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Thursday, May 29, 2008

The Two Heads of RSS

RSS, or "Real Simple Syndication," is a file format that allows for the streaming of text Web content. It has two primary uses in the field of marketing, and you should probably make use of both. The two uses are to stream content from other Web publishers onto your web site, and to stream your Web content onto other publishers' web sites.

The benefit of streaming others' content onto your web site is that it will keep your web site updated with new content. Search engines love new content, as do people. The way this process works is quite simple, although some programming may be necessary to implement the technique on your web site.

The benefit of having your content streamed to other web sites is that it results in links back to content on your site. If you have streamed content that other web sites find valuable, then it is like casting hooks into a pond. The more hooks you have out there (the more web sites there are that use your streamed content), the more likely you are to get traffic to your web site, either in the form of direct click-throughs or improved search engine rankings.

The easiest way to create streamed content is to publish a blog with a blogging platform that creates automatic RSS feeds of your blog posts. An example is Blogger, which automatically creates a URL to an Atom file, which is just a different name for an RSS file.

However you go about creating your content and RSS file, it is helpful to publish your RSS URL to RSS directories. If you publish your content in blog format, I suggest you use a web site called Pingomatic.com. It will automatically ping a number of popular blog and RSS directories about your updated blog. It is also free. There are more advanced paid options available as well.

If you could use some help implementing RSS into your search engine marketing campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837. We're here to help.

Labels: internet marketing, link bait, linking, real simple syndication, RSS, search engine optimization, seo, web site marketing

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Social Marketing - Keep it Interesting

I (Jerry) have been heavy, heavy into article marketing this year. It has become my personal favorite way of increasing link count. However, I am beginning to experience what I believe may be some resistance on the part of Google to rank sites with a large number of links primarily from article-related sites.

You gotta mix it up. In an attempt to do just that, I have also been doing some social bookmarking. But I have to admit, the social bookmarking component has not worked quite as well. The problem there is that for social bookmarking to be really effective, you need lots of other people to bookmark your site BECAUSE THEY REALLY LIKE IT and think others would enjoy it as well. So ultimately, it's out of your hands.

What can you do about this? It's simple, really, although also quite complex. You have to create content that is REALLY interesting. Just being a source of useful information is not enough. You need a gimmick. A hook. Something that makes people laugh, or gasp, or something...you need a reaction!

Simply bookmarking your own home page will not do it. Your site needs to be loaded with interesting content. You may not even want the content on your front page if it detracts from your core marketing message. This is only something you'll use as a hook so that people want to bookmark your site.

I'm not at all slowing down on article marketing. We have seen fantastic results, and it has benefits beyond search rankings, such as direct-click-throughs and credibility. But if you engage in article marketing, you should supplement it with other link building strategies.

If you need some help coming up with interesting ways to build a catalog of links to your site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: link research, linking, linking campaign, search engine optimization, seo, social bookmarking, social media

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Does Your Search Engine Marketer Know What He's Doing?

These days, anyone can set up a paid search account and call himself a pay per click expert. But there is a big difference between knowing how to set up an account and knowing how to maximize the profitability of that account. Before you hire anyone to manage your pay per click account, ask the following questions:

1. Are you certified by the major search engines?
2. Do you have any references?
3. How many accounts have you managed?
4. Do you do other things, or only search?
5. How long have you been managing pay per click accounts?

I know it's tempting just to let your ad agency or web designer do this stuff for you. But the cold, hard fact is that most web designers don't know that much about search engine marketing, either paid or natural. And most ad agencies don't really know what they're doing when it comes to online advertising.

My advice? Hire professionals who only do search engine marketing! In the long-run, it will save you a lot of time, money, and frustration.

Work Media is a search engine optimization and pay per click firm in Nashville. That's all we do, and we would love to talk to you!

Labels: advertising, paid search, pay per click, pay per click firm, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, seo, web site marketing

Friday, May 16, 2008

Have Patience with Pay per Click

You have to have patience when running a paid search campaign. Here is a real world example, from our own Google AdWords campaign. We are running a promotion right now whereby we are doing free optimization analyses. We're using AdWords ads, targeted to our local market, to advertise the promotion. Obviously the benefit to us is that we would collect local leads...if it worked.

The campaign had run for several days without much success. It was costing us a little money, but not much. I was on the verge of cutting it to try something else, when all of a sudden we got two good leads two days in a row, from companies based in Nashville looking to promote their web sites. The cost of these leads? Maybe $20 each, if not less. Compare that to the cost of a lead generation service where you are competing against several other companies for each lead, and it's a real bargain.

So have patience with your paid search campaigns. Don't pull the plug until you have enough data to know for sure that what you're doing is not going to work.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Beware of False Promises

If you are thinking of working with a search engine optimization company and they tell you they can have your site ranked on the first page of Google within a week...you need to step back and ask yourself what you are really getting. Yes, it is probably possible to have a site highly ranked in Google within one week...

...for a keyword that no one is using!

Here's the deal. It does not matter if your site is number one on Google, if that number one ranking is for a keyword that no one is using to search for your type of business. The point of a search engine marketing campaign is not to achieve rankings...it's to drive traffic. That is the reason we really don't have any kind of package deals right now where we promise X number of rankings for Y keywords. Every web site is different. Every situation is different.

We may end up marketing our services via such packages before it's over with (if that's what we have to do to stay in business), but we definitely prefer to take it on a case-by-case basis. It may be the case that for your web site, for your industry, you only need to be ranked for one keyword to generate a ton of traffic. If that is true, then we focus our efforts on that one keyword. Or there may be five different keyword that, collectively, would drive a ton of the traffic you need. In that case, we will focus on those five keywords.

So don't be fooled by the claims of some SEO firms. Sure...they can probably have you ranked on the first page of Google within a week...but they won't put any money in your bank account.

Please contact Work Media is you need any help with your search engine optimization or pay per click management. We won't make any grand promises, but we will give it to you straight. And we will work our butts off to get you ranked for the keywords that will actually result in customers for your business.

Labels: keywords, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, sem, seo

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Internet Marketing Update

We have been hard at work for weeks now on a couple of projects that are taking way longer than expected to complete...but that's just life, I guess. We are currently finishing up our newest book, tentatively titled something like "Winning the Pay per Click Game: Scientific Strategies for Maximizing Your Paid Search Return on Investment". How's that for a snazzy title? Unlike our previous books, this one will be published, either on our own with the help of a publish-on-demand company, or through an established publisher, depending on circumstances.

We are still working on our Google AdWords management application. That has definitely turned into a complex, difficult project. We are working with off-shore developers, but the development process is taking quite a bit longer than anticipated. We may end up taking over development and finishing it ourselves. But hopefully it won't come to that.

In the world of Internet marketing, the big news this week is Microsoft pulling its offer to purchase Yahoo!. Yahoo! stock has tumbled significantly on the news. Yahoo!'s largest shareholder, Capital Research Global Investors, says he thinks Yahoo!'s board of directors should be embarrassed. We at Work Media are disappointed at the failure of the merger. A combined Yahoo!/Google search network would give Google some real competition, which would be good for advertisers. As it stands, Google's marketshare just continues to grow, strengthening its dominance. No good ever comes from one company owning a market.

We are scheduled to speak at an upcoming search engine marketing conference in Nashville in August. That should be fun. Hopefully we'll have published copies of our book to give away by then.

If you need some help with your company's search engine optimization or pay per click management, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, internet marketing, Microsoft, Yahoo

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