Online Marketing Blog

At some point, most of us have been lost. We know our ultimate destination, but either through a wrong turn or poor directions we find ourselves in the wrong place and likely very frustrated.

Without landing page optimization, your visitors may have this same lost feeling when they arrive on your website. Whether the content was written 10 days or 10 months ago, it’s easy to make assumptions about your website visitors and assume the directions (read: content and calls to action) you are providing make sense.

If anyone has ever given you directions based on landmarks (turn right at the gas station) you can understand this feeling. And ultimately you are unsure and have questions such as: what gas station, what if there is more than 1 and good grief why didn’t you just give me the street name?

So, you’ve taken the important step of setting up a Google Analytics on your company’s website.  Implementing Google Analytics is an essential part of gaining insight for improving the customer experience, and improving profitability for your organization.  As they say, what gets measured gets managed.

However, when you log in, you are met with a sea of data covering nearly every conceivable web metric, a lot of them which you’ve never even heard of.  You may be able to find the information you want, but it most likely involves a lot more time and frustration than it needs to.

Understanding the way that search engines like Google and Bing crawl your sites for duplicate content is not always easy to follow.  What exactly are the rules, and what are the ramifications for not following the rules?

This presentation by a group of industry experts focused on gaining an understanding of how search engines read your content, as well as what steps you can take to avoid penalization for your content.

Peter van der Graff: Redirecting Duplicate Content

We always assume that Google knows best, but is that necessarily true?  According to Peter finding a formula that works 100% of the time is no easy task.  He opened up with a great example “If you have a 301 redirect and you tell Google to go left, they’ll probably go right.”  You could end up implementing a 301 redirect and when you request the location a cached version of the site may still appear instead of the redirect you intended.

Perhaps he is writing some last minute jokes before his keynote?

There could not have been a better way to kick off #SESNY than a morning keynote from Avinash Kaushik (@avinash).  It didn’t matter if speakers had last minute slides to create or attendees stayed out until all hours, everyone made sure they were there.

This is the second time I’ve seen Avinash and he does not disappoint.  He presents the perfect combination of tactical tips and humor that both entertains and educates the crowd.  I’d like to share with you our readers the 7 things that I learned this morning from Avinash.  I hope you find them as useful as I did.

When you ask an online marketer what frustrates them the most about reaching customers and prospects online you’re likely to hear the following:

• Finding a way to connect with their audience
• Moving prospects through the buying cycle
• Growing their network and lists

Marketers often talk about their prospects being overloaded with too much information which can lead to an indecisive audience, causing marketers to miss projections and sales goals.  Lets face the facts, consumers are engaging online.  Recent studies show that over 53% of active social networkers follow a brand.  If there are that many people actively interacting and engaging with brands online what changes can be made to reach and engage target audiences?

Sign #1 – The Sounds of Silence – No One is Commenting On Our Blog

Google+ For Business

This infographic was recently shared by Chris Brogan on his website and provides some valuable insight into using Google+ for business.  Highlights include:

• Why Google+ is the place to be
• Sharing is the key
• Taking your business page to the next level

“Introducing Google Play:  All your entertainment, anywhere you go”  Google is looking to eliminate the hassle of syncing across multiple devices and computers.  Google Play is a digital entertainment destination where users can find everything from music, to books and movies.  The best part about Google Play?  It’s entirely cloud based so everything will always be available.  Via Google Blog.

What does it take to go viral?

This recent video from Salesforce.com covers what it takes for your content to spread as well as the formula for success.  The video also includes a checklist marketers can use to increase their likelihood of going viral.

This Week in Online Marketing News

“Getting Socially Optimized with Mobile Marketing” As mobile marketing continues to expand marketers are still searching for the best way to reach their audience through the development of applications for smart phones, ads, and mobile optimized websites.  This article provides some insight into the benefits and challenges of a mobile marketing strategy. Via BtoB Magazine.

What Are Social Channels Good For?

Sure you’ve setup your company profiles and pages on social media.  However, do you know what channels are best used for which type of interaction?  This infographic by Grovo shares some great insight into specific uses for many of the popular social media platforms.  Did you know?

• 40% of people like brands for discounts and promotions
• 8% of all Huffington Post traffic comes from Facebook

“Content Marketing Becoming Vital”  Kelly OCG, a workforce consulting and outsourcing organization shares that they do no B2B brand advertising.  Instead they spend about 60% of their marketing budget on creating, distributing, and promoting their own unique content.  According to the Custom Content Council approximately $41billion dollars are spent on creating custom content. Via BtoB Magazine.

How Social Media Keeps Leaders Honest

David Jones of Havas and Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore recently sat down to talk about the responsibilities of the leaders of today to respond to social media, and how it holds them accountable.

“Google Clarifies: No, Ads Shouldn’t Help Rankings & No, SEO Isn’t Bad”  Recent comments made by a new Google employee have some SEO’s up in arms.  Apparently his comments included “SEO isn’t good for users” and “It’s a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads.”  Curious to know what else he has to say and what reaction this has caused within the online community?  Via Search Engine Land.

"Google taught us how to search." - Paul Vallez

Paul Vallez admits that when he started at HP less than a year ago he had just come from Ask.com and was pretty cocky about what he knew.  Vallez also shares that he wasn’t very open to new ideas and wanted to step into his new position at a big brand and immediately demonstrate value. What was his approach?

• 75% Cocky
• 25% Open to new ideas

In Vallez’s presentation he identified what he called “3 Key Learnings” that he shared with the audience for improving the way that your search strategy is implemented for improved engagement.

Google+ Optimization or Community Building?

Initially I looked at Google+ the same as other Google social projects like Wave and Orkut. But the more I use Google+ the more I like it. Maybe it’s the network effect because others are using it more too. I often find content and insights shared on G+ that I don’t find elsewhere.

While the addition of Google Search Plus Your World (SPYW) has made a big splash in the digital community, I actually think G+ is far more useful (from a personal perspective) as a social network than it is as an augmentation of search on Google.com. When I put my Marketer’s hat on, of course it doesn’t matter what I think of G+ – the task is to figure out how to optimize opportunities to gain an advantage.

The 2012 Community Manager Report

Community Manager is an essential, yet still uncharted territory for many companies that are expanding their presence on the social web.  What should you know about the current state of this position?

• 67% of Community Managers work for a brand
• The most popular city for Community Managers is New York
• 65% of Community Managers are Female

Be sure to check out the rest of this report presented by Social Fresh.

Google & FBI: All Your Social Data Are Belong to Us

For non-geeks, here’s the reference (Zero Wing video)