Online Marketing Blog

The growing Global Economy has significantly increased the number of companies seeking search marketing strategies to connect with target audiences all over the world. Many clients we work with at TopRank Online Marketing are either already global organizations or aspiring to deliver products and services in different countries. As a result, we routinely field questions as clients begin their journey into International Search.

Many companies don’t know where to start with International SEO, so here are 5 basic and tactical SEO considerations for companies looking at expanding into International Search:

1. Domain Name
3 common domain setups include Country-specific, Subdomain and Subfolder.

Whenever possible, a country-specific domain name is preferred. i.e. companyname.co.uk

Pros
The country-specific domain is a strong signal to the search engine and may provide better visibility for country-specific searches.

A social media panel at a bowling alley? Yes, that’s how I started my Thursday morning this week, thanks to WCCO Radio (Minneapolis/St, Paul) which was host to a panel on Social Media for Business at Pinstripes in Edina.

Esteemed panelists included several familiar faces and brands including MIMA Board members: Brent Shiely (@brentshiely), Technology Director at General Mills; Ryan Arnholt (@arbenangstrom), Director of Interactive Marketing at OptumHealth; Jill Gutterman (@gigutterman), Director of Interactive Marketing at Rasmussen College; Tim Brunelle (@tbrunelle), CEO of Hello Viking. Bryan C. Del Monte of the Del Monte Agency (a sponsor) was also on the panel.

An informal poll of the audience revealed that just about everyone in the audience of 250 or so was on Facebook and LinkedIn had even better participation. There were far fewer people on Twitter and only a handful had “checked in” on Foursquare.

The web is flush with change and innovation. Gone are the days of linear information flow and incremental growth. Content flows in every direction through a variety of platforms, formats and devices.  The mass adoption of the social and mobile web have facilitated a revolution of information access, sharing and publishing at a scale never before experienced.

Access to information for discovery has traditionally been most associated with search. According to comScore, Google handles over 11 billion queries a month. But did you know, Twitter delivers over 350 billion tweets each day? Facebook is now over 800 million users and Google Plus has had a flood of new users as well, with estimates now approaching over 50 million. Social media is ripe for discovery as well as engagement.

Keyword and topic research is a significant part of Search, Social Media and Content Marketing.  An understanding of what customers care about related to a brand’s offering and how that manifests as keywords, helps drive how marketer’s approach content, optimization and promotion.

Over the past 5+ years, the search landscape has evolved significantly and optimization has extended beyond the web page to digital assets like images, PDF’s and video, news, social media and mobile. The increased diversity of content requires internet marketers become more creative in their keyword research in order to fine tune the matching of optimized content with what and where consumers are searching.

Copywriting for the web is a true art form, whether you’re writing web pages, press releases or landing pages. Add the practice of search engine optimization and it can get even trickier.  Too much focus on SEO and that high ranking web page may confuse readers, resulting in lacking conversions. Too little focus on keywords and search traffic will suffer.  Both questions remind copywriters to consider who their target audience really is: search engines or customers?

Obviously it’s both and working with a Keyword Glossary can provide copywriters with a solid guideline for topic planning, organization and emphasis so that both engines and customers are being optimized for.

While many companies have bought in to the fact that they need to make their content more “findable” and socially interesting to reach and engage more customers, the implementation is often a bit fragmented.

Interview Screen Grab from the 2011 Vocus Users Conference

When I was at a client’s User Conference earlier this year, Steve Farnsworth caught up with me and asked a question about using analytics to refine content for increased sales. I’m a big fan of repurposing content and I’ve paraphrased the transcription and shared below.

When people look at analytics from their website while developing content plans, what kinds of things should they look for to help improve online sales?

To start with, a company can do some research to start developing personas that reflect the kinds of customer segments they’re after. That information can get things going in terms of an Editorial Plan and keywords used to optimize content and attract links, resulting in content that ranks well on search engines and drives traffic to product and services pages. As you attract that traffic from search engines, there’s some data to work with – to analyze and refine.

Note from Lee: When I heard from Aaron Strout that he and Mike Schneider were writing a book, Location-Based Marketing for Dummies, I knew it would be a great resource. We often do book reviews here on Online Marketing Blog but Aaron and I decided on this format instead, focusing on specific tips and tactics you can use today.

Writing a book takes a lot of work, but with the work is done, it’s satisfying to look back and read all the content that got created. One downside to writing a physical book, however, is trapping all that content between two covers, especially for anyone that decides not to read the book. Rather than let that happen, we are unlocking 17 of the best tips from Location-Based Marketing from Dummies.

The pressure of competition and desire for business growth pushes marketers towards tactics that promise quick wins. Pundits advocate strategy first (been there) but doing so in a comprehensive way isn’t always practical, especially when it comes to areas like social media and content marketing.

For marketers in need of practical advice on customer-centric, practical content marketing, a solid framework can be invaluable for an adaptive approach that is thoughtful about overall direction and measurable short term impact at the same time.

An increasing number of Search Engine Marketers are advocating both Content Marketing and Social Media in concert with achieving SEO objectives which is a great sign, but often lacking a customer-centric approach.

One of the many great things about apps and an iPhone is that you can be productive or at least productively kill time, should you ever be blessed with such a thing as “free time”.   Mobile social media usage is on the rise and one of the most productive opportunities to be creative is using your iPhone at conferences to create interesting and fun graphics.  At Content Marketing World, Intel’s Pam Didner commented “Content is King, Creativity is Queen” and I sincerely believe that a competitive advantage can be gained in the content marketing space by being smarter through analytics and especially by being more creative.

One of the sessions I was most looking forward to at Content Marketing World was one given by Ardath Albee @ardath421 CEO of Marketing Interactions (blog) and Author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale.

It’s one thing to create a content marketing strategy, it’s another thing to execute it in a way that works out the way you planned.

Buyer experience is important! 43.7% of buyers say they’re taking more time to research purchases. (DemandGen Report) Each person receives 5,000 messages each day (and that stat is 2 years old) imagine what it is today. The amount of information that confronts each person online every day is overwhelming, so people begin to shut down or become better filters of information.

The B2B Track during day one of Content Marketing World in the “Gold Room” was jam packed for each session. That includes this session about Corporate Blogging and Globalizing your Editorial with two speakers from SAS and Intel. Since the topics were so different, I decided to split the liveblog post into two. This is part one.

Speaker: Alison Bolen @alisonbolen Content Editor SAS
Presentation: Results-Driven Blogging for B2B Brands

Alison’s presentation focused on corporate blogging and the blog program at SAS (a $2 billion business analytics company).

The history of SAS and social media started in 1976 with the first SAS Global Forum, 2004 internal blog program, 2006 SAS communities launched, 2007 the first external blog launched and in 2011 the transition to the WordPress platform. You can find SAS blogs here: blogs.sas.com

Day one of Content Marketing World was a great mix of catching up with old friends, making new ones and of course, great content. On the BtoB track I sat in on a session including speakers with two different presentations from SAS and Intel. Since they were so different, I split them into 2 posts. This is part two of that session.

Speaker: Pam Didner @pdidner Global Integrated Marketing Manager, Intel
Presentation: Intel Inside Out: How to Globalize Your Editorial Planning

Pam’s presentation covered her journey over the past year and a half to “try” and globalize Intel’s editorial planning.

Intel’s 2011 Marketing Objectives and Strategy:
- Objective: Increase Intel’s brand relevance
- The Hero (Product):  Intel Core Processors (i3, i5, i7)
- Audience: IT Managers
- Communications Strategy: Signal business advantages, Stimulate interests, Engage with IT.