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Tag: digital marketing

  • Best of the Search Influence Blog in 2013

    Si-i-180pxWe’re proud to have our team members contribute to the Search Influence blog regularly, providing online marketing news, tips and tricks, as well as updates on SI. There’s been a lot going on in our industry in 2013, so we would like to share our most popular blog posts from this year. Based on traffic and pageviews, we present to you the “Best of the SI Blog in 2013:”

    #1    12 Worst Social Media Mistakes of 2012 (And How to Avoid Them) 

               by Laura Manning (Account Associate)

    #2    6 Ways Your Surgery Practice Can Market the New Gummy Bear Breast Implants 

               by Tina Hua (Account Manager)

    #3    Surprise Oscar Winner: JCPenney’s #YoursTruly Real-Time Marketing Campaign 

               by Paula Keller (Director of Account Management)

    #4    Switching to Trello from Pivotal Tracker 

     by Luke Ledet (Lead Developer)

    #5    Why Call Tracking Numbers in Local SEO Make Me Angry

               by Will Scott (Founder and CEO)

    #6    How To De-Personalize Your Search Results

               by Jeanne Gaudet (Senior Online Advertising Manager)

    #7    5 Tips for Proper Hashtag Usage  

               by Marisa Michell (Account Associate)

    #8    Don’t Be ‘That Guy’…Top 5 Networking Faux Pas

               by Scott Holstein (Business Development Associate)

    #9    Proprietary CMS vs Open Source: It’s a Little Like Renting vs Buying

               by Amy Arnold (Director of Research & Development)

    #10   Found: Yelp Reviews Copied and Published as Google Reviews

               by Amy Arnold (Director of Research & Development)

  • Influencer Spotlight – Mary Silva

    Mary Silva has been a part of the Search Influence team for nine months, and in that time she’s gotten a reputation for hard work and dedication. She’s become the go-to person for managing clients’ online presences when it comes to Google, Yahoo and Bing. She is also the person people run to when they need a call made to Google. Additionally, as an Internet Marketing Associate, Mary does basic editorial work for the content team and helps to create monthly reports for clients.

     Mary Arthemise Silva, not be confused with her Aunt Arthemise Mary, carries on the tradition of bearing this family name, which gets flipped with each generation. So Mary has an aunt named Arthemise Mary and a grandmother named Mary Arthemise. As a native New Orleanian, Mary tells me all locals always want to know where you went to high school. So for all you locals out there, Mary graduated from Cabrini High School.

    Outside of Search Influence, Mary works as a freelance photographer and musician. While she usually focuses on synth, guitar, and vocals, she can actually play seven different instruments. Recently, Mary had the crazy opportunity, through a co-worker, to photograph the band Fun. Mary specializes in creative portraiture photography and usually shoots senior portraits, live bands, and headshots. Every year, she photographs NOLA Fashion Week for designer Noël Martin. Fun fact: Mary also shot photos for the Search Influence website! In addition to working at Search Influence and freelancing in her spare time, Mary is also a marketing major at Tulane University and is looking forward to receiving her BSM in May 2014.

    FUN
    One of Mary’s photos from the recent Fun. concert in New Orleans.

    When I asked Mary what the best part of working at Search Influence she said, “My favorite thing about working at SI is the people. I love my coworkers and have literally never had a bad experience with anyone in the office in the nine months that I’ve been here. We also have an awesome team building committee that puts together fun quarterly events for the company. It’s a really great way to interact with fellow Influencers since we spend a lot of our time working behind a computer.”

  • Top 3 Things to Check in AdWords “Dimensions” Tab

    The Dimensions tab in AdWords is a very useful area. You can really dig into a variety of different data sets to analyze your PPC performance. This data can give you valuable information on how best to optimize your campaign to maximize your budget, especially if you are limited by budget. There are a TON of things you can see and analyze in the Dimensions tab, but below are my three favorites.

    1. Paid & Organic

    A recently added feature, this table shows how your paid and organic results performed for every search that triggered an ad or organic listing. You can view your click through rates (CTR) for both paid and organic searches individually, but also the CTR for when you have both an ad and an organic listing displaying in the SERPs. This tool can be great to convince clients the value of paid search (even if they have great organic results!). You can also use this to gather some keyword data for making decisions for your SEO campaign given that Google’s decision to make all organic searches (not provided).

    Best Use: Gather information on how your ads perform when they are shown with your organic results.

    Learn how to link your AdWords account and Webmaster Tools account to view this data.

    2. Time > Day of the Week

    This report shows you all stats for each day of the week over your selected date range. You can determine which day performs the best by meeting your defined KPIs. You can then adjust your bids based on the performance you see. Are Tuesdays and Wednesdays higher converting than Saturdays? Focus on those days!

    Best Use: Determine which day of the week is highest converting, and spend budget there.

    3. Time > Hour of day

    Shows you cummulative stats for hours of the day for the selected date range. As with the above, you can determine which hours of the day best meet your goals (impressions, clicks, conversions) and adjust your bids accordingly. Be mindful that if you are limited by budget, the hours later in the day may have lower performance due to the budget constraints. You may want to test day parting for hours later in the day if you cannot adjust your daily or monthly budget to determine if those later hours are actually more successful.

    Best Use: Determine which hours of the day convert best and set up dayparting to spend more budget during these times.

    Check out the dimensions tab for yourself and get familiar with the data that is available. There are many more reports available that give you actionable information to better optimize your campaigns. Which are your favorites? Let us know in the comments!

  • The BIG PROJECT To Get Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy Going In A BIG Way

    Content Marketing Strategy - ebook image
    Don’t worry. Unless you’re selling whaling vessels, you don’t need to write like Melville.

    Are you an expert in your field? Do you want potential customers to know that? Give them proof by literally writing the book. Now, don’t go anywhere just yet. Yes, I did just say that you should write a book, but we’re not talking about the next Great American Novel or even the next Mildly Interesting American Novel. We’re talking about writing an ebook.

    Here’s what you need to do: write 20-50 pages. Actually, write however much you can. Only got 15 pages in you? Fine. Want to crank out 100? Go for it. As long as it’s high quality, relevant information with supported claims and research aimed at providing readers with solutions, you’re good. One of the easiest ways to do this is to start with your FAQs and expand from there because: 1) You know all these answers. 2) You know that your customers are asking these questions.

    Alternatively, you could start by publishing a series of blog posts that you then put together in a collection with an introduction to pull it all together. Boom! You’ve got an ebook. Have you written articles for industry insiders? Bam! Ebook!

    Here’s why you need to do this: people like to get information before they spend money. It’s that simple.

    1) Give the People What They Want to Establish Your Company as a Leader

    Decision makers want all the information they can get from the best, most credible source it can come from. Make that source is you. Before you can start selling your products or services, you need to sell your brand and your business as a leader in the industry—and not just as a leader in terms of size or profit. You need your potential customers to view you as a thought leader in your industry, an authority, an innovator. You’ll look like you know what you’re doing, and that builds confidence in your customers.

    2) Get Many Miles Out of the Info

    One of the greatest benefits of writing an ebook is that once it’s done, you’ve got all the research and content that you’ll need to power your content marketing for months. You’ll publish your ebook, release a mobile version, get a few blogs out of it, stick it on SlideShare, put it on YouTube, publish a press release about it, post about it on all the social media sites, promote those posts, turn it into an infographic (bonus points for a series of infographics), do some guest blogging on the topic, and on and on forever and ever… or at least until your audience has already consumed it in those various forms. Except isn’t your audience always growing and changing (if you are doing it right)? Update everything in a year or two and do it all again. Repurpose that content so that your audience is getting relevant information in just about any form they want it and you are getting backlinks, social signals, and other valuable SEO stuff.

    3) Get There Before Your Competitors

    The Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs found that 16% of B2B marketers used ebooks as part of their content marketing strategies in 2012, up from 9% in 2011. Utilizing this tactic while it is still relatively rare will make you stand out among your competitors and establish yourself as an authority in the field (see number 1 above).

  • 3 Keys to Your SEO Strategy for 2013 and Beyond

    Oct13If there was a formula for the best SEO strategy in today’s online market, it might look something like this:

    Content + links + social = WIN

    While there are no guarantees when it comes to search engine optimization, including these three ingredients in your strategy is sure to improve your ROI. Here are some tips and best practices to strengthen your SEO foundation and get results.

    Content: More Important Than Ever

    With recent changes to Google, like the new algorithm and the demise of the Google Keyword Tool in favor of SSL secured searches (that no longer allow marketers—or anyone else—to see specific keyword search data), great content is essential for optimizing your website.

    There are no keyword “cheats” left. In order to boost your search engine ranking, you need to include keywords and search phrases organically inside well written, engaging content that encourages not only search engines, but also your visitors to spread the word about your business.

    Aside from quality, freshness counts when it comes to content. Search engines index your website more frequently when you’re adding new content—so unless you want to continually rewrite the copy on your core pages, you need a way to keep updating your content. Starting or reviving a small business blog is a great way to do that.

    Links: Quality Over Quantity

    Link building has been an important part of SEO as long as there has been other websites to link to. Over the years, search engines have changed the way they weigh links. At first it was the more links, the better—but today, it’s all about quality.

    There are two parts to link quality: inbound versus outbound and reputation. Inbound links—those that lead to your site from other sites—are weighted higher than outbound links, because they mean someone else is impressed enough with your content to link to it. With reputation, the higher the linked site ranks in search engines, the more it matters to your own SEO.

    How can you get quality inbound links? Here are a few ways to do it:

    • Guest blogging. By writing quality content for blogs related to your business, you accomplish two things: help the hosting blog by giving them fresh, unique content, and gain inbound links. Most sites will offer guest bloggers a backlink to their own site in exchange for writing original posts.
    • Press releases. While some businesses view the press release as an antiquated tool that reached its peak while news still came mostly in print form, this type of content can still help your online marketing. There are plenty of syndicated online PR distribution sites, and sending out relevant, newsworthy press releases will spread more inbound links to your website around, even if it doesn’t get you in the newspapers.
    • Content repackaging. For maximum impact with minimal effort, spin your existing content into new pieces for redistribution. Turn newsletter articles into guest posts, blog entries into infographics, or even case studies into explainer videos. Don’t forget to include links to your website in all of your new content!

    Social Media: Yes, You Need It

    If you’re one of the few businesses that still doesn’t have a social media presence, it’s past time to get started. And if your social networks are getting dusty with neglect, it’s time to start showing them some love. Being active on social media helps you amplify your SEO strategy—building your brand and exposing your business to more potential customers.

    The whole idea of social media may be overwhelming, whether you haven’t started yet or you’re trying to keep up with accounts on 10 different networks. For most small businesses, the best social strategy is to choose one or two channels to focus your efforts on (with Facebook and/or Twitter usually the most effective) and build those networks to perfection, instead of scattering your attempts across every platform out there.

    Have you included these keys in your SEO strategy? What are you doing to keep your online marketing relevant? Let us know in the comments!

    Image courtesy of chichacha

    Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

  • SEO: Making it Work For You

    Below you will find a webinar I did a few weeks ago that gives a very high level overview of things YOU can do to improve your presence online. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can sound intimidating at first, but as you will see, there are many actionable items in this webinar that anyone could implement. Watch this presentation to learn more about what you can do on and off your website to improve your ranking in search results. If you have any questions after watching the webinar, please feel free to give us a call at 504-208-3900 (x.211)

  • 3 Tips for Measuring Your Online Success with SEO and Beyond

    Lately I’m finding more and more clients focused on increasing site traffic. Some are setting goals to double, triple, or even quadruple their current site traffic in as little as 3 months with an SEO campaign. I’m all for a challenge, but there are other metrics to measure the success of an SEO campaign than just site traffic. Here are 3 helpful tips to running a successful and fulfilling online campaign!

    Focus on conversion traffic

    Having 2 million site visits a month is phenomenal! But when these 2 million visitors come to a site, how are they engaging or interacting? Do they click on one of your display ads or make a purchase? Are they filling out a form or calling for more information? A site can generate 2 million visits a month, but if your phone isn’t ringing or if products aren’t being sold, those visits aren’t very valuable. I’ll take less site traffic and a higher conversion rate any day.

    I worked in a retail boutique for 7 years, and as anyone who has ever worked in retail knows, there is nothing worse than a busy day with no sales. You are constantly catering to a customer’s every need with the hope that they might buy something, only to have them say, “I’ll think about it and come back later,” and walk out the door. It gets tiring after a while. Now, try doing that 2 million times a month.

    Traffic coming to your site and not converting is the same as having a full retail store with no sales. You not only want to drive traffic to your site; you want to drive the traffic that is most likely to convert into sales, leads, or better yet, repeat customers.

    Site-Conversion-Image

    Market your business through other online marketing avenues

    In addition to SEO, a great way to increase your site traffic is to make sure you have a presence on other social platforms and engage potential customers through other online marketing campaigns. Launching a paid search campaign is a great way to increase your site traffic immediately if you just can’t wait the 6 – 12 months it will take to organically grow your visibility with SEO.

    A strong social presence can potentially impact your organic search rankings as well. Having optimized and branded social networks throughout the web not only helps your SEO but also allows for another branding opportunity.  Different market segments interact and connect differently.  Having a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ and running a paid search campaign gives you the opportunity to expand your reach and potentially increase conversion traffic.

    Look at other metrics to track success

     When analyzing the success of any online marketing campaign, a great way to see how your audience is interacting when they come to your site is to look at bounce rate, pageviews, and the average time spent on site.  Having a low bounce rate indicates that visitors are coming to your site and finding the information or products they are looking for. A high bounce rate suggests that a visitor came to your site and wasn’t pleased with your content, couldn’t find a form or contact number, or had difficulty finding your products or services and left your site feeling frustrated.

    Another metric to look at is pageviews. A high number of average pageviews shows visitors are staying on your site and engaging with your content. The more pageviews, the more engaged your visitors are on your site. Paying attention to the average time spent on site is another indicator to show that visitors are spending time reading content, looking at products, learning about services, or viewing before and after photos. Keeping  visitors engaged on your site is key. The longer they are on your site, the lesser chances are that they will leave and go to another competitor.

    Lastly, consider calculating and tracking your total site conversion rate. Of all the visits to your site in a given time period, how many of them “converted,” or performed the desired action? If you’re interested in monitoring this metric, the ultimate tracking would include organic and paid call tracking, form inquiry tracking that captures the source and medium of the visitor and strategic event tracking in Google Analytics.

    There’s more to online success than a high number of website visitors. Even with a slight decrease in traffic, if metrics such as bounce rate, pageviews and conversion rate are up you will know that you are targeting (and capturing) the right audience!

  • The Return… of the Website

    Website examples

    The website is back, y’all!  Yeah yeah, we know they didn’t go anywhere, but for the last few years we have had a large shift to companies investing in their social media presence and building out experiences that their fans can interact with on Facebook.

    It made sense 100% of the way at that point in time. That’s where the users were — on Facebook. That’s where MANY users still are. Facebook is still growing; albeit, not quite as rapidly as 2 years ago, but doesn’t it feel like you see at least one new aunt and uncle popping up on Facebook each week?

    If it’s growing, then why does it feel like it has become stale?

    The challenge here lies in the evolution of Facebook over the more recent years. Facebook started with a wall for each person. That was the only place, besides on your own profile, that you could write anything on Facebook.

    If you wanted to see what someone was saying, you had to visit individual Facebook profiles. Since 2006–and then expanded upon by “the new Facebook” in 2010–we have the News Feed. Facebook prioritizes what it thinks is news based on an algorithm of what it thinks you want to see. The problem is, I am pretty bored with checking my Facebook because the algorithm hasn’t quite got it right, and it’s too far gone to ever get corrected.

    If you are a business, Facebook admits only 16% of your fans (I refuse to call them “like-ers”), are seeing your posts that you are putting all of that thought and energy into. Now I am not recommending you abandon Facebook — as you shouldn’t — buyers (especially women) are on Facebook, so learn how to improve your EdgeRank with our recent post by Laura Manning.

    When Facebook users see only a couple new posts every time they check, they get bored. And bored on Facebook means your user starts to think “hmm… what else can I do on my mac, iPhone, or iPad?

    I have found that I have started to wander the internet much more than I did a year ago. Facebook used to consume about 90% of my leisure internet use. Now it consumes about 20%.

    Website Under Construction

    What I am starting to find is an appreciation for websites again: a place where you can go and dive deeper into a product or service and really discover your options. Kind of how it was in 2000.

    So for those of you who have truly been investing in your websites in the right ways over the past decade, who have recently started, or  want to make an investment now, my prediction is that is the right time to do so.

    The Key Things You Need to Remember:

    1. Make sure they can picture themselves using your product.

    Got a spa? Make sure they can see themselves in it. Got a house cleaning business? Make sure they can picture themselves sitting in their clean living room when you are done.

    2. Sell it.

    Sell what you’ve got to offer. Whether you’ve got, again, a spa or a house cleaning service, buyers want to read all the juicy details of how they’re getting a quality, comprehensive service for their hard earned cash. Explain every aspect of your packages, down to the last detail. Even if you think it’s insignificant, your buyers will appreciate it. Your customers want to know the benefits!!

    3. Update your website. 

    Feature all of your products or services on your website. I want to know what you can do for me. No one wants to ask “do you do stump grinding?”

    4. “Give away a little bit of the store.”

    Search Influence’s Director of R&D, Amy Arnold, often preaches that each website needs to “give away a little bit of the store.” This means provide info on your site that you would typically share with someone when you have an initial call, consultation, or meeting with them. Yes, yes, it may be more than you want to put out because “what if they don’t call me” but trust me, this is the right thing to do. We have low bounce rates on sites that support this recommendation.

    If you provide them the information they are looking for without them having to call you, you are proving to them that you have the knowledge — when you competitors are probably not.

    The key learning here is simple — don’t ignore your website — your website should be updated almost as many times as your aunt comments on your recent pics on “the Fbook.” Your customers are searching, and they will likely find you if you continue to keep your website up to date. Of course, doing some off-site promotion of your site never hurt either, but that’s not the point of this post 🙂

    Your website is being looked at more than you think. And if you don’t know how many visits you are getting to your site and from where they are coming, for heaven’s sake, install Google Analytics on it!

  • Expand Keywords for Expanded Results

    Letters

    Keywords are the key—no pun intended—to driving traffic to your site, and is part of the SEO basics a site owner needs to know. A smart business manager will put a great deal of thought into which terms to target. Even a fantastic list can always use improvement—however, four simple keyword expansions can be the trick to increasing your impressions using terms that are proven to get results.

    Keyword expansion is quick, easy, and almost guaranteed to work. It might not drive tons of traffic, but it will certainly add to your existing pool.

    1: Pluralize

    Many of the main keywords can come to mind almost automatically: if you sell dog brushes, you’ve probably already factored “buy dog brush” into your list. But even if someone only wants to buy one, they’ll often search for “buy dog brushes”. Because some engines recognize plurals as separate keywords, you are potentially losing out on all the impressions from the “dog brushes” searchers. Adding an –s or –es to your common terms becomes a no-brainer when you realize how easily it can boost your traffic.

    2: Rearrange

    People typing search queries don’t always use syntax and grammar the way they do in everyday speech. To continue the example above, someone might search “dog brush buy,” which follows a pattern of what they want (dog brush), followed by what they want to do (buy). Yes, it’s likely to be a far fewer number of people than those searching “buy dog brush,” but that fewer number is not insignificant. Mixing up your word order often elicits more results.

    3: Misspell

    Another regularly overlooked area for keywords are typos and misspellings. Some errors are certainly more common than others; a check down the search query report should show you where you might have luck. If your canine brushes are of the affordable variety, running both “cheap dog brushes” and “cheep dog brushes” could benefit you. Fewer search engine gurus are competing for misspellings, as well, meaning you’ll have a good chance at capturing more of the market.

    4: Match

    The three different match types—exact, broad, and phrase—generally work together to generate the most impressions and clicks even though many choose to limit to exact match for a quality response. If your aim is to get more traffic to your site, though, casting a wide net will bring in more fish. Broad match additions to “dog brushes” might include “dog kennels” or “hair brushes,” but people running those searches might also be pleased to stumble across you. You’ll also pick up on new keywords, through broad and phrase matches that make sense, which you can incorporate into your list.

    Keywords and keyword rankings are important to being found online. With a few additions and clicks, you’ve now expanded your keywords to draw impressions from those who pluralize, rearrange, or misspell words, as well as those running similar searches. You’ll benefit in impressions and ultimately traffic as well, without stressing over your keyword list.

    Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

  • Find Out ‘What’s News’ in Miami, July 11-13

    It’s that time of the year again, when media gurus convene for the annual AAN (Association of Alternative Newsmedia) convention, which is set to take over the Miami scene July 11th-13th. The 3-day convention is jammed packed with speakers discussing the latest in media and news technology, including our very own Will Scott, who will be presenting that Friday afternoon.

    AAN
    “Networking, Inspiration, Innovations, and Parties” are what you are slated to find at this year’s AAN convention.

    In a time when the digital world is constantly changing and the concept of media is continually redefined, the 36th annual AAN convention is the perfect place to catch up with the latest and greatest. Top industry leaders, publishers, editors, and community organizers will be sharing their knowledge through presentations, workshops, and exhibits. The convention’s location in Miami lends itself to vibrant culture and alternative lifestyles, undoubtedly supporting the program’s 4 promises: Networking, Inspiration, Innovations, and Parties. Come out and see for yourself.

    Miami Cover
    The 36th Annual AAN Convention in 2013 is hosted by the Miami New Times.

    What exactly IS alternative newsmedia? The AAN prides itself on being a collection of news sources that focus on local culture and art, write in an informal and narrative style of journalism, and generally report on topics that are less likely to be covered by larger news providers. Think Washington City Paper, SF Weekly, and Miami New Times.

    So if we are talking news, why is Search Influence going to be there? For one, Search Influence is helping to sponsor the event! More importantly, digital marketing is a large part online media, and many companies leverage digital media sources to advertise their services and connect to clients. Will’s session will highlight “20 Quick and Great Digital Revenue Ideas” that anyone can easily implement. Come learn more about how your business can better use online media from Will and fellow industry leaders Friday, July 12th from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m.

    Recap: AAN 36th Annual Convention | Miami, Florida | July 11-13 | Networking + Inspiration + Innovations + Parties |Search Influence’s Will Scott