Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Engaging in proper site SEO isn’t about pulling out a checklist that you can run through in a month, check them all off and say all done! A good optimization strategy consists of a variety of moving parts. Check one issue off your task list today and two more problems show up on your radar. Good SEO is kind of like an engine: There are many working parts, any of which can (and should) be improved, repaired or replaced to boost your vehicle’s performance. The more your engine is used, the more work there is to do to keep the engine in top shape.

With that said, there are some basic components of every SEO campaign (not to mention a really big checklist) that form the foundation of a successful campaign. Anyone who’s been around SEO for any length of time already knows these “basics,” but they bear repeating for anyone who is unfamiliar as to where to begin with their SEO effort: Click here to keep learning

In my last post I discussed using personas to create content that targets your potential customer. In that post I defined the differences between personalities and personas:

Persona = motivation (what the visitor needs, why they are on your site)
Personality = temperament (how they navigate, what they need to see or read to find what they want)

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In the world of business, marketing and advertising is everything. Marketing is at least as important as the products or services you sell. Without marketing, you have no one to demonstrate the superiority of what you offer!

There is a reason people build businesses in cities surrounded by people, rather than in a desert surrounded by cactus! You need people to market to, and you need customers coming in your door. The success of your business relies on how well you market your product or service first, and second by how well you deliver it. Very few businesses survive on word of mouth alone. But what many small business owners fail to realize is that while marketing is everything, everything you do is marketing!

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Engaging in online marketing is all about customer acquisition, ROI and profits. If you see growth in these three areas, you can be reasonably confident that your online marketing efforts are paying off in some form or another.

But things might not always be as they appear. While it’s never a bad thing to grow in profits, ROI or a growing customer base, you may actually be paying good money to lose great customers.

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For far too long our online efforts have accurately been classified as faith-based initiatives…that’s exactly how we made decisions for our offline efforts, and when we moved online, we duplicated those practices.  But online, in the glorious beautiful world of the Web, we do not have to rely on faith…you have a God-given right to be data-driven…to understand the impact and economic value of your website by doing rigorous outcomes analysis…web analytics is like Angelina Jolie; sexy, powerful, and a force for good.

-Avinash Kaushik (@avinash), Web Analytics 2.0

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Over the past 15 years starting a new business has become easier than ever before. The daily dread of horrible bosses, annoying red tape and ringing alarm clocks that force you out of bed before God gets up is forever behind you as you make that long-awaited jump to start your own online business. Your dream of financial freedom and peddling your own wares is almost as easy as point and click.

Almost. I might have left out a few details.

While the ease of starting a business online is great for life, liberty and the pursuit of sticking it to the man, it can also have its drawbacks. Just like starting a 100 mile sprint may be easy, finishing is another thing altogether. Every business must still follow basic business principles of success in order to attain a long and profitable life.

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If social media is the darling Cinderella of the current marketing world, then link building might be the u___ (unrecognized?) stepsister. When I describe link building and its important role in creating a company’s Web presence (see SEOmoz’s What is Link Building? for a definition/details), most people furrow their brows and say, “Sounds like you’re talking about social media.” (Cinderella gets all the glory!)

So, we’d like to end, once and for all, this unnecessary cause of forehead wrinkles by tackling the FAQ: What’s the difference between link building and social media?
 

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There are a lot of phases to the buying cycle. Searchers begin with a thought and then start researching answers via their favorite search engine. As they learn more about their query, they move into shopping and buying modes that hopefully lead them to a satisfied purchase.

In each phase of this cycle, the searcher is typing in a unique set or words or phrases. Each search is designed to provide more relevant information than the last. As the searcher learns, the search phrases reflect what they know and what new information they need.

There is value in building a website that provides information to each of these searchers, but the value in each isn’t the same. By understanding the full marketing value and potential of your website, you can build an effective sales funnel that provides each and every visitor the information they need to make the decision you are hoping for.

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Getting the most value from your SEO investment isn’t always easy. There are a lot of factors that go into every SEO campaign and it’s not always easy to cut something out without negatively affecting something else, or worse, the entire campaign. I addressed some of these issues in my last post linked above, and here I wanted to provide some additional insights on ensuring your SEO investment is a valuable one.

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What makes a good SEO? Is it just about having knowledge of search engine algorithms, being able to tweak code for the biggest ranking impact, or inserting keywords into a page to give it a better keyword focus? Is SEO all about search engine rankings or is there more to this than meets the eye?

Several years ago I wrote, “Gone are they days when SEO focused exclusively on top search engine rankings.” I wish I was right about that, but unfortunately, we still see a lot of SEOs doing just that today. Not the good ones, mind you, but still, far too many.

Today’s top-tier SEOs are getting out of the search engine ranking business entirely. Well, maybe not entirely, but they understand that there is so much more to online success than a top position for your keywords. Many clients still need convincing.

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