MarketingSherpa’s 2008 Online Advertising Handbook & Benchmarks
Let's assume you spend $50,000 per year on ALL of your online advertising. What if you could spend just 1% of that budget and potentially increase the visibility, clickability, and conversions of all your online ads? Enter MarketingSherpa's 2008 Online Advertising Handbook & Benchmarks. (affiliate) I've just finished reading this great guide from MarketingSherpa and it's a valuable companion to The Landing Page Handbook we reviewed back in January The handbook's 200+ pages are packed with a wide selection of industry stats, best practices, and tactical information to help increase the effectiveness of your online advertising. Here's an outline of the handbook's chapters: I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this post was just put together without anyone actually reading the guide. Well, while you were stuck in traffic this holiday weekend, I sat down and read it, cover-to-cover. Here are some of the handbook's lessons that jumped out at me. Industry statistics Ad strategies Ad tactics It's not all stats and strategies, the 2008 Online Advertising Handbook also includes in-depth advice on how best to design, source, and place your ads. Even if your annual ad budget is just $5,000 you might want to consider the handbook anyway–you probably need to squeeze every penny out of your budget. If you're spending $500K or $5m, then you definitely need to buy this guide. And, with MarketingShepa offering a 100% satisfaction guarantee, you can't go wrong! What's next from MarketingSherpa? I can't wait to get my hands on the 2009 Business Technlogy Marketing Benchmark Guide! ** Earn 35% commission on all payments, when you become a Trackur.com affiliate! **
How much do you spend on online advertising each year? $5,000? $50,000? $500,000? Or perhaps $5 million?
7 Easy Ways to Make a Blog Unique, SEO friendly, and Work for You
By Kelly C. Jones If you know anything about SEO you know that blogs are inherently SEO friendly. They have a lateral navigation that is conducive to indexing, they include keyword tags, they frequently have inbound and outbound links, they have subscription and syndication capabilities and it is a way to update content to your site continually without having to have much technical knowledge. The hang up with blogs is that sometimes they aren't right for every business. If you're blogging for business, the goals for your blog should be defined before you invest too many resources blindly. For SEO purposes, and getting noticed, blogs can help increase traffic to your site. Many times owners are too busy running their business to put the effort into search engine optimization and an online presence with authority. That is why as an SEO consultant it's your job to get creative. You must step outside the blog box in order to generated excitement from the client about making the commitment to continually invest time into updating their site. So I present to you 7 ideas that are non-blogs, but take advantage of all the blogging benefits. 1. Turn your blog into a guestbook. Have a rental property or vacation home rental web site? Print up some cool inexpensive business cards (example: www.moo.com) that advertise your guest-blog. The cards can provide an e-mail address that guests can submit what they would traditionally write in a guestbook. A book just like the one that would sit on the house's coffee table. Ask them to include links or attachments to any videos or photos they'd like to share from their trip. Then the work compiling these items is minimal. The e-mail system allows you to review the comments and pictures before allowing them to go live on the web. I would recommend writing a guestbook policy and displaying it on the blog. Make your own rules, and be fully transparent. If you censor posts that are unfavorable be fully transparent about this. 2. Have a photo contest. This concept could go so many ways. You could hold a contest for the best picture where people are wearing a company t-shirt. This is also a great opportunity and place to sell company shirts. Developing an interface for people to upload their own content before you approve it could be difficult, but you could just set up a gmail account for the photo submissions and upload the appropriate ones manually. Have people vote for the photos in the comments section. 3. Create a press center. This suggestion is not new, but is still very useful. Categorize the different types of news your company may have, and house press releases on the blog. The tags, link capabilities, and photo uploads make it easy to create a social media press release. The more multimedia you have the more areas you may be able to cover in universal search with your keywords. Please just try to write about news that is actually newsworthy. Remember quality content will make people come back for more and generate links. 4. Create a portfolio. Turn a blog into your portfolio. WordPress allows you to create multiple pages. You could use the blog as a database for your work. You could make each category a page or tag each item with predetermined category tags for organization. Upload your work into a post, add pictures and descriptions, and voila! you have a Web site that shows the world who you are and what you do. 5. Create a gallery that shows you make a difference. Along the same lines of a portfolio you could use posts to display your "before and after" shots. This would work if you were an interior designer, a dentist, personal trainer, plastic surgeon, etc. The posts could consist of pictures that display the quality and innovation of your work. 6. Create a consumer case-study. Are you a car dealership? Sponsor someone to go on a road trip with one of your cars and have them write about it. Here's another opportunity to utilize multi-media. Again, full disclosure and transparency are imperative. If you choose to have someone blog about how great your car is, but don't disclose that you are sponsoring them, don't even implement this idea. In fact, get out of the social media space. 7. Create a video portal. For a lot of business owners, selling is a lot easier than creating content that others could actually use. I'm not a fan of using a blog as an outright advertisement, but if you establish it as such it may actually work. Motivating clients to create content is a lot easier when they can see the marketing value for their products. While you may have a YouTube or Vimeo page, use the blog format to display your videos as an extension of your Web site. Upload video demonstrations of your products or videos of people using your products. If nothing else, it helps inform consumer of what you have to offer. These examples will utilize the SEO friendly blog formatting, but are topics that either empower others to generate the content for you or they do not have to be updated constantly. Of course if you are savvy enough to manipulate the code you can manipulate a blog into looking like a traditional Web site and just use the back-end as a content management system. I just wanted to demonstrate that these ideas can be implemented with little coding knowledge and be very successful in a traditional blog format. Think dynamically about these ideas and morph them into projects that would serve you. What ideas do you have for an untraditional, non-blog?
Safety tips for travelers' protections
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN If you're traveling overseas, try to leave your computer at home. If you must have it, put only a few files on it and leave as many as possible behind. Encrypt the files you do bring. These are some of the steps that computer security analysts advise for international travelers anxious to avoid being the victim of data espionage. The AP reported Thursday that U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez. Such incidents illustrate the care that business executives or government officials should take when they travel to places where rivals might try to filch vital trade secrets or sensitive information. Dangers exist even if travelers keep their laptops closely held the whole time but connect to Internet networks abroad. "Unlike several years ago, people are traveling with the entire contents of their office in their briefcase and plugging into what we might call a promiscuous port, not knowing who they're talking to or who runs the Internet security provider they're connecting to," said Mark Rasch, a former federal computer crime investigator now with FTI Consulting Inc. Experts suggest people reconsider bringing a computer when they travel to locales of uncertain trustworthiness. If leaving the laptop home is impractical, the best bet is to deploy whole-disk encryption. That cloaks every file on a computer and grants access only to the user who enters the proper password. Some whole-disk encryption products are even free; Windows Vista comes with one, called BitLocker. This will protect a computer that gets lost or stolen while it's turned off. But whole-disk encryption is far less secure if the user selects an easy-to-guess password. And it's all but pointless if the user logs in with the correct password and then leaves the machine unattended and unencrypted. To address the latter issue, security analyst Bruce Schneier, chief technologist for BT Counterpane, uses whole-disk encryption on his laptop and then a second layer: He encrypts individual files on the machine separately, with a different password. Travelers connecting to the Internet also should access business files only with methods that encrypt data streams against snoops. Such methods include VPNs (virtual private networks) for network traffic and SSL (secure sockets layer) for e-mail. It's also key to deal with data on mobile devices. It's conceivable that a foreign government would try to install a tap on a prominent traveler's cell phone. Getting physical access to the device is not required. Joel Brenner, the National Counterintelligence Executive, told a conference in December that business executives have picked up tracking bugs and other security vulnerabilities on their mobile devices during international business trips. Brenner advised leaving such devices home and using a temporary, disposable one while overseas. Schneier points out that even cautious travelers could find their data copied at any international border crossing, if guards ask a traveler to enter decryption passwords so a computer can be inspected. (U.S. courts have yet to clarify whether you can say no to that question upon entry to this country.) Schneier said several companies now deal with this issue by giving their employees a laptop whose hard drive has been wiped clean. While on their trips, the employees have things they need e-mailed to them. Then they wipe it clean again before they cross another border. The approach has a downside for many business travelers, Rasch said: "You can't do a lot of work on the plane."
Yahoo CEO says company is not 'under siege'
(AP) - Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang rejected the image of his company as "under siege" Wednesday, telling conference goers that executives are rallying to streamline Yahoo's offerings and make it more relevant to consumers and to advertisers. Yahoo faces the threat of mutiny from shareholders unhappy with the way its board handled a takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. that was ultimately withdrawn this month. Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference, Yang stood by his handling of the deal and painted a bright future for the Internet pioneer he co-founded. "The perception of us being a company under siege is just not accurate," said Yang, who deflected repeated questions about what lies ahead for the company, where he returned as CEO last year. Yang and Yahoo President Susan Decker said the company was reorganizing around four pillars: home page, search, mail and mobile services. "The essence of Yahoo is being defined today," Yang said. "We have to be incredibly relevant to the consumer. We want you to start your day at Yahoo." Later, he pleaded for time to turn around the slumping company. "I know people want to see results," he said. "But I think we're starting to show Yahoo can be on this path to being a different entity." Yang faces a looming showdown with activist investor Carl Icahn for control of Yahoo's board. Icahn, hoping to channel shareholder discontent, has nominated a slate of candidates to replace the current board of directors _ a process known as a proxy fight _ in an effort to arrange the marriage between Microsoft and Yahoo. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant withdrew its $47.5 billion bid earlier this month. Yang has said he and other board members wanted $37 per share, or about $52 billion. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch said Wednesday night that he was "mystified" Microsoft failed to consummate the acquisition. "I cannot understand the whole thing," he told the same audience. Microsoft is "not used to big deals," said Murdoch. "They backed off." Microsoft offered a price that a vast majority of Yahoo shareholders wanted to accept but Yang managed to spike the deal, Murdoch said. If he were in Microsoft's shoes, Murdoch said he would resume his bid, a gambit that might get a boost from Icahn's efforts. "(Icahn) wants to make a few hundred million dollars for himself," Murdoch said. "From Microsoft's point of view, it's a bit of helpful noise." Murdoch denied any plans for News Corp., owner of the MySpace social networking site, to bulk up on the Internet with a big acquisition. "We're staying where we are," he said. Yang let out a single harsh snort at the first mention of Icahn's name during his appearance but did not comment on his efforts. Instead, Yang defended his handling of the failed Microsoft talks, saying he was committed to building value for long-term shareholders even at the expense of short-term gains. He blamed Microsoft for deep-sixing the deal and indicated that regulatory and other concerns played a role. He has said the deal fell apart over price disagreements. "We did not walk away from the proposal _ Microsoft did," Yang said. "We were willing to do the deal on the right terms." Microsoft and Yahoo have acknowledged they have renewed talks about a possible transaction with since Icahn mounted his challenge, although both companies say the discussions so far haven't included another attempt by Microsoft to buy Yahoo in its entirety. Yang said he was still waiting for a clearer proposal from Microsoft but was vague about the shape any possible partnership could take. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday in his own talk at the conference that the two companies were in "ongoing discussions" about developing a partnership, but declined to provide any specifics. Yahoo also has been exploring a possible partnership that would allow Internet search leader Google Inc. to sell some of the ads that appear alongside the results users see when they run searches on Yahoo's Web site. A two-week trial completed last month indicated Googol's technology would help to boost Yahoo's profits and perhaps its stock price. But any alliance between Yahoo and Google would face antitrust obstacles because the two companies combined control more than 80 percent of the U.S. search market. If Microsoft were to negotiate a similar partnership with Yahoo, instead of trying to buy its rival outright, it might not face the same antitrust problems because Google would still control more than half the market.
By ALLISON HOFFMAN
Does the Cutting Edge of Social Media Really Pay? By Mark Silver So someone asks you: "What's your Twitter name?" and you look at them like they are a loony. Twitter? Huh? And then the next person asks you, "You blog, right? What's the URL?" Hold it. What happened? In the seeming blink of an eye, suddenly there's all this new so-called 'social media' on the web, and you know nothing about it. What's worse, is that everyone else seems to be there already. It's like you went to the bathroom, and when you came out, the party moved on, leaving you in a dark room with empty glasses all around you. Start Earning Extra Revenue with NeverblueAds! Time to drop everything and catch up with the party... quickly! Quickly! And let's say you catch up with the party... You've got your blog, your Twitter name, and all of those things. And no matter how fast you run with it all, it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. The world IS moving, you can't safely ignore it. And yet chasing after it isn't working. What to do? Innovation is a no-no. There is a teaching in Sufism that speaks against innovation. Well, not all innovation, and only in certain circumstances. This is sometimes where people get the idea that Islam is anti-science or anti-progress. Not true. In the twelth century, during Europe's 'dark ages,' Islamic culture had some of the most advanced universities, scientists, and doctors in the world, at the very cutting edge of modern technology. The problem with innovation is that it can feed on itself. Innovation is forbidden when it becomes a false idol. We've come to think about technology as 'computers' or 'science.' But, the word 'technology comes from the Greek 'tekhnologia' meaning, an interest in an 'art or craft' (Oxford American Dictionaries) . The problem comes when someone studies technology for its own sake. For our personalities, our egos, the lure of 'newness' is strong. New sensations and learnings can encompass all of our attention, immerse us in the experience. Get Top 10 Rankings on Google! This can be a good, because immersion is a great way to learn. The problem with something like all the innovation happening in web technology, is that there is no defined 'end' point. There is no way to tell externally when you've done enough. If you get caught in this loop, you can emerge months or years later, having totally lost track of the path you are on. The irony is- people want connection. The irony of web-based social media like blogs and Twitter is that it's coming out of the deeper hunger to connect to community, to love, to Source. Yet all of this innovation in the internet can leave you exhausted and isolated- even if you're good at it and like it. As you may already know, that connection you're yearning for is in your heart, not Twitter. It's in the hearts of other people, not in the technology. If you forget that, you'll be lost. By remembering your true intention, then technology can be useful to you. So do I blog and Twitter, or not? Well, I'll give you a definitive answer: it depends. :) It depends on your business, and the hearts of the people you are trying to reach. If you work with younger adults or teens, or with engineers or gadget geeks, then yes, you're going to want to meet them where they are, which is usually on the cutting edge of the latest toys. If you don't, it may not be as critical. And, even if you suspect that a good portion of your audience is found in the 'blogosphere' as it's sometimes called, there's still no need to be so urgent about it. How do you proceed? Well, take breath, connect to your heart, and let's take a look. Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative! Keys to Technology * Your current website and newsletter is not obsolete! Don't panic and discard what you've got now. Just because all of this new stuff is out there doesn't mean what you already have isn't perfect for what you're doing. My bicycle is more than fifteen years old, and it gets me around just fine. And, if you haven't even gotten your website done yet, it's still more than worthwhile to finish. * You don't need the latest, just adequate. Unless your business is about social media and cutting-edge web technology, in which case you probably aren't even reading this article (hiya!), then forget about Twitter, Pownce, Digg, Stumble-Upon, del.icio.us for right now. You don't need anything but entry-level basic. Just start reading some blogs, without being in a rush. Here's a few to start with: Dawud Miracle Michael Martine Adam Kayce Heart of Business (my own) * Set a 1-3 month 'safe zone' of learning. As you begin to learn, tell yourself that you don't have to do anything about it for one to three months, that you are just going to learn. It will work even better if you find a friend or colleague who can give you an hour or three for a personal guided tour of this stuff. This approach doesn't just apply to blogs, but it applies to most anything new you need to learn about your business. And, once you understand the basics, the more obscure pieces will come MUCH more quickly. You might actually find yourself enjoying the technology. :) With blogs and other social media, remember that technology is just a tool, and that the craft you are studying is not blogs. You are involved with the craft of connection, and you're just learning a new tool to do what you already know something about. Don't let gurus rush you. Take a breath, and dip in. You may find that all of this innovation and technology can actually improve your connection to what you care about most. The best to you and your business. About The Author Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: www.heartofbusiness.com
Don't Turn YouTube into SueTube
Google to Viacom: Don't Turn YouTube into SueTube
Viacom President and CEO Philippe Daumann joined Kevin Johnson, President of Microsoft, onstage last Wednesday at the Microsoft advance '08 client sumnmit to discuss the Future of Search. They didn't discuss copyright infringement or Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. Perhaps they should have.
Google, YouTube's owner, claims the $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit questioning YouTube's ability to keep copyrighted material off YouTube.com threatens the free exchange of information on the Internet.
Google's lawyers filed papers on Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in response to Viacom's lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to "an explosion of copyright infringement" by YouTube and others.
Viacom filed its lawsuit last year, asking for damages for the unauthorized viewing of programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, including such hits as "The Colbert Show" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."
In papers submitted to a judge late Friday, Google claimed YouTube "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works."
By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Google said Viacom "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression."
Google said YouTube was faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying the federal law was intended to protect companies like YouTube as long as they responded properly to content owners' claims of infringement.
On that count, Viacom says Google has failed miserably.
The Associated Press reports that in a rewritten lawsuit filed last month, Viacom said YouTube consistently allows unauthorized copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its Web site and viewed tens of thousands of times.
Viacom said it had identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of copyrighted programming — including "SpongeBob SquarePants," "South Park" and "MTV Unplugged" episodes and the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" — that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times."
The company said its count of unauthorized clips represents only a fraction of the content on YouTube that violates its copyrights.
It said Google and YouTube had done "little or nothing" to stop infringement.
"To the contrary, the availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants' business plan," Viacom said.
SEO - Just Add Water.....NOT!
SEO - Just Add Water.....NOT!
By Jennifer Horowitz (c) 2008
I miss the old days....life was simple. Your TV had just a few channels, your phone was attached to a wall, and the computer was a cool thing to have for the few who could afford one. But times change, our world changes and technology grows. TV has 200 plus channels (and still nothing on), your phone is attached to your hip and you could not live without a computer and the Internet is filled with billions of pages.
SEO was an easy job then. It was a no brainer. It was fast, it worked and the stress was little. Well, those days are long gone and the facts of SEO are no longer as easy as it used to be. It is not a quick fix and it is an ongoing process.
You Don't Have to Study for 5 Years to be an SEO Pro!
Sure, there are hundreds of SEO companies available for you to choose from. Cheap ones that say they submit your site to 1000's of engines (big deal), ones that add 100's of doorway pages (look out for spam), those that promise fast top rankings (they lie). Let's face it, for SEO there is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. But lets not focus on the bad and ugly....they may be cheap, but you get what you pay for...nothing!
SEO is not instant, not any more. You need to look at many factors, you need to be prepared to make changes, you need to be willing to work closely with your SEO expert and be willing to be in it for the long haul. SEO changes and you need to be ready to meet those changes.
You should be serious about your web site. This is your business and you need to treat it as such. Canned web sites, website templates that offer everything from stores to products to hosting and say you have no worries on updating the site and still can achieve rankings may be a bit misleading. SEO is ongoing work and one you need to be prepared to handle.
Your SEO Expert serves two purposes...to guide you in changes that you need to make to a web site and to help you optimize your web site by actually working within the site so that you can be found for relevant keyword phrases.
Your Web Site Design
It used to be that design aspects really did not matter. Well, now they do and it is a big deal. If your site is poorly designed, poorly coded and developed using complex databases or heavily graphic, you face issues. You may need to make changes, you may want to develop a new site...whatever the need, your SEO will inform you what issues may be causing the site from being read correctly.
Give Your Site a Voice!
Your Keywords
Please...generic words may seem like the best, but with billions of pages, is it really feasible? Keyword phrases are extremely important, phrases that target your audience are imperative. Your SEO expert should work with you on helping you to make the most important choices on good, targeted and precise phrases that will target your consumer or product line.
Your Content
Using your keywords in content is important for the engines. Having good content is important to your consumer as well. Lack of content is not going to help you gain on the engines and lack of content is not going to help your consumer understand your product line. Your SEO expert can provide you writing assistance for those do it yourself folks or provide you with their expert content writers. Do not be fooled...if you are not using keywords with content, how can you expect to achieve rankings for those phrases?
Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!
Your Site Link Popularity
If no one else thinks your web site is important, then why would a consumer. You web site needs to be found on relevant web sites. You need to get your site out there....it needs to be seen on other web sites. Not doing so means that even you do not think your site is important enough to share with others. Your SEO can help you achieve a successful link campaign or even consult with you on the process. This is a time consuming task, and it needs to be done right. I mean, you want your site to be seen on the best of sites, so take the time to consider getting a link to those sites that can help you be seen as an expert in your product field.
Your Blog
Funny word...Blog. I mean, what does it really mean? Who came up with it...well who cares. What is important is that they are fabulous for helping with your SEO campaign. They are informative, they are easy to navigate, they contain content and so much more. Bogs are the way to go to help enhance your site. Again, your SEO can help you by developing a blog. You can easily learn to maintain it, keep it fresh, and keep it current.
Conclusion
Sure, SEO is just part of your marketing game plan. But it is a vital one when used with your other online and offline marketing. Gone are the days of easy rankings. Just because you built it, doesn't mean they'll come. A website is a business and as such deserves your time and your professional SEO to help you achieve your goals and bottom line success.
About The Author
Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com. Over the past 10 years Jennifer's expertise in marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue. Jennifer is the editor of the popular Spotlight on Success: SEO and Marketing newsletter. Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social media and more: http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet
Gain the competitive edge with SEO (page 4 of 4)
Putting SEO into practice The study above suggests a solution to this problem. With empirical evidence on what drives SEO ranking results and understanding the differentiation by engine from operational website changes, large companies can ensure that results can be driven in the short term while their long-term continued improvement is also scheduled and managed. Take "cheap airfare" again. For a travel company or an airline looking to optimize on this word, here is what the study would suggest for prioritization. Focus first on content issues, meaning the usage of the word in the text on the pages in the site. These can be changed most rapidly by the agency or content managers and have a very significant effect on rank improvements. The study suggested the following: Content issues are also relatively easy to syndicate across a large site, particularly when the issues are made available to content managers. A best practice can be given to always emphasize the usage of "cheap airfare" in text, and to design URLs with the most important keyword that will drive traffic conversions. The second area of focus should be on the link strategy; however, this is less simple to execute en masse across a large site. It is the quality, not the quantity, of links that matters. What is a "quality link?" It is a link from a site or page that has a Page Rank (a statistical measure of relevancy that is available from Google on various pages) greater than three. So the question becomes: How does an organization drive multiple web managers to build a small number of links from pages with Page Ranks greater than three and distribute this information efficiently? This is an area of intense study. There are very sophisticated ways to implement link building and a number of companies that specialize in this, both agencies and specialty consultants. For a large site, deploying these solutions can be cost prohibitive. The above study suggests that building links from a series of authoritative sources such as .gov or .edu. for "cheap airfare" in order to get a link from the FAA would be highly valuable but very difficult. A link from .edu would be easier. Also, Technorati and del.icio.us sites are good places to start. In the study, Google reacted very significantly to sites with links from these sources, as did MSN, so this is a straightforward way to get sites started in an efficient way to build links. Again, one to two high quality links are better than 1,000 poor quality links, and Covario's study results strongly support this assertion. The final step is to address the technical structure. This is listed last because technical issues usually deal with fundamental technical construction issues around site design. Changing these in large organizations is highly non-trivial and takes time and planning. Technical issues can also be the most egregious as they may fundamentally prevent the mechanisms used by the engines to organize information from working. However, the above study provides guidelines on efforts that can be prioritized for the IT department or the web management team on how to deal with site issues and drive better rankings. There are essentially two major issues: The technical issues are not term-specific. If there are technical issues, it will impact any keywords that an organization is trying to optimize, not just "cheap airfare." What is important for a large organization is making sure that the business case for determining whether or not making changes to site structure is worthwhile, and that the right process can be developed by the SEO Center of Excellence. This is a change and very valuable in getting the appropriate attention and results from, what are usually, overburdened IT teams. Conclusion
SEO daunts many organizations because they get paralyzed by the number of things they could do, and do not know which two to three things they should do to drive the best results per engine. This is the big challenge organizations have -- the prioritization of the work and building that prioritization into the web management process.
The rewards of building these processes are vast as more consumers use search engines to find information about their brands and services. A brand that does not do this can be assured its competitors will, thereby influencing consumers on brand choice through one of the fastest growing, most effective advertising media available. Establishing competitive advantage through SEO is no longer a luxury -- it has shifted from avant-garde to de rigueur.
Gain the competitive edge with SEO (page 3 of 4)
Studying the Center of Excellence approach The goal of the study was to assess whether the metrics that had been built to measure SEO health of the websites could be used to predict results in rank improvement on the major U.S. search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN). The study used changes in rank for the participating Fortune 500 brands as the metric of success. The results were impressive. To help educate the SEO knowledge workers in the brand and geo-marketing divisions, a proprietary technology titled Covario Organic Search Insight developed by my company, Covario, Inc., was used to identify what aspects of the sites were well optimized on 48 different criteria. Changes to these site factors were then statistically measured against changes to rank on the engines. During this study period, the average brand experienced an improvement in its average rank position for the keyword it was trying to optimize by 4.5 rankings. To put this into context, on "cheap airfares," moving from position five to position one on the engines means a difference of $2.5 million in commerce per year, based on analysis of data from comScore Marketer Search Data. Most importantly, the relationship between the changes made to the websites during the test period had a very strong statistical relationship to changes in rank on the search engines. This means that the statistical links discovered by Covario can be used to predict improvements that other sites may experience given similar changes. This is key as ROI on SEO for these organizations can be reasonably estimated, helping to justify the expense of the programs. What is more, the reactions of the engines were very different. Google was 15 times as sensitive to technical issues as Yahoo, and twice as sensitive as compared to MSN. Specifically, Google was far more reactive to link improvement strategies than Yahoo or Microsoft -- by eight to 10 times. Yahoo was much more reactive to changes in content than Google or MSN -- up to 50 percent more reactive than Google. The reactions are part of the complexity that many large advertisers find hard to corral. However, with the right processes in place, insights like these can be used to determine which aspects of the site will provide the best ROI for brands and geo's by engine, by product, by site, etc. This is a great example of the development of the science of SEO, which presents large advertisers (and their vast, complicated web properties) a process-driven, data-based method to manage their brands' presence on the organic side of search engine marketing, and do so in a scalable and efficient way. So how do this information and the Center of Excellence for SEO concept get actualized in a large company? Let's see.
To determine the effectiveness of this approach, Covario conducted a study between March 1 and October 15, 2007 with approximately 300 global brands to measure how leveraging the Center of Excellence concept improves performance. More than 85 percent of the brands involved in the study belong to Fortune 500 companies with their websites operating in multiple languages and on many search engines.
Gain the competitive edge with SEO (page 2 of 4)
Building a Center of Excellence A successful approach is the concept of driving SEO-best practices around technical construction, content management and link strategy into the brand management function itself at both the product and geo-marketing levels in large companies. Essentially, this requires anyone who touches the site -- marketing and web management -- to be held accountable for SEO-related results. This is very similar to the "Center of Excellence" concept used to drive CRM best practices. What is involved? Most Center of Excellence initiatives start with a preliminary 90- to 180-day project. With respect to SEO, the purpose of this is to: Once the initial project is completed, two important outcomes have to occur. First, the program has to be sanctified by the senior marketing leadership as a priority and as something other brands need to embrace. The metrics from the initial project (e.g., indicators of SEO-health for the site, rank analysis and conversion analysis) need to be benchmarked for other sites and goals for improvement set systematically. Brand and geo-marketing managers need to be held accountable for improvements once the initial benchmarking is completed and for getting their groups certified on best practices. Second, the work on the initial site needs to be expanded to continue improvements. Most organizations experience degradation in SEO performance after about 90 to 120 days. This is why SEO is most effective as an ongoing process. Degradation is usually the result of competitive action. Search marketing is a zero sum game: There is a finite amount of inventory available and being successful at SEO comes at the expense of a less able competitor. Competitors will notice improvements and respond. The Center of Excellence concept is designed to be scalable as it is viral. It builds the best practices into the daily processes of the employees working on the site and ensures they are educated, motivated and measured to excel at SEO. Let's see how it works.
Gain the competitive edge with SEO
By Craig Macdonald Leaving organic search results to chance can be costly for your brand. Here's a strategic, scalable system for success. How much is the word "cheap airfare" worth in the United States? The answer is about $8 million, according to comScore Marketer Search Data, December 2007. A word like "laptop" is worth about $35 to 40 million. "Car insurance" is estimated to be worth more than $50 million per year. And this is just the conversion value of the top organic listings. Organic listings continue to account for the majority of the clicks, with between 75 and 85 percent of all clicks going to organic results depending on which study you read. Add in the PPC results, and these figures can be adjusted up by another 15 to 25 percent. The value of search is rarely questioned nowadays. So as more and more consumers go to Google and Yahoo to research everything they do -- from restaurants where they eat to the houses they buy -- the option to invest heavily in search engine optimization (SEO) is no longer a choice; it is a necessity. Not focusing on building processes to dominate organic rankings is a very costly brand management error in every market. The challenge, particularly for larger brands, is how to build a scalable and predictable approach for managing organic rankings -- how to raise awareness, how to leverage the opportunity, how to instill the key processes and how to execute the work. The focus of this article is the best practices in building out scalable SEO processes. The information below is based on the experience of some of the largest global brand managers in the market. Also discussed below are results attained by these major brands and how what they learned can be used to predict future outcomes from SEO. The complexity of building SEO for large brands Excelling at SEO involves both good news and bad news for a large company with its many brands, websites and locations in multiple countries. The good news is that a large brand site, with its linking and content, has every right to be at the top of the organic listings based on the way the search engine algorithms work. The bad news is that exposing that content to the engines usually requires close coordination between personnel in the organization's IT and marketing departments as well as the agencies being used. With worldwide offices, this gets complicated. Also, the engines are increasing the sophistication and complexity of what SEO means. SEO is no longer just based on text analysis. In the age of universal search, SEO-based brand promotion has to include the way images, videos and text are added to the site to ensure visibility and relevance to key search terms used by consumers. In addition, there are ever increasing ways that the engines are returning relevant information to end users through specialized return results such as News, Travel and Maps. Each category has unique ways to determine which organic ads are shown and therefore command the lion's share of the consumer's attention. A common response from large organizations is to hire an SEO expert to act as an internal advocate and consultant to the brands on SEO-related issues. Given the size of these organizations, the number of parts of the organization that require communication and the complexity of the problem, this approach is rarely effective or efficient. SEO requires a holistic approach -- one no different from the management of traditional corporate processes like customer relationship management (CRM). It would be unthinkable in this day and age to "hire someone to do CRM" as organizations have a healthy respect for the fact that CRM is a process and a way of thinking. CRM is a way of life for large enterprises. SEO should be the same. Here's a way to manage it.
Why Bother With "LinkedIn" or "Facebook"?
By John Clark (c) 2008 That's what I used to ask myself as numerous acquaintances kept tagging me to be part of their realm of contacts in FaceBook.com or LinkedIn.com. It seemed a nuisance until I sat down with an old contact, Don Tinney from EOS Worldside (EOS=Entrepreneurial Operating Systems). Don is an EOS Implementer whose job is quite simple. He says simply, "We make millionaires out of owners of small to medium size companies". So maybe he has something to say I should know. I was in both LinkedIn and FaceBook and didn't see the significance. My business was humming along just fine and didn't need the distraction. Don forced my mind open a bit and so I took it upon myself to find out if there was some gold to mine there that I had missed. Like hunting for Morel mushrooms, it went from "none to be found" to being surrounded with all kinds of uses. Here is my quick rundown of uses in the hopes all our business partners can begin to take advantage of these tools. Start Earning Extra Revenue with NeverblueAds! To begin with, I'm going to concentrate on LinkedIn.com because I find it the most dialed in of the two for "business networking". While I'm in Facebook also my contacts there are almost all personal life related. Sure, we all can use a few friends but the majority of my day is more about business and LinkedIn appears to me to have a larger corner on it. So if you... * Are new to LinkedIn and don't know how to use it to help your business and career. * Have been using LinkedIn yet felt like you haven't really accomplished anything with it. * Are trying to persuade your friends to join LinkedIn and want / need to communicate the value of it. * Wondering if LinkedIn type sites can help improve your web site's visibility. * Think there's no real value in LinkedIn. ... this is for you! Here is a small amount I've learned about using LinkedIn, understanding there are millions of users who know a whole lot more about it than I do. This still should give you a starter kit on the value. It will also be a great link section to teach you as much as you can possibly know about this. Off-Site Factors Enhance Your Web Site's Ranking More than On-Site Optimization The original criteria the creators of Google used to rank web sites is still the same as it is today. It ranked sites according to the value of the web sites that linked to the evaluated web site. If you have dozens of important sites with links to your site and those sites are related in subject matter to what your site is all about, it will out-weigh many of the things you put (or fail to put) in your site for rankings. Build an Online Store Today! When you have links to your web site in your LinkedIn or Facebook listings, those are off-site links. If you make recommendations for other people in your circle of contacts and include your web site address as part of your signature then you have even more. Make dozens of good recommendations and receive them in return. It's truly a "giver's gain" world there. Add to this some effective Public Relations campaigns and you can really begin to boost your rankings. Write articles like this to online magazines and make links to your web site part of your signature. It takes some real honest to goodness work but the results can be magic in your rankings. There is more on how all this works in one of our blog articles: The Most Important Key to Web Site Traffic! Business Development - Marketing - Sales We all know that strength of a warm lead. All the initial hurdles have been jumped. Linked in contacts can help you get to the right people. Interested in doing business with Acme Widgets? Do a search in LinkedIn for current and former employees of the company. Find out if any of them are connected to someone you know in your circle. If so, ask that contact to give you a formal introduction. Before you meet that contact look over their interests if posted. Going to meet someone who is President of the company you want to work with? Look them up in advance and discover their interests and background. See who they know that you may also know. Create common interests and connections from that information and start the conversation warmly. Did you know that ALL 500 of the Fortune 500 companies are represented on LinkedIn? Either the CEOs or the upper level management are to be found there. There must be something to it. Those who are active on it may just be looking for you and who you are on LinkedIn. If you're not there, they may wonder why. This is dang near as good as the Mason secret handshake without all the silly rituals or red beanie cap. Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative! For a good article on warm calling using LinkedIn see A Guide To Business Development 2.0 . When searching for companies, uncheck "current companies only" and find out what former employees have to say about the company. What kind of talent has left the company and how fast? Contact them and find out things the company may not want you to know. Learn their weaknesses and how to market to it. The líst is endless. Increase Your Credibility Imagine that before agreeing to see you on a sales call the business owner checks to see if you are on LinkedIn. Not being there could be a strike against you because he feels he's flying a little blind in your regard. If you are there, he or she may want to see your background, your connections, or your recommendations. Finding numerous positive reviews from others who have worked with you can create a positive frame of mind. If they know some of the same people you do, it can get even better. Here it can get even better - receiving calls from buyers who found you on LinkedIn and want to buy something from you. Shocking? See how all this can work in the real world in Using LinkedIn to Make the Sale . Career Enhancement and Job Search Enhance your efforts in searching for a job or finding qualified applicants for positions you need to fill. It should be no stretch to your imagination at this point on how you can take advantage of this when looking for career advancement. Use your LinkedIn link as part of your email signature or refer to it in your resume. A large number of HR people and managers will recognize it. If you've done your homework and have numerous recommendations, it can really work in your behalf. Make friends and get recommendations before you need them. The best way is to start by recommending others first. For more on this check out "Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn" . Improve Your Website's Visibility This will be the subject of my next article because this one's getting a bit long. In short, there are two main things that can positively affect your website ranking and visibility with search engines. The first, and least important are your on-site factors. The most important is your off-site factors. This aspect is mostly ignored by business owners and web developers. It is all part of true professional web development. In this regard you will truly get what you paid for. If you are a member of LinkedIn - log out and then search for yourself. When you find yourself, copy the address from your browser's address bar. Use it for a link in your signature for emails. Other Sites for More Education: Top Ten Reasons to Use LinkedIn How do I use LinkedIn to find a job How to use LinkedIn to Create Authoritative Content Wall Street Journal - The Right Way to use LinkedIn About The Author John Clark is the President of Wow Web Works in Kalamazoo, MI. This and other articles of interest are posted on his blog at wowwebworks.com/community. His profile in LinkedIn. You can also contact us at wowwebworks.com or at 269-321-5041.
Engineering Insurance
by Editor123 Do you own an engineering company? Well! These types of companies are exposed to various kinds of risks, in accordance to their trade. Therefore, it is important to cover the risks of engineering businesses adequately. This is primarily because of the fact that the lack of sufficient cover will always give you a feeling of uncertainty. Usually, engineering risks are more complex than standard commercial risks, and therefore, it is better to communicate with an insurer who caters to engineering industry. A business entity may find so many insurers who maintain a team of dedicated and qualified insurance specialists, holding years of experience in the engineering sector. By dealing directly with the customers, these insurers ensure that the insurance premiums should be low, without compromising on the insurance cover. Engineers Insurance: Caters the Need One can find different kinds of engineering insurance, tailored to match the individual preferences. Some insurance covers include the assets, earnings and legal liabilities of a business entity. Some policies are meant to protect the liabilities against the risks caused due to public and product liability, business interruption and day-to-day operating cost such as trade contents, machinery, plant and stock. In addition, a business entity can ask for more coverage on the basis of its needs & requirements. Engineers Insurance includes different kinds of engineering risks. Let us know about them in short: Contractor's All Risk (CAR) It includes protection against buildings and civil engineering projects. Damages caused against the destruction of the work in progress also come into this liability. Erection All Risk Insurance (EAR) This protection coverage includes damages caused to machinery, equipment or apparatus during the process of installation or erection. Electronic Equipment Insurance This coverage protects all types of electronic equipment such as computers, radiation equipment and communication equipment and many more others. Machinery Breakdown This insurance cover protects a business entity from any kind of unforeseen and sudden loss or damage to machinery, mechanical equipment and apparatus due to external and internal causes. If you really want to take engineering insurance, it is always better to check the insurance offer carefully.
Seo Services India SEO Tips for Search Engine Optimization
by: suntec123 "Search Engine Optimization" or SEO is a very specialised field and takes time to excel at. Search Engine optimization is not easy and cheap. It requires analysis and logical thinking by search engine experts. You design your website and submit it to search engines but no one will visit your website until it is well optimized by search engine experts. There are many companies in the market who provide search engine optimization and submission services but some of them provide this service in a non-ethical way which can lead to spamming of your website into the search engines. Once your website is on a list for spamming a search engine, you will never get listed on the search engines. New Delhi Digital Works provides an ethical Search Engine positioning service which drives genuine traffic to your website. An optimization objective for any online business is essential to keep a competitive edge in today's marketplace. The aim of our Search Engine Optimization proposal is to present you with a competitive solution to increase the traffic to your website through Search Engines and thereby attract new clients. New Delhi Digital Works uses its own unique Search Engine Placement Techniques. We can help you get better search engine positioning, optimization and placement at low pricing. The SEO tips below should assist the reader in forming a basic understanding of how to create human friendly web pages which are easily understood by the most popular search engines. Our goal is to respond as quickly as possible to you. Please Mail your queries to us at info@nddw.com
SALES LEAD GENERATION: WHAT'S WORKING TODAY
by: Guest E x e c u t i v e S u m m a r y In today's B2B selling environment, it is increasingly difficult to surface, qualify, and, most importantly, drive a ready-to-buy sales lead to your sales staff. The competition for share of your prospect's mind is fierce. Business buyers are bombarded daily by advertising messages and pitches for products. Consider these facts of life that sales organizations face today: The high cost of a sales call: Of 23,000 businesses surveyed, the average business-to-business sales call cost $329. A typical business-to-business sale that exceeds $35,000 takes an average of 5.12 sales calls to close, bringing the total cost of the sale to over $1600. The average salesperson spends almost three-quarters of his/her active selling time with existing customers. Less than 20 percent of sales efforts are being focused on prospective new clients. Seventy-five percent of the companies studied say that a sale over $35,000 now requires a combination of direct and indirect sales efforts. Source: Cahners Research - 2001 What then are leading companies doing today to keep their sales lead pipeline full? The purpose of this paper is to explore the new trends and working practices in sales lead generation being deployed by successful sales organizations. Introduction Lead generation for many companies means sending out postcards in advance of a tradeshow, or a mass mailing of the annual product catalog. For others, it is a sophisticated program of integrated communication efforts with each measured along the way in an iterative, interactive process. We've identified five key areas where companies today are making a difference in their sales lead generation efforts: There are two main web tactics that companies are using today to drive leads: search engine marketing (SEM) and webinars. Search Engine Marketing The market landscape has changed considerably in the past few years concerning the use of the internet in researching business buying decisions. A full 93.2% of business buyers indicated they would first go online to research a purchase. Among business buyers going online to research, 63% would first go to a search engine as the place to begin research, and an amazing 82.9% chose Google as their search engine of choice. For purchases over $10,000, 60% of buyers would begin researching more than two months prior to purchase date. Source: Enquiro/MarketingSherpa - Search Research Study, 2004 SEM has become a key method for many companies to generate a consistent flow of new business leads. There are primarily two methods in use, and another is fast becoming popular. Pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) have been the standard for years, and pay-per-action (PPA) is gaining use among internet marketers. PPC allows companies to buy keywords that relate directly to their product, and to buy keywords at prices that put them high in the paid search listings of the major search engines. Keywords that include three or more words generally produce fewer visitors but convert visitors to leads at a higher rate than more general, one or two-word buys. Prospects typing in more specific, longer keywords generally have a specific product or service in mind and are more likely to visit your site if your keywords match their needs. As with all good direct marketing, companies effectively using PPC measure each keyword for cost-per-lead and ultimately cost-per-sale to determine where to invest future PPC dollars. Search Engine Optimization SEO is the process of creating a website with content that, when properly marketed on the internet, is found at the top of the non-paid, or organic, search engine listings for particular keyword search terms. PPA is paid keyword advertising like PPC but with the difference that the advertiser does not pay per click, but only pays when the prospect completes an action, such as purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or completing a form. Leading PPA networks today include: snap.com, services.google.com/payperaction/ (currently in beta testing) and turn.com. Not enough companies today balance their PPC and PPA advertising with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and specific landing page creation (the web page that appears when a visitor clicks on your paid link). Studies show that searchers will click on organic listings more than sponsored listings, and that organic listings convert better than paid listings. So while PPC is the easiest point of entry to search engine marketing, it's also important for marketers to develop an SEO strategy to take advantage of the increased traffic and quality of the clicks in organic search results. The big bonus, of course, is that clicks on your organic search links are free. Many service firms specialize in developing search engine optimization strategies and tactics for companies who choose not to perform this function in-house. Clearly, however, there is agreement that dedicated, consistent in-house or outside resources are critical to staying ranked at or near the top in the ever-changing SEO landscape. Once a prospect clicks on your paid link, a specific landing page directly related to the keyword(s) is crucial to converting the prospect to a lead. Often, companies will deliver these prospects directly to a home page - which often requires a prospect to search among products or other areas of the site for the information he is seeking. When prospects are forced to do extra work, the risk increases that they will abandon their search. Specific landing pages linked to PPC keywords vs. generic landing pages have increased conversion by hundreds of percent in some cases. Landing pages work best when they do not include extra links that allow the visitor to leave the page, but focus on your call to action, or what you want the visitor to do (respond for more information, download a whitepaper, sign up for a newsletter, etc). Both agencies and marketers report that testing landing page copy and design is among the top campaign tactics that improve SEM results (MarketingSherpa's Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2005-2006). Webinars Webinars are not receiving the high sign-up and attendance rates we saw just a few years ago. However, they remain a popular choice of B2B marketers because the targeted content in a well-constructed webinar generates self-selecting prospects interested in your topic. To be sure, webinars take thoughtful planning and marketing to get good attendance and capture the attention of qualified prospects. To promote your webinar, use the following key tactics that successful companies are using in webinars today: Pay close attention to content - no one wants to attend a blatant pitch for your product or service. Case studies or recognized experts work best. Use mid-week and mid-day times, keep the webinar to an hour, and start promoting around a month before the event. Start with your customer base, prospect list, or outside email rental lists to promote your webinar. Use industry e-newletters or promote on other websites if possible. Make the registration form as simple as possible, knowing that you can get more information from attendees with post-webinar marketing. Expect 40 to 60% attendance and have a plan to invite nonattendees to the archived version of the webinar. Send reminders to the attendees that they and their colleagues can also view the archived event. Track all attendees and feed into your lead scoring and lead nurturing systems. Provide a short survey at the end of the webinar for feedback and gathering more information about your prospects. Have a plan in place to send further communications to the attendees. Defining the Ideal Prospect, Accurate Lead Scoring Companies with successful lead generation programs have a clear idea of what their ideal customer looks like. Often, this profile is developed by analyzing data attributes of customers and by talking to the sales staff. Profiles of target companies often include such attributes as: Standard Industrial Code (SIC) or North American Industry Classification (NAICS) Annual Revenue Site type (branch, HQ, etc.) Number of employees Geographic location Business situation (growing, acquiring other companies, etc) Competitive or related products used These attributes are used to determine the target list of companies for marketing, as they allow a company to identify prospects that look like one's best customers, and would thus be more likely to buy. Lead scoring is the process by which a lead is assigned points, or some other qualifying label (based on a prospect's meeting certain criteria) that determine when a lead is passed through to the sales force. In many companies, each lead is assigned a label like cold, warm or hot. The successful companies we've seen have more sophisticated systems which assign points that qualify and continually re-qualify a lead toward being sales-ready based on criteria such as: Interest in products, demonstrated by webinar attendance, whitepaper downloads, etc. Ideal Prospect Attributes Opportunity size or amount Intent to purchase Influence in buying process - decision-maker, specifier, end-user Time to purchase In a simple example, an ideal prospect who represents a large opportunity indicates a desire to purchase in 12 or more months. They receive a relatively low score and are put into a communication or nurturing program that delivers valuable information to the prospect (in return for more qualifying information). When the purchase decision timing is within six months, or some predetermined time period, the lead receives a higher lead score and is delivered to sales. Points are assigned for each attribute, and it's only when the purchase decision is within six months that the new total score pushes the lead over the predetermined threshold that determines handoff to sales. A scoring system will not work if marketing does not have feedback from sales as to which leads convert to sales. From study as to which leads become customers, marketing determines what lead-scoring attributes are most important, increases the scoring weight of those most important, and thus creates a more predictive and successful process that results in higher close rates. Top selling companies regularly evaluate what the ideal point threshold should be to determine a sales-ready lead. In the end, sales really doesn't care what the lead score was, only that the leads were sales-ready and they experienced high close rates. Lead Nurturing Trends A monthly call by your in-house sales rep that seeks to close, or delivery of a one-size-fits-all e-newsletter is not lead nurturing. Lead nurturing is the process by which a company delivers relevant information over a period of time that demonstrates your expertise and builds trust in your service or product offerings. Not every inquiry or lead is ready to buy when they first make contact with your organization. A cohesive strategy that develops a relationship with the prospect over time brings the lead closer to the buying decision and positions your company as the preferred source. The process of lead nurturing requires a dialogue with prospects in order to gain an understanding of the key benefits the prospect is seeking, and results in more relevant information being able to be delivered that addresses those needs. Successful lead nurturing programs include a variety of tactics - telemarketing, webinars, whitepapers, and direct mail, among others. Depending on the attributes of the prospect, leads may be put into different lead nurturing promotion streams. Some prospects may not be as promising as others and so may not deserve the expensive product catalog. Marketers today have tracking systems in place that provide insight as to which lead nurturing tactics work best in moving prospects through the sales funnel toward final sale. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are used by many companies to track what information has been sent and what additional information has been acquired from leads in the system. These changes feed the lead scoring system as leads move closer to a sales-ready opportunity. The lead nurturing/lead scoring integration is an iterative process that demands constant marketing attention and measurement. Building the relationship with the prospect by delivering relevant information based on their needs and developing a dialogue are the keys to successful lead nurturing. Web 2.0 Strategies Web 2.0 strategies being implemented today allow companies to reach out to their customer base and create dialogues with them. These Internet lead generation strategies include blogs, podcasts, and other technology-based forums that bring businesses, customers and prospects together to communicate and learn from each other. One of the more promising uses of Web 2.0 is in allowing customers to comment on or rate a company's products right on the company's web site. When business users are researching a purchase, some of the most compelling sales arguments are often delivered by current users. Who would you trust more, the company that makes the forklift or ERP solution, or business people like yourself who are using the products? An important bonus is that reviews and ratings of products make product refinements and new product development that much more sensitive to customer needs. Blogs are spreading like wildfire - according to some estimates one blog is created every second of every day. Blogs in the business world have been somewhat slower to catch on, but have proven to be an excellent forum for customers and companies to interact. One would naturally expect consultants, business writers and technology companies like Sun Microsystems and HDNet to have blogs, but the likes of General Motors and Boeing have been at it as well. In the open source software business, companies promote staff blogs and discussion areas where developers both inside and outside the company swap code. Marketers monitor and reward regular developers who contribute and enhance the companies' software offerings. The key elements that attract customers and prospects to blogs are consistency and content. While daily blogs may be the ideal, weekly seems to be the preferred updating schedule by most company bloggers. Content must be relevant and inviting, even if the content is from another source, and should not be blatantly self-serving. Most blogs take an informal tone, which tends to make them more accessible. Companies that write regular blogs can use the space surrounding the blog copy to offer webinars, whitepapers, free trials, and other product and information that requires the visitor to register, thus creating a lead. In terms of the lead quality from this channel, one can't imagine a more qualified lead than a prospect who is reading the company blog. Web 2.0 strategies in B2B lead generation continue to grow, and new ideas in this space are being tested all the time. These dialogue and community strategies are bringing companies closer to customers and prospects, increasing the velocity of knowledge transfer back and forth, and will be an increasingly important part of quality lead generation in the months and years to come. Tracking and ROI Measurement Today CEOs and CFOs are demanding accountability and Return-On-Investment (ROI) measurement of all marketing expenses, not just lead generation. While lead generation campaigns typically have discrete and identifiable costs to aid in producing ROI metrics, the costs incurred by the sales staff once the lead is handed off are sometimes more difficult to quantify. While never perfect, the closer the alignment of sales and marketing teams in agreement of ROI measurement and costs, the more successful the companies are in generating sales and proving value to Clevel execs. Once tracking is in place to deliver conversions or sales based on the lead generation channel - usually through a CRM system -- then the ROI calculations become simple to compare channel versus channel. Email campaigns versus print advertising versus direct mail, for example. Campaign metrics like cost per lead, conversion rate, cost per sale, and ROI are typically included in lead generation campaign reports. Where sophisticated marketers are making improvements, however, is in understanding the dynamics and the ability to measure incremental contributions based on their actions within each channel. A simple example would be a direct or email campaign with several lists. While the campaign measured in total might prove to be a success, further analysis may reveal that among the 10 lists mailed, only four of them demonstrated acceptable ROI for the campaign. Marketers who rapidly cut the unacceptable lists from future campaigns may be moving too quickly until they consider lifetime value. One of those marginal lists may deliver the exact attributes of your ideal customer profile, indicating great product or service affinity, high cross-sell potential and future profits. Over a three year period, customers who meet this profile are hugely profitable, even at expensive upfront acquisition costs. So with an understanding of granular campaign ROI metrics (by list or keyword, search engine, or publication, etc.), combined with at least a sense of lifetime value by customer segment, marketers today find clearer direction on where to spend lead generation marketing dollars to produce the best return-on-investment. Of course, in many companies and industries, campaign response and sales conversion rates are fluid and changing, making it all the more important to have reliable and timely tracking so that marketers can keep changing their allocations and tactics to generate the best ROI in their lead generation efforts. About the Author Mercury Leads is singularly focused on business-to-business sales lead generation. Their process includes competitive market benchmarking, best customer profiling, extensive testing of marketing tactics, lead scoring and lead nurturing. Mercury Leads takes a solution-neutral approach to sales lead generation. This allows development of a client-specific mix of marketing tactics that includes among others: search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, direct marketing, teleprospecting, print, tradeshow, email, webinar and whitepaper marketing. Mercury Leads serves clients from a wide range of industries, including technology, publishing, consulting and manufacturing. For more information,
Top Ten Seo Tips
by Fran Top ten SEO Tips Search Engine Optimization is perhaps the most important factor in ensuring your Web site is ranked high. Because SEO is so important, you should follow some common and effective tips, such as: Understand SEO. Before you start trying to optimize your Web and other content for the search engines, ensure you have a solid understanding of SEO. You can learn about the intricacies of SEO by doing online research or even by finding internet marketing or SEO forums and discussion boards where entrepreneurs of all levels often discuss SEO strategies. Engage in keyword research. Keywords are essential when it comes to the search engines. Make use of the keyword tools available to you - including Word Tracker and Overture - to choose the best keywords for your content. Don't go overboard with keywords and keyword phrases. If you've ever conducted research online, you likely have come across Web sites and articles that are filled with keywords and keyword phrases - and not much else. Experts recommend having a keyword density of only one to three percent. If you saturate your content with keywords and keyword phrases, ultimately you're going to hurt yourself when it comes to search engine rankings. Compelling copy sells. People want to read information packed articles, so make sure your content is always valuable, in some way, to your readers. Additionally, make it easy and enjoyable for readers to read your content by writing naturally. Build links to your Web site. Links - both inbound and outbound - are vitally important to your SEO efforts, so set aside time to build your links by posting comments on related blogs and adding your URL to the comment; by exchanging links with other Webmasters in your niche, and by including your URL in all of the content you submit to article directories. Create a plethora of content. Don't just write content for your Web site; also create content for article directories, blogs, and Squidoo lenses. Spice it up. The search engines, particularly Google, do not want to see the same content posted all over the internet, so do your best to avoid using duplicate content. So, if you post an article on your Web site then submit it to article directories, make sure you change the original article by at least 30 percent (some say you should change each article as much as 70 percent) before submitting it to the article directories. Ensure your keyword or keywords are included in your domain name. Choose an available domain name that includes your main keyword or keywords. Create a reputation as an expert. The search engines love experts, so it's essential that you establish a reputation as an expert in your particular niche. Establishing expert status is as easy as publishing valuable content and joining in discussions on online forums and adding value to the conversations, for example. Make the most of SEO tools. There are plenty of SEO tools available to entrepreneurs, and you may want to try some of them. Among the many SEO tools on the market are the Similar Page Checker, Search Engine Spider Simulator, Backlink Summary, and Keyword Density Checker.
There's one thing that every online business owner has in common: Every entrepreneur wants his or her Web site to rank high in the search engines, particularly Google and Yahoo, arguably the top search engines today. Getting indexed high in the search engines is certainly possible, if you know what you are doing and are willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to build a high ranking Web site.
