Archive for the ‘internet marketing’ category
Four Things the New York Giants Can Teach You About Business Success
Last night, Eli Manning did it again. He put a team that barely made it into the playoffs on his back and carried them all the way to a Super Bowl win. He also proved once again that he owns Tom Brady. Now, I don’t think Eli actually spends much time engaged in Internet marketing, but I think there is a lesson to be learned from what the Giants pulled off this year that is very applicable to your Internet marketing or business in general. Here it is, as I see it:
1. Just because your present situation does not reflect where you want to be doesn’t mean you won’t accomplish your goals. Late in the season, the Giants were 7-7 with little hope of making the playoffs. But they kept fighting, managed to get in, and went on to accomplish their ultimate goal of winning another Super Bowl. If your business isn’t where you want it to be, just have faith in your plan and keep working hard. And have a clearly defined goal. What is your Super Bowl?
2. You don’t have to look like a superstar to be a superstore. Tom Brady is good looking and has the famous super model wife. Manning is a good ol’ boy from the deep South who has now beaten Brady time-after-time. So maybe you’re not the best looking or the most charismatic – if you believe 100% in what you’re doing, and give everything you have, you can be a star in your industry.
3. Have people on your team who believe in what you’re doing. Clearly, there is a lot of unity on the Giants squad, and those guys truly believed in each other. Compare that to the other NFL team in New York, and it is easy to see why one has won two out of the last four Super Bowls, and the other does nothing but make headlines for what people in the organization say (rather than what they do). The lesson for you? You can teach skills, but you can’t teach the desire to grow and help build something great. Look for people who want to help you build something, rather than those who are just in it for a paycheck.
4. Be thick-skinned. At one point during the 2011 – 2012 NFL season, there was a mass cry from New York media for Tom Coughlin to be fired. But that guy is thick-skinned and tough as nails. He just kept working, believing in his plan and his players. And it paid off. You are going to be rejected by potential customers, you are going to be rejected by potential employees, and you are going to have hard times. But let it slide off of you and just keep working. Be a tough guy.
So there you have it. Be like the Giants and you just may win your own Super Bowl! If you need help with the Internet marketing part of your marketing mix, call or email Work Media today. We’re ready to be part of your team!
Blog Friday
An associate here who regularly blogs on another website we have commented that today was “Blog Friday,” and it hit me that that is a great concept. Blogging needs to be a consistent part of your Internet marketing; something that you do every week, maybe even on the same days, regularly. It should be a habit. Now, I can’t say that I have done very well with this habit…for a couple of years now. But I’m back, baby! One of my goals for this year is to blog three times per week. So let’s explore this idea.
Why would you want to blog regularly? There are some very good reasons:
- You cause your website to grow with content. Google loves websites with lots of content. The more you have, the better.
- You can re-purpose your blogs. We’ve published a couple of books which have been very useful in spreading our brand and attracting clients. Most of the content in those books started as blog posts. You could do the same thing, turning your blog content into articles, reports, books, or anything you can think of.
- It helps establish credibility. Chances are pretty good that if you blog about a particular subject regularly, those who read the blog will think you know what you’re taking about.
- It can cause people to return to your blog to read your updates. This is a very favorable thing. You WANT people to want to come to your website to read what you have to say.
- It can cause you to think critically about what you do. If you’re constantly having to come up with something to say related to your business, it may force you to have to learn some new things about your industry and keep up with what’s going on. This is a very good thing.
So there you have it. Five very good reasons to have your own Blog Friday…or Blog Monday…or whatever day(s) work for you.
How to Increase the Number of Twitter Users You Can Follow
Twitter’s 110% rule (that says that the number of people you can follow is a maximum of the greater of 2000 or 110% of the number of people you are following) creates a problem for marketers. The top way to generate new followers of your own is to follow others. One way to increase their followers without bumping up against this limit is to maintain a ratio of followers to followees of around 1:1. But this is easier said than done unless you have some specific strategies in place to manage it.
Refollow is a fantastic, free online service that allows you to dismiss users from your Twitter account in order to manage that ratio. The tool lets you view all of the Twitter users who you are following, those who are following you, as well as groups of users based on particular criteria. They are presented in a grid of icons which display information about each user.
Unless you are already a celebrity or of a status where people are naturally going to follow you, you are going to have to manage your following list. The first thing you are going to have to do is eliminate those users you follow who do not follow you back (not counting people you genuinely enjoy reading). Refollow makes that process easy by showing you exactly who is not following you back and allowing you to mass-unfollow them all at once.
Another option is simply to buy users. There are many options available for doing this, so I won’t recommend any particular one here. It seems a bit unseemly. And the practice does violate the concept of using Twitter as a platform to communicate with those you find interesting. However…business is business, and if this is something you need to do to get past the 110% limit in order to keep growing your account, then it is a viable option.
If you can create a genuine buzz within the Twitter universe about yourself based on the quality or entertainment value of your updates, then you might not even have to worry about any of these options. If people flock to your account because they are genuinely interested in what you have to say, there will be no need to manipulate the ratio of followers to those you are following.
Most likely, however, at least in the beginning, you will have to take some specific steps to keep that ratio in line to grow your follower base much past 2000.
Getting Started with Spanish SEO
The market for your products or services among those who speak Spanish is potentially massive. And chances are very good that you are completely missing out on that market. This is somewhat of a complex subject, but I am going to give you a bare-bones strategy for promoting your business to the Hispanic market.
1. It goes without saying, but if you are going to promote your business in Spanish, you need to be prepared to speak to someone in that language. So you are going to need someone on your staff who can do that.
2. Use Google’s external keyword research tool to perform keyword research, but set the language preference to Spanish. The seed keywords should also be in Spanish:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
3. Create content for your web site, or create a new web site altogether, written in Spanish and optimized for the keywords from step 2. However, you should avoid any kind of automated translation software or web site. You need to hire a real human being to do the translation work. If you’re going to do it, do it right.
4. Generate keyword links to your Spanish language pages just like you would your English pages.
That’s it! Easy, right?…
Well, not really. English language SEO is time consuming and has many moving parts. But doing it in a language that you are not familiar with adds a whole ‘nother level of difficulty. If you are already fluent in Spanish, then you’ve got a big advantage over the rest of us.
Another consideration is whether you are promoting to a broad, global Spanish-speaking market or to markets in particular countries or to specific groups of people. There are many variations of the Spanish language, and what works and is acceptable language to one group may not be understood or considered rude by another group. In general, the best strategy is probably to take a high level, global perspective and try to avoid using language that is specific to any particular group.
So preparing yourself to do business with Spanish-speaking people will require some effort and resources, but it will open you up to a whole new market.
Google Search Options You Should Try Out
There are many things about Google that I dislike. I dislike many of the things about the Google AdWords program, such as the change recently preventing advertisers from split-testing different domain names in their ads within an ad group. I dislike the way Google constantly throws out new technology, and then provides little in the way of support for it (for example, sometimes Blogger will publish to an external web server, and sometimes it won’t, yet Google has shown very little interest in dealing with the problem or providing any guidance).
But the fact is, despite the many things I dislike about Google, I pound on the Google search ,engine non-stop. It is a fantastic research tool. There are a couple of Google search options that I recently started using that aid in the research process. If you write articles or use Google as a marketing tool (and you probably wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t), then you should try these out.
To start, do any search in Google. The search I am using as an example while I type this out is “law firm internet marketing.” Hey, there’s my law firm internet marketing site at number six, and the Amazon.com page for our book on the subject at number nine. Neat. Anyway, now click the Show options link next to the plus sign at the top left above where the search results start.
Now you should see lots of links along the left-hand side of the screen. Some of them let you focus in on specific types of search results, such as images or blogs or whatever. But the two that I want to discuss here are Related searches and Wonder wheel.
Clicking the Related searches link shows a number of other searches that are, obviously, related to your first search. I think it is safe to assume that these are search queries that people have actually used because some of them are way too specific to just be synonyms or whatever. Clicking on one of those related search query links brings up a new page of search results, just as if you had types that keyword into the search box. Doing this process repeatedly will expose you to all kinds of search terms that you may not have thought of that might be applicable to your business. If you are purely engaging in the process for research purposes, it may lead you to some web sites or resources you would not have found by using your own search terms.
The Wonder wheel option is similar to related terms but more dynamic. Clicking that option displays a circle (or “wheel”) with your keyword in the middle and spokes coming out that point at related search terms. Clicking on one of the outside search terms draws another wheel with the second search term with a long spoke that connects to the first wheel, as well as its own set of spokes pointing to a new set of keywords. Really, this tool does the same thing that the Related searches link does, but it presents the information in a “mind mapping” kind of way and lets you see the path you followed to arrive at a search term.
Gain an edge on your competition by putting these tools to use today in your research and online marketing activities.
Watch Your Capital Letters
Here is something most people reading this probably don’t know because it doesn’t make a lick of sense: Google treats duplicate keywords as separate if they have different capitalization. For example:
PPC
ppc
These two words would be considered different keywords even if they were both in the same ad group. So you might say…what’s the big deal? Here’s the problem. It has been our experience that there are times when Google seems to greatly favor keywords that are all lower case. It would not be unusual for the first keyword above to have a quality score of 5 while the lower case version had a quality score of 10.
Given that you don’t really know which keyword will trigger your ad, it is best to always use the version which might give you an advantage in ad positioning. So even if you decide to experiment to see what happens with capitalized versions, always test the lower case version as well.
Another problem with having keywords in your ad groups that are the same except for capitalization is that it aids in making your account more unwieldy and difficult to manage. Accounts that are fine-tuned to the best (and smallest) set of keywords are much easier to manage, so we suggest only using lower case keywords, but have each in your account as both exact and broad match.
This is just one example of how something that seems very insignificant can have an impact on your overall paid search account performance. It is important to pay attention to the details.
Got questions about search engine marketing? Feel free to contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.
Using Amazon.com for Topic Research
If you’ve read much of our blog (or our articles, books, etc.), then you know that we are HUGE advocates of using content distribution as a primary search engine marketing strategy. It has many benefits: it establishes your credibility as an expert, it gets your name in front of a lot of people, it generates many keyword links to your web site, and it drives direct traffic. However, coming from the perspective of someone who has to write many articles on all different subjects on behalf of our clients, I can honestly say that it can be a grind. Sometimes it is hard to find the research material you need to write an article, especially with all the garbage that you find in a typical Google search. However, we’ve discovered that Amazon.com can be an excellent research tool to help you write your content.
The way this works is by using Amazon’s Look Inside feature. This feature allows you to view and read passages from books for sale on Amazon that contain specific keywords. Amazon, shrewd business people that they are, only allows you to use this feature if you are a registered user on the site and have actually ordered something. So sign up for an account and buy yourself a good book to read. Then you’ll be good to go.
To use this as a research tool, you will search books by whatever keyword you are researching. Then, scroll through the list of returned results and find a book that has the “Click to LOOK INSIDE” logo on top of the book cover image. Click on that book cover.
On the next screen, you will see a search box labeled “Search Inside This Book.” This is the search box that allows you to specifically search in the book, so type your keyword in that box and perform another search. You will now be returned a list of links to passages in the book that contain the keyword. If you are a registered user with an order history, then clicking on the link will show you that passage. Otherwise, Amazon will tell you Sorry, you gotta order something first.
Searching through a book like this will provide you with all kinds of information about a keyword from a real book written by a real expert. This can be a richer mine of information than other types of online searches, such as searching article directories.
Anyone can be a successful writer of online content for distribution if he takes the time to do his research. This process can be tedious, but using the best sources of information will make the process a whole lot easier.
New Book Almost Done
Well, yes, I am still writing 30 minutes every day per my New Year’s challenge to myself. Then where the heck all our your blog updates then (you might ask)? Lately I’ve been devoting all my time to finishing up our next book, titled something like:
Be the Magnet
(How to Use Social Media and Content Distribution to Attract Customers and Business Opportunities)
The book is about using social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Squidoo.com, in conjunction with a content distribution campaign (articles, blogs, etc.) to spread your brand, generate visibility, and drive traffic to your web site. The book is being finished up, I’m working on artwork, and am about ready to set up the review copy that we will order from our publisher.
So we’re excited and believe it will be something a lot of people will want to check out. So that’s why no blog updates lately…just too busy finishing up something bigger!
The Thirty Minute Writing Challenge
Write thirty minutes every day. That is one of the challenges to myself at the start of 2010. Day three (not counting the 1st, which was a football watching, beer drinking, chilling out kind of day; the 2nd, which was a Saturday devoted to catching up on chores; and Sunday the 3rd, which was a church and family day), this is day three of my New Year’s writing challenge. Assuming I end up typing for in the neighborhood of thirty minutes, I can check off three consecutive days.
So what’s the point?
When I am finished with this piece, I will have three new blog posts or articles, all dealing with my industry, and all containing keywords and keyword links to my main web sites.
If you do that…if you create a new piece of content every single day that gets posted on a blog, or posted to one or a hundred article directories, or to any one of dozens of high quality social media sites…all with keyword links back to your web site…you will accomplish several things:
You will get your name in front of a lot of people.
You will establish your credibility as an expert in your industry.
You will improve your web site’s search engine rankings.
You will drive traffic to your web site.
That is an impressive list of benefits. In the general scheme of things, thirty minutes doesn’t seem like much, but I can attest (and I’m sure many of you will agree) there are many days when you just can’t find a half hour to do nothing but write. So maybe you do it early in the morning. Or maybe you do it at night (it’s 10:34PM Central at the time of this writing). Or maybe you just pay somebody else to do it. It’s worth the effort.
Normally I write something a bit more technical or specific to some aspect of search engine marketing (see the way I linked the keyword “search engine marketing” to my company’s main web site?). My brain is fried from debugging .NET code all day (.NET programming definitely does not fall under the domain of search engine marketing; however, one of the things that Work Media takes pride in is being able to do WHATEVER our clients need us to do to keep selling), so this is what you get.
I’m at 37 minutes…with a couple of lapses to watch a few minutes of reruns of the Office…so I can call this one done.
A Lesson in Keywords: How Many Keywords Do You Need?
There is a client we have worked with for a long time who has a Google AdWords campaign that has not performed as well for parts of this year as it has in the past. In general, 2009 was somewhat of a difficult year due to increased competition for paid search traffic and poor economic conditions. In other words, there have been more advertisers chasing fewer customers. And this particular client definitely experienced the effects of that.
After trying many different strategies (account keyword expansion, keyword contraction, higher ad positioning, ad split-testing, etc.) we’ve finally stripped the account down to the barebones.
We’re now only bidding on four keywords. I’m really not a big fan of bidding on so few keywords. It’s the whole “eggs in one basket” thing. But in this case, looking backward, I can see that if we had concentrated our client’s budget on that very small set of keywords, our performance over the last year would have been substantially better. We bid on many, many more than just four keywords. Throughout the year, we bid on fewer and fewer. And finally, this month, we’re down to the final four contestants.
Should we go down to a single keyword? In theory, if you place all of your budget on the number one performing keyword, then all else equal, you will maximize the performance of your paid search account, up to the point where you run out of traffic. So there’s one problem with this strategy. It is best employed in a limited budget situation.
If you have $10 thousand to spend, but bidding on a single or very few keywords only soaks up $1 thousand of your budget, there are likely many more opportunities you could be exploiting by spreading your budget around. But if you only have $1 thousand to start with, then spending the entire $1 thousand on a single keyword makes sense if it provides the best return on your investment.
Another problem is that keyword performance does tend to fluctuate. If you’re all in on a single keyword, then if conditions change and that keyword’s performance declines, your overall account performance will decline right along with it. So in our case, I don’t see us dropping to a single keyword. We will stick with the four keyword basket, but you better believe if we start to see a trend of declining performance, we will open up some other keywords.
I guess the core lesson here is the importance of allocating your budget so that more of your budget is consumed by keywords that provide the best return for your advertising dollars. The only way to do that is by carefully examining your historical keyword performance. One caveat is that keyword performance can be affected by where your ads are positioned, so your analysis will be most accurate if your ad positioning is relatively steady across keywords.
Paid search management sometimes requires some imagination, and it definitely requires a watchful eye. Work Media have a lot of experience doing this stuff, and we’re pretty dang good at it. We would welcome the opportunity to work with you on your search engine marketing. Contact us at 888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net.