Online Reputation Management (ORM)

Some Hard Facts About Online Reputation

According to new research from comScore, on the State of Local Business Search, search on mobile phones is growing. The study found that 22% of U.S. mobile phone users searched on their phone in January 2011. That’s an 8% increase from the 16% who reported searching via mobile in January 2010.

Not only are more people searching from their mobile phone, the frequency of mobile search is increasing, too. The report found that of those conducting a search on their mobile device, 27% reported searching at least once a week, 43% reported searching 1-3 times per month, and 20% reported searching almost every day. According to the report, 73% of users are conducting search via a browser on their phone, and 56% conduct search using an app.

Further, 33% of mobile users are accessing local content, demonstrating that the rise of local search is not only for desktop users. One of the most popular types of information that users are looking for is maps.

So What?

Well, when it comes to marketing your local business online, this research underscores the importance of two key things:

1. Having a mobile friendly site for your business so it can show up in local search.
2. Optimizing your business’s Google Places page so that it will rank well in Google maps search.

Do you have a mobile optimized site for your business? Is your Google Places page optimized?

Contact us if you need a little help.

On February 23rd, Google released a search algorithm update dubbed “Farmer” (aka Panda) that affected some 11.8 percent of Google search queries in the United States.  This latest update was tagged “Farmer” because it impacted sites that specialize in junk content.  These ‘content farms’ flood the Internet with a never ending stream of low quality content. I’m sure you’ve stumbled across a few of these sites laden with useless content and tons of ads.

Specifically, Google identified and penalized the rankings of sites that copy or “scrape” the content of other sites; sites that have low-quality content; sites that have a high ratio of ads to content; and sites that lack brand trust. To put it simply, Google is penalizing sites that don’t provide much value to the user.

So what does this mean to you and your site?

Certainly anyone who employed an SEO who relied on dubious shortcuts took a hit. Unfortunately that includes legitimate well intentioned business people who were simply trying to market their services on the Internet like everyone else. They trusted search engine optimization companies that relied on dubious tactics, or off-shore optimizers with a poor command of the English language who simple scraped and assembled content for other websites.

However, if you have been following good SEO practices, then it is highly unlikely that you were negatively affected.  In fact, you may notice slight improvements in your search engine rankings due to the drop in rankings for sites that were penalized.

Google Counters Bad SEO Tactics

Google actually makes hundreds of changes to its search results ranking algorithm each year in an effort to stay a step ahead of black-hat optimizers who use dubious tactics in an effort to “game” the system rather than produce useful content. We knew this change was coming… we just didn’t know when.  The same thing happened a few years ago with ‘link farms’.

There are no short cuts. There never have been…

Gaming the system has never worked for any length of time. Trying to circumvent Google’s algorithm is short-sighted and ultimately builds your web presence on a house of cards that collapses the moment Google makes a change.

There are certain things that work, and will always work. A professional SEO company knows that Google is happy to reward optimizers that play by the rules and consider that the end game is to serve up the most accurate, meaningful and varied results to the person searching for information.

What’s the upside?

Well if you are just a person searching for something on Google, your chances of finding good quality results just increased. If you are a business who employed a skilled “white hat” Search Engine Optimization company then a lot of the noise on the Internet just cleared out of your way to the top of the results.

PPC has several advantages that make it arguably the ideal form of advertising in today’s environment. Despite the search engine or network used, PPC brings certain common benefits for businesses large and small.

The first of these advantages is speed to market. While it can take several months for search engine optimization to bear fruit, it takes only hours for a PPC campaign to start bringing in new, qualified customers to a Web site. Consider traditional methods of marketing. Display ads in newspapers and magazines, direct mail, television and radio, all have significant lead times before securing results.

Another characteristic of PPC is the ability to create a level playing field for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs. With the best keyword selection and ad placement, small businesses can have their ads appear right above or just below larger competitors or even national chains on search engine result pages without having to take on significantly larger costs.

PPC advertising also gives businesses complete control over what potential customers see in search results as well as the ability to direct visitors to specific pages on their Web sites that are geared toward meeting a particular audience’s needs. 1

So-called micro- or geo-targeting gives advertisers the ability to use effective keyword research and demographic selection to target desired audiences far more precisely than other forms of advertising.

In addition, PPC gives advertisers complete control over their advertising budgets. Effective campaigns can be designed to spend anywhere from a few dollars to millions of dollars a day. Moreover, metrics, such as search volume/impressions for keyword phrases, traffic per ad generated, conversions per ad variation or keyword phrase, and other statistics give advertisers the ability to adjust their programs daily, if necessary, to reallocate spending toward higher performing ads taking into account their needs for sales leads and available funds. 2

Finally, PPC can serve as an important market research tool, as it highlights precisely the keywords and phrases that attract the best prospects and sales. It also enables advertisers to easily identify new market trends. For example, sudden surges in the number of searches on a given keyword can reflect world events or added media attention. This information can help businesses position themselves to make the most of market trends and new opportunities as they develop. 3

1  Kreski, Don (2009) “Pay-per-click Advertising” Sound & Video Contractor, 27:4, p20-23
2  Whitson, Patrick. “Local Internet Marketing – Most Important Way To Market Your Business” Lapeer Website Marketing (October 21, 2010)
3  Whitson, Patrick. “Local Internet Marketing – Most Important Way To Market Your Business” Lapeer Website Marketing (October 21, 2010)

I love this video from the NFL combine. Rich Eisen, the 40-something ESPN guy in the suit, probably thinks he still runs fast. Then you see Tim Tebow blow him away. Then, “here comes Jacoby Ford”. It’s a hilarious video but it also shows you how everything is relative. From a business perspective, no matter how good you think you are, there is always someone better and room to improve.

The same concept can be applied to web design and search engine marketing.  Don’t believe me, then check out your competition.

With a new web design, you can improve your search engine rankings drastically or you can lose all of it. The biggest risk is losing the value of your inbound links which usually point to specific pages. To make sure this doesn’t happen, be sure to include an effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) design plan as part of your overall redesign process.

SEO shouldn’t start after the website is finished. It should begin with the initial development/design of a website.  Don’t treat SEO as an after thought.

Listed below are the basic components of a SEO design plan.

Goals

Start with the business goals of the new website. Every website should have goals, otherwise it is pointless to have one. The goals for your website could be any of the following: generate sales or leads, build your online brand and visibility, showcase products or services, or provide useful information to users and clients.

Analysis

Always analyze your website traffic statistics to determine what results are currently being generated. If you’re already ranking well for certain keyword phrases or if you have pages that are performing well, then you certainly need to know that and develop a plan to ensure you maintain those results.

Keywords

Select keyword phrases that have good traffic volume and that accurately describe what you offer. More specific keywords, i.e. long-tail phrases, will bring more visitors that are closer to making a buying decision.

Website Architecture

Design your navigation to be both user and search engine friendly. Think about what you want the user to do and make sure the path is clear. Make use of clear Calls To Action throughout the site. Imagine your website is a storefront (which it really is).  When a customer comes into your store what do they see and what do you tell them?  Very few retailers let a shopper browse the store without offering some assistance, such as ‘we just got our summer line in this week’, and ‘we’re running a buy one / get one free offer this weekend’.  Think of your website the same way to optimize the experience for the visitor.

Content

Content isn’t king – conversation is king, but to start conversation, you need relevant unique content. Search engines and visitors love content. Optimize your content to be seen by as many people as possible.

Links

Use an internal linking structure with keywords to enable website visitors to find exactly what they are looking for on your website.

Inbound links

Maintain the content that is attracting inbound links on your current site. If you can’t keep the content on the redesign, then develop a plan to replace those links.

Identify your inbound links providing the greatest value and develop a plan to contact those sites and get the links changed to your new pages.

SEO planning is very important before and during the design process of any successful web design project. It can make a huge difference in maintaining and building upon existing traffic and conversion rates.

Internet marketing, digital marketing, and interactive advertising revenues are expected to grow to $62.4 billion in the US by 2012 according to a forecast by The Kelsey Group. This represents a 21.3% annual rate when compared to 2007 revenues of $22.5 billion for the US.

Compare this with traditional advertising and marketing, such as the Yellow Pages and you will you notice that they are expected to decrease by 1.4% annually over the same period. It’s not surprising that Yellow Books are now trying to aggressively get in the online game.

Forrester Research is projecting similar growth rates for digital advertising in their projects through 2014.  Forrester claims that interactive budgets will grow at the expense of traditional marketing.  Sixty percent of the respondents said they will grow their digital marketing budgets by shifting funds away from other marketing channels.

Newspaper and magazine advertisements, radio ads, yellow pages, outdoor and telemarketing advertisements are all expected to decline while internet  marketing is expected to grow.

Categories expected to grow the most (Data from the Forrester Research revenue estimates for 2014)

• Search Marketing : $31.6 Billion (15% annual growth)
• Display Advertising: $16.9 Billion (17% annual growth)
• Social Media Marketing: $3.1 Billion (34% annual growth)
• Email Marketing: $2.1 Billion (11% annual growth)
• Mobile Marketing: $1.3 Billion (27% annual growth)

Search marketing will be the major marketing area that companies will be investing in to market their business online.  This will be a combination of SMM (social media marketing), SEO (Search Engine Optimization) organic search and PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising.  Overwhelmingly, companies are moving their advertising funds from traditional marketing to online marketing methods.

Leave a comment below if you require more information regarding the growth of internet marketing.

We’re spending a lot more time these days digging deeper into web analytics with clients.  Visitors and Pageviews are great to look at, but the real effort should be focused on conversions.

A “conversion” is a user-defined event. It can be anything you want it to be. Some common conversion events are:

• Contact form submission
• Phone call
• Request for quote
• Newsletter signup
• Online purchase

One of the goals of any Internet Marketing strategy is to continually improve the results of your key metrics and conversion rates. In doing so, it is helpful to know how other companies are doing so you have a sense of what is attainable. Google Analytics provides some useful data for benchmarking standard metrics within your industry. However, one thing they are not currently benchmarking is conversion rates.

Do you wonder how your conversion rates measure up when compared to other websites?  Check out the chart below to see typical conversion rates for paid advertising (PPC), organic search (SEO) and online shopping engines, broken out by conversion type.

The data supports what we already know – organic conversion rates are typically higher than paid conversion rates. The reason is that organic searchers are often already familiar with the brand.  They have spent time searching for specific products or services and are more likely to be closer to purchasing. However, the conversion rate for PPC is not that far off at 5.8% for lead generation (contact forms, emails, etc) compared to 7.0% for organic search.

My take away’s are:

1. PPC advertising should not be discarded. When used effectively, PPC can deliver highly targeted, relevant traffic that converts on a scale close to SEO.
2. Search engine optimization (SEO) should be the number one tactic in your internet marketing strategy.  Organic results are more trusted, provide the opportunity for much higher traffic and generally convert higher than PPC search.

So, how do your results compare?

A recent study of search engine marketers reveals that the top two challenges they currently face are Increased Competition for Natural (Organic) Search Rankings and Increased Competition for Top Paid Search Positions.

In our small web marketing firm in Greenville, we see these exact trends even at the local level. Several years ago it was relatively easy to get top rankings in organic search for local businesses.  It’s still much easier than national campaigns, however it is becoming more and more competitive every day in most local industries. Gone are the days of doing some basic SEO, getting a few links and popping on the first page.

I regularly talk with clients and prospects about the need to get on board with organic search now.  Search engine optimization is not a one and done process.  The companies that are actively involved in SEO are building a huge lead in local search that will in some cases be insurmountable by the competitors that are late to get on board.

On the one hand, it’s a great opportunity for progressive companies to build a dominant presence online…one that will only grow as the use of digital marketing continues to expand.  On the other hand, the businesses that continue to sit on the sidelines and do nothing are going to be left behind.  When they do realize they need to get involved, the price to compete and is going to be much steeper and out of reach for many of them.