Keywords
If there is a single concept that is the driver of much of the internet’s growth over the past decade – not to mention nearly all of Google’s $25 Billion of annual revenue – it is the concept of keywords. Keywords are what we type in when we are searching for products, services and answers on the search engines, an act that Americans performed 15.5 Billion times in April 2010 (according to ComScore). For businesses, the implications are huge; keyword selection is fundamental to success in paid search (PPC), organic website rankings (SEO), as well as the holy grail of marketing: how to most effectively market your products and services to your target audience. Do our customers love our product because it is fast acting or because it is long lasting? Do they care more about the great price or the abundant features? The answers very well may lie in … Continue reading
What’s In a Google Ranking? Not Your Brand Equity (We Hope)
Is your brand’s Google ranking top of mind? If it isn’t, it should be; there is quite a bit at stake. In fact, in a thought-provoking article titled “Meet the Brands Hiding on Google”, Advertising Age identifies just how much is up for grabs by evaluating the organic search presence of five branded websites, four with which we’ll bet money you are likely already familiar. The brands evaluated are Home Depot, Tiffany, Harry & David, 1-800-Flowers and CDW, and if you have yet to hear of the last name in that list of five, you are not alone; the b2b IT retailer boasts marginal brand awareness. Still, nothing about the list of brands itself surprises. All five are easily digestible. The article’s findings, however, which point out supposed failures of brands like Harry & David to rank for incredibly generic search terms like “gift,” are what may raise an eyebrow … Continue reading