WebPrintVideoDirect Mail

Archive for the ‘Online Marketing’ Category

« Older Entries

Shift Happens: SEO Alone is not Enough

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

I have a high respect for the people at websitemagazine.com – they provide timely information regarding SEO and web design, and it’s how I stay current on upcoming technologies that we (as quickly as we can) implement into new projects, and do our best to educate existing clients on how new and developing methods to improve local search can help them. Below is an article that they produced in the July 2010 issue that is perfect for our target market: the medium-size business owner that knows SEO and social media are important, but isn’t sure how to make it work for them on the ever changing World Wide Web.

Shift Happens: SEO Alone is Not Enough:

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), one truth is everlasting: The landscape is continually changing. And often, when it changes, the resulting shift in rankings can be seismic. Google’s announcement of Caffeine is one example. The new partnership between Microsoft Bing and Yahoo! aims to provide a long-term competitor to Google and will impact search results across many major Web properties.

For an example of search’s ever-changing environment, look no further than a popular search on Google. Search for “Xbox 360” (click image below for larger view) and you will see more than just organic results from websites that mention those keywords. A broad range of content appears, including news, paid advertising, shopping feeds and social media results, including user updates from Twitter. This means that publishers and merchants need to concentrate on more than just increasing organic search placement for an Internet marketing plan to succeed.

Read the rest of the article…

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Local Search, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking | No Comments »

How to Find a Good Media-Marketing Company

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

online advertisingWhat things should you, as a business owner, look for in a company that has promised you online success? With our economy the way that it is, business owners have to get smarter and look for this type of help when it’s not feasible to have someone in house do it all (which would be ideal). So what do you look for? There are many talented 1-man shows out there that know what they are doing, and there are large firms that can do the very same.

Here’s how you can iron out the mess and make sense of it all:

Do they Have a Good Portfolio?

I remember when I first started out. I did free work for over a year so I could have something to show potential clients. Theoretical knowledge on how to promote another company online is one thing, but applied knowledge on how to do it is what you need from someone that is making promises to make the phone ring.

Look at their portfolio for a professional and polished look. If the quality of their work can hold its own in a commercial market along side your competitors, that’s a good sign. It means they have an understanding of how to reach a target market through visual design and development of online content.

Do they Return Your Calls and Emails?

Personal service is what you are looking for. More than 50% of our new business comes from churches and businesses that have not heard back from their “web guy” in weeks or even months. It’s sad to say, but it’s a flaky industry. There are a lot of work-from-home web designers that get overwhelmed, burned out, or distracted. Maybe they are the creative not-so-organized type and are lousy at running a business but talented enough to get the work done. Nevertheless, being reachable is something you want to look for in this type of individual or company. I know this is common sense, but I’m telling you what I see in this industry. This aspect of personal customer service is not something that is common to find in someone providing creative work for your business. It is a very fast paced industry and unless a web developer or designer is willing to constantly be on the cutting edge and keep up with it all, they won’t be in business for very long.

Can they Supply References?

Make no mistake – you are hiring someone, and they are essentially applying for a job. Ask them if you can speak to a couple of their current clients to see if they deliver on their promises. That’s pretty straightforward. I guess that’s all I have to say about that.

Do they Discuss Long-Term Goals with You?

Every project should be discussed with the next 2 or 3 years in mind. If your discussions with them do not project a bird’s eye view of your marketing efforts online and somehow show you that everything that they do will tie into one common purpose, be wary. They may be able to do the work, but not have a good mind for marketing and bringing long-term results. It’s not easy to do, and I can honestly say that we have not always been this way, simply because for years our clients were not interested in monthly marketing campaigns. They just needed a website because it was the thing to do and their competitors had a website. This has obviously changed with the economy, and a company’s website is no longer a thing that no one looks at – it is a sales tool and a way to capture lead information. Knowing how to USE a website to create long-term gains requires monthly attention. Make sure the people you are talking to understand this, and that it is how they approach their clients.

Where are they Located?

Location, location, location. It’s always best to go with someone local, but not always feasible for you, as a business owner. There are advantages of having a local company handle your marketing. For one thing, they know the market saturation and demographics of the city or town that you live in, which is important when advertising online and using online content to drive local search results to your website. However, don’t be opposed to going with a company that really wants your business. Most of our new clients come from referrals from our clients that do a lot of traveling. We have clients from California to New York, Africa, Europe, and a few other places. Many of our clients are local, but most of them are not.

Another advantage of finding someone local is being able to meet them for lunch to discuss your business (not theirs) and what new ideas are coming out you can test online, bla bla bla. Plus you get a free lunch out of it! I love meeting our clients. It gives me an excuse to go to Starbucks!

Contract or no Contract?

Anyone that knows what they are doing will have you sign a contract with them that spells everything out, whose responsibility it is to do what, who owns the artwork (you should own the artwork), and the terms and conditions of payment. On a side note, don’t be surprised if they ask for a portion, or even half, of the initial project cost up front. We do not do this, but many firms do. The contract should protect them as well as you regarding who owns the work once payment is received. We believe that once payment is received, everything should be in the client’s name. We add our contact information as technical contacts on accounts that require support for their online content, such as a domain registrar, but everything is in their name. This way, should something happen to Innovated Media, the client will be protected and be able to hire another development firm to step right in and take over where we left off (if they know what they’re doing, HA!)

Be careful of companies that want to put everything in their name (hosting, domain names). Like I said, we get a lot of new business from web designers taking complete control of a client’s assets, and then they just drop off the map and become unreachable. Getting control of domain names and access to web servers when it is in another company’s name is NOT FUN and can be costly to you – it is sometimes very difficult to do. Keep everything in your name or your company’s name to make sure you are protected. Don’t let this be a deal breaker, though. If a marketing or web design firm has a great reputation and has good business practices, and they want to take control over your assets with good reason, go with it if you feel they are the right fit. I know that some of our competitors in Tulsa operate this way and they turn out some impressive work.

In Closing

The smaller guy may provide personal service, do good work, and charge considerably less than one of the larger firms, but don’t let the price deter you too much from making a decision that you believe will be the best fit for your company.

Many business owners trusted me in the beginning when I was by myself learning how to do all of this, and it evolved into something I never thought it could be, and it is still growing way too fast! So, don’t overlook the little guy that has a lot of talent and is hungry to build a successful company.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Online Marketing, SEM, SEO, Web Design, advertising, marketing | 1 Comment »

Internet Marketing for Your Business

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Tulsa Internet MarketingWhy do you have a website? If your primary reason for having a website is simply because your competitors have a website and you feel like not having one will hurt your business, then I’m willing to bet that you haven’t updated your website in weeks or even months. Mr. Business Owner, this is doing you more harm than good. Your website is a sales tool, and quite frankly, one of the most powerful ones that you’ll ever have. Gone are the days of having a website and not updating it for weeks and months.  Not OKAY! You may not see this because you are still thinking about the good ‘old days of direct mail marketing where you got a 4% return one year on a direct mail piece that you really liked. Woopty-freakin-do. Or, maybe you are in a service-related industry that involves some door to door sales so you rely on your sales force to hit the sidewalks to drum up some new leads.

Can I tell you a secret? It’s sad, but people don’t want to talk to people!! They want to Google it. If I get a flyer on my door for a new lawn company start-up, and I need a lawn service, I don’t call the number on the flyer. I go to my computer and Google “Tulsa lawn service” and see who comes up on page 1. Someone on those search results is gonna get my business, even though I have a flyer in my hand from someone that really wants it and took the time to bring me their sales piece. Why would myself and hundreds of thousands of consumers do this? Because we want to do business with a company that is current and on the cutting edge of promoting what they do, not someone that is still in the dark ages. I have to ask myself the question, “if they won’t take the time to learn how to promote their company or service online, what other shortcuts are they taking to provide their service to increase their profit margin? ”

You don’t have to know how to do everything! Just do some homework and find out enough to ask the right questions so you can hire the right person or company that can do the work for you! There are hundreds of web designers and Internet marketers in your city or town that are dying to get your businesses and will bend over backwards and work out some kind of deal, or even trade-out, to make it happen. There are hundreds of online content developers that know their industry like you know yours, and they are familiar with the local market and your competitors.

Stop waiting to see if phone book advertising, direct mail, and telemarketing are going to make a come back. Don’t assume that you will have to pay an arm and a leg to have an effective presence online. Read our last post about What Every Business Owner Should Know About Online Advertising.

Or, if you need some help, contact us! We’ve done consulting for many companies over the years to help them find the right fit for their needs online after we discovered that Innovated Media wasn’t a good fit for them. I will say, however, that several of those companies we consulted became our clients weeks later after they chose a company that couldn’t deliver on their promises.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Online Marketing, Web Design, advertising, marketing | 1 Comment »

What a Medium Size Business Should Know about Advertising Online

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

Search Engine MarketingMany small businesses do not have an advertising budget for what I believe to be a few reasons. It’s not that they don’t advertise, but they just don’t know how much they should spend on advertising and online marketing. The sad truth is that in order to go from a small business to a medium sized business, you’ve got to have some knowledge of these things. In order for you to be a successful medium size business that outperforms your competitors, you’ve got to know exactly how much you can spend, and how much you should spend.

Website Costs

On average, expect to pay between $45 – $75 an hour for web design projects. This varies depending on the market you are in. Typically, you should expect to pay anywhere from $900 on up for a newly designed custom website depending on what you need to the site to do. For example, if you need a fully customizable shopping cart with multiple products and custom shipping options, expect to pay over $2,500.  Web hosting is anywhere from $85 to $200 a year. We work with and recommend Media Temple. They are used by Sony, Nike, and Starbucks, and we’ve used them since 2006, and we have been very happy.

Search Engine Optimization Costs

Absolutely do not skimp out on this area of your online budget. For this type of work, for a 10-page website, you should allow 4 – 6 hours for the initial optimization upon launch at a standard rate ranging from $45 – $75 per hour. On a monthly basis, allow for 3 – 5 hours of ongoing SEO work, depending on how often and how much your website changes.

SEO work on your website can be done in a number of ways. There are entire companies that focus only on SEO, but it’s helpful to find a web development or design firm that can do the website project along with the search engine optimization for the site, like we do at Innovated Media. In my opinion, the company that takes care of the monthly updates for the website should be the same one that does the SEO, otherwise you’ll have two companies crossing paths and making different changes to the same website thus taking longer than it should to accomplish both tasks. Search Engine Optimization companies should have a thorough working knowledge of how to build and maintain a website, since the construction of a website has quite a bit to do with optimizing a site for Google and the other major indexes.

SEO companies that only know SEO and do not stay current on software upgrades, trends of web design/development, and programming languages are going to have a hard time when development knowledge crosses hairs with actual search engine optimization work. What happens if they make changes to the site and a loss in formatting occurs? Well, the website is broken until the developer that designed the site can go back in and make the necessary repairs, and again costing the client more money than necessary.

In short, make sure that the company you choose for search engine optimization work has a decent portfolio of websites that they have built as well as ones they promote. Having everything under one roof is the ideal situation. If you don’t believe me, watch this video from Brain Fitness Strategies, one of our clients.

Internet Marketing & Paid Ad Words Campaigns for Local Search

Local Search results is what you want to drive more traffic to your site, and leads to your business. Depending on how far out your definition of “local” is, expect to pay anywhere from $299 – $599 per month on a good, solid Internet Marketing Campaign for your business. Internet or Search Engine Marketing isn’t necessarily work being done to your actual website, but instead it is work that is done to promote your website and contact information to local directories, video websites such as YouTube, and through paid Ad Words campaigns.

It is smart to use an Ad Words Certified expert to handle your Ad Words campaign. Do not assume that your web developer knows how to do this, even if he/she tells you they can get it done. This is a particular skill that requires specific training and understanding in order for your money spent on the campaign to actually drive quality traffic to your site.  Paid Ad Words programs can work well with a monthly Internet marketing campaign that provides content development, directory submission(s), customer reviews, and good in-bound links to your site, which are all important Search Engine Marketing strategies.

Since this type of work does not require access to your actual website, we encourage clients to use companies that specifically specialize in this type of work known as Local Search or Search Engine Marketing. Many of our clients use BizNDex, based out of Skiatook, Oklahoma. We monitored a 4-month campaign with one of our larger clients, LawnAmerica. As you can see from the results below, From Jan 1 – May 1, the website traffic went up consistently compared to the year before. This makes sense, because the campaign that BizNDex implemented for LawnAmerica was during this range of time.

Lawn America website

What made the difference? It wasn’t so much the content that was added to the website and optimized – it was the Internet Marketing campaign that they used with BizNDex that included paid and organic benefits for local search results. The numbers speak for themselves.

Direct Mail, Billboards, Phone Books, and Print Advertising

Why are you reading this section? Stop spending your money on these advertising mediums!!!! You don’t us a phone book anymore, and neither do your customers!! How will you ever know if money spent on these things will ever yield a return on your investment? You won’t! Put your money towards something that will show you exactly what your budgeted advertising dollars are doing. That’s why we love Internet marketing, and it should be the reason you love it :)

Video Production Costs

It’s not a fad or something to do that’s cool, Mr. Business Owner. Online video drives traffic to your site, and keeps them there. It’s proven that the amount of time a visitor spends on your website increases up to 7 times if there is a video on the landing page. Simply put? People want the content to come to them. If they don’t have to read, they appreciate the effort you took to accommodate their laziness to provide the information to them without them having to do anything. At least that’s my take on it. It falls right in line with creating the path of least resistance to help your visitors make a buying decision. A 60-second video spot can cost anywhere from $400 – $2,500, depending on the quality of the video you are looking for. Or you can go out and buy a Flip camera and see if you have a cousin or nephew that has figured out how to edit and upload videos to YouTube. It’s not rocket science. A last note: make sure the company you are working with knows about video production AND a little search engine marketing so they understand how the video should be promoted online in order for it to work.

Video testimonies are also a powerful way to help your visitors decide to you use instead of one of your competitors. It shows that you care about your company enough to provide testimonies of real people that have been satisfied with your product, and evidently they were satisfied enough to take time out of their busy schedule to say something about your product or service. Oh yeah, and the testimony (what they say) is important to (haha)! We’ve had scores of new clients in the last 3 weeks decide to sign with us because of a video testimony that we put out from Brain Fitness Strategies.

Bottom line: if you aren’t using online video, you are way behind and need to stop avoiding it.

In Closing

Stop advertising the way that you used to, even 6 months ago! The world, the Internet, and mobile devices are changing the way that people look for your product and service. Stop ignoring social media and thinking it’s just a way that your employees can waste time while they are on the clock. Its not a fad – it’s how people communicate now. Stop referring to Internet marketing as “spending money on our web page” or “Internet thingy.” Even though you will hire a company to do this work for you, you yourself should know at least a little about it so you can choose the right company that will fit you and your organization well. Otherwise, you could get taken by an online company that has shady business practices and only interested in your budgeted ad dollars. It’s best, in my opinion, to go with a local service provider for these services. Go buy a book about Internet marketing for medium size business owners, and look through all of the analytical data that they provide, and read the case studies that they did. Don’t be ignorant when it comes to redirecting advertising dollars that you were considering using for a half-page phone book ad to use online instead. Know what you are doing before you pull that trigger, or you’ll walk away thinking it didn’t work, when in reality you just didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, and had unrealistic expectations.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Local Search, Online Marketing, Online Video, SEM, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Video Production, Web Design, advertising, marketing | 1 Comment »

Search Engine Optimization Basics in Dreamweaver CS4

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Ah, yes.  The wonderful world of online search and SEO.  I’ve said it a million times and it’s worth repeating: it is no longer okay to put a website together without optimizing the site for local search results!  With the economy the way that it is, business owners are forced to be smarter with how they apply their funds to generate leads and sales.  Phone books are dead, and with billboards, direct mail, print & newspaper advertising, it is hit or miss at best and even then it’s nearly impossible to justify those advertising dollars with analytics / metrics that show what type of response, if any, that was generated.  That’s the beauty of Internet marketing, and where we come in as developers to help these business owners and companies that depend on increasing web traffic to keep money coming in!

While these development tactics are never-ending, we’ll just go over the basics that should absolutely apply to every website.

1. The Title Tag

Most titles for each HTML page should stay under 100 characters or about 10 words.  Some search engines just chop them off after about 60, but 100 is safe I think. There are lots of different opinions on this, and different resources that will tell you different things, but I think as long as you don’t go nuts you just be fine. This will force you to do some creative writing.  The stronger keywords and phrases need to be at the beginning of the title tag.  Also, title tags need to appear someone cosmetic – they are visible to visitors at the top of the browser.

tulsa house call doctors

Example:
Tulsa House Call Doctors,house calls in tulsa, house calls in ok, doctor house calls, housecall,

Should be:
Tulsa House Call Doctors | Medical House Calls in Tulsa | Doctor House Calls in Tulsa

It’s also important to note that the Title tags throughout the site should not be identical.  This will help the site you are optimizing to have several different listings on the first page for local search results, which is what we want.

2. Check Internal Links!

Make sure that the links in the navigation as well as inline text links go to the correct / corresponding pages in the site.  It’s best to test the site in your browser, and click on all of the pages in the navigation menu andin the content of the body of the page to make sure they match the pages you developed content for, and if you don’t have content for a page in the navigation, maybe just put “need content” on the page if you are still working on the site or are waiting for copy from the client.

Also, make sure none of the hyperlinked/underlined text in the content is linked with “#” – it doesn’t go anywhere!  Every link on the site should go somewhere…preferably to another page on the site.  Linking to other internal pages other than on the navigation menu helps the search engine spiders find all of the pages of the site more easily.

setting a link in dreamweaver

3. Naming HTML Files

HTML files and folders should not include “a” “the” “but”, etc.  Example: “schedule_a_visit.html”  The new SEO information that we are seeing come out as technology moves rapidly forward says to use hyphens instead of underscores, and take out conjuntions and joining words.  So, it should be “schedule-visit.html”.

4. Keyword Named Folders

Keyword-named folders are a huge thing with Google right now.  It’s a good idea to pick two or three of the website’s primary search terms and create folders of them for the pages that you plan to optimize for the site.  Good examples:

/tulsa-house-call-doctor/schedule-visit.html (instead of schedule_a_visit.html)

/home-medical-visit-tulsa/medical-questions.html (instead of faq.html)

/doctor-house-call-tulsa/laren-hightower-bio.html (instead of dotors_bio.html)

If you use WordPress to blog or manage entire websites even, you’ll notice it does this automatically (depending on how your permalinks are setup) when you create new pages or posts.

WordPress link structure

Search Engines look for those keyword-named folders.  They are an important part of local search and search engine optimization.  Another important SEO tip: After a site is launched, and we have about 45-60 days of analytics data, it’s not a bad idea to go back and re-optimize those folders with the actual keywords that are being used to find the site’s content. In the beginning of development, you are kind of guessing, but educated guesses are usually close if you know what you are doing. Remember web content should be modified based on the actual data that we know.  Analytics help us to do that.  Example:  if the analytics tell us that people are typing in “tulsa house call doc” instead of spelling it out like we think they will, “tulsa house call doctor” then we should go back and rename the folder /tulsa-house-call-doc/schedule-visit.html.

5. The META Description

The meta=description is super important.  It is what we use to control the way search results are displayed.  If you don’t enter a description tag in the page, Google will generally pull from the first few lines of text that it finds.  So, those first few sentences should be WELL optimized.  The H1 tag should contain the strongest keywords, and the first sentence or two should include the same keywords in sentence form.  Once you’ve crafted a well thought out H1 tag and first couple sentences, just re-write the first two sentences slightly different, but with the same keywords, and make that your description.

local search results

Example:

H1: Tulsa House Call Doctors

First two lines of copy: Tulsa House Call Doctors is Tulsa’s premier medical house call service providing world class, non-emergent, discrete, personalized medical care to infants, kids, teens, and adults in the comfort of your home, hotel, office, workplace, or assisted living center by an experienced, caring, board certified physician.

META Description: Tulsa House Call Doctors provides medical house call service to Tulsa residents with acute medical needs in Tulsa and surrounding areas.

6. Alternate Image Tags

Alt Image Tags are still important to Google simply because Google Images is a good way to search for images when developing content for a blog or website.  Example: if I wanted to find a logo for McDonalds, the websites that have the McDonald’s logo on them that took the time to optimize their images with Alt Image Tags are more likely to have their website displayed for those image results in Google.  Just another way to get people to go to your site….even if they aren’t there to make a buying decision.  Traffic is traffic.  You never know what will happen when they see your site.   Usually, just the graphics on the page that are NOT part of the layout need to have ALT image tags in them.

7. The Sitemap

sitemapThis is a simple one.  Search engines find pages through hyperlinks, but not just any kind of hyperlink.  Primarily, the text hyperlinks that go to other pages on a website you are developing are the ones you need to pay attention to and focus on.  An image or graphic that links to a page on your site will not be followed by a search engine spider.  So, what happens when you build a navigation menu completely from images?  I’ve been guilty of it, and so have other developers.  What do you do to ensure that the search engine spiders find all the pages on your site?  Enter the sitemap.  There are dozens of ways to do this, but I think the best way to do it is just build a page that lists all of the pages on the website in an organized fashion, and make sure all of the pages on your website link to the sitemap page.  IMPORTANT: when creating content weeks and months after you launch the site, don’t forget to add new pages to the sitemap.  The sitemap needs to be accurate!!  On a side note, WordPress has great plugins that build your sitemap for you when you create new pages so that you don’t have to remember to update it every time to you make a change to your website.  Below is an example of a site that we manage, www.tonycooke.org.  It’s basically just an outline-format list of all the pages on his site:

tony cooke ministries

In closing, these are just A FEW search engine optimization tactics that you should put into practice without exception.  If you’d like more resources on SEO from a developmental standpoint, I recommend subscribing to Website Magazine, and frequently read their blog.  They provide excellent white papers and up-to-date knowledge about how to create online content to make the first page of Google, and how to drive more traffic to a website.  They also have a great iPhone app that delivers content from their blog via RSS.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Local Search, Online Marketing, SEO, Web Design | No Comments »

Overcoming an all too Common Content Development Block

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Why is it so hard to sit down in front of a blank screen and write an article to upload to the website?  Your heart rate speeds up, your palms get sweaty, you can think of a million other things to do at that moment instead of sitting there feeling this way.  Yet, we can discuss and debate the benefits of our service till the person we’re talking to has to fake a heart attack just to excuse them from the conversation.

It a hard thing to brainstorm ideas.  To write, speak, or perform in front of a computer or camera is unproductive and time-consuming.  The client or customer needs your service so why do you have to sit here and make yourself uncomfortable writing or recording content.

Here’s why. We have to sleep sometimes.  We can’t be everywhere a potential client is at all times.  We need help.  So we go out and hire help. We train them to be a better salesperson than we are.  There’s still one problem.  They have to sleep as well and they can’t be everywhere at all times. So, we hire more salespeople and more salespeople until all you are doing is training salespeople.  No time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. No time for family.  It’s all because of a silly, blinking cursor.

I know I went to the extreme, over-embellished a little.   The point is you know your business better than the web designers and content creators out there.  They can muddle through and make it look and sound good.  But only you can flesh it out and give it purpose.

Pretend you’re talking to someone who has no idea about what you do or who you are.  Make them feel like they are talking to you directly and you’re sitting on the other side of the screen.

People usually don’t visit sites to see pretty pictures and sounds, unless they are searching for pretty pictures and sound.  They want content.  They want to be anonymous while they get to know you and the services you offer.  They want to know that you know what you’re doing long before they contact you.

Put your knowledge and personality into your website.  It’s the best salesperson a business can have.  It never sleeps and is everywhere at all times.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Blogging, Direct Mail, E-mail, E-mail Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Reviews, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Web Design, advertising, design, marketing | No Comments »

Using Long Tail and Short Tail Keywords when Blogging

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
long tail keywords

Local search results displayed for a wedding chapel in South Tulsa. The long tail keyword searches are responsible for much of the traffic that this site receives from organic local searches.

When writing your posts around predetermined keywords and phrases, remember to use long-tail keywords for better search traffic to your website or post. For example, on a post about IT content relating to “Data Recovery,” instead of using “Data Recovery” for the title of the post, since you have an opportunity to use a valuable local search phrase in a title and file name, “Oklahoma Computer Data Recovery” would be ideal and more likely to become a search term by a consumer than the shorter keyword. This is easier to do in the title (or name) of your blog post than in the body content, obviously, because it doesn’t require any sentence or grammar / structure rewriting.

If I’ve lost you already, check out these helpful outside sources on their definitions for long-tail and short-tail keywords:

  1. http://www.marketinghub.info/long-tail-versus-short-tail-keywords/
  2. http://blog.usweb.com/archives/long-tail-seo-strategy/
  3. http://www.soloseo.com/blog/2007/10/18/learn-seo-basics-long-tail-keywords/

When you think about it, when you are doing a local search for let’s say a local lawncare company in Tulsa, you may type in Tulsa LawnCare, Tulsa Lawncare Company, Tulsa Lawn Maintenance, Tulsa Weed Control Service, etc.  You wouldn’t just type in Lawncare, because it would display national results, and that doesn’t help you when you are looking for a lawncare company to service your lawn.

However, if you are looking for a web design company to develop a website for your company, as a business owner, if it doesn’t matter to you where the web design company is located, you could just search for web design company, web designer, web design firm, etc., because it would be okay to display and view some national results. Yet, if you are looking for a local service provider for your new company website, you need a long tail keyword such as Tulsa web design company or Tulsa website design firm.

This concept about how searches will be displayed using long tail and short tail keywords needs to be in the front of your mind when you are developing content / writing copy for a web page or blog post. If the company website you’re working on provides a local service and your market is the local Tulsa market, then all of your content on the web page or blog entry needs to contain longtail keywords such as Tulsa computer PC sales, computer network design company Tulsa, etc.  You would NOT want to use “PC sales” as a tag or keyword on a blog or web page, nor would you want to use “network design company.” The terms are simply too broad and the search results would be in the millions.

Thinking ahead and staying a step ahead of your potential website visitors will mean making search easier for them, and more website conversions for you! Remember:  content is king, but optimized content is the conquering king. Yes that’s corny and I just made it up. It’s really late, and I’m really tired!  LOL

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Blogging, Keyword Use, Local Search, Long Tail Keyword, Online Marketing, SEM, SEO, Short Tail Keyword | 1 Comment »

Online Video to Promote Your Site

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Video is the fastest-growing online advertising format with estimates of about a 40-percent growth rate through 2010. And the marketers that have taken part in its growth are resoundingly satisfied, according to a recent study from video ad network BrightRoll.

More than 50 percent of the agency executives who participated in the study indicated that online video was the most effective form of advertising, and 83 percent said they were getting more value for their video advertising spend in early 2010 than the previous year. A whopping 94 percent revealed plans for spending more on online video ad campaigns this year than in 2009.

Another sign of video advertising’s maturation in 2010 is the more than 60 percent of respondents that said behavioral targeting increased the performance of their campaigns. The targeting capabilities of video ads were cited as the biggest concern among agency execs in 2009.

This is great news! Primarily, because video is so stinkin easy to produce now. You can shoot video in high definition (720p) with a Flip! camera for under $200 and most newer computers come with software that can make basic edits. If you’re smart, you’ll get a Mac!

have shot and edited video for several years for clients, but what sold me was when we put video on our website to promote our services. Our closing percentage went way up, and the quality of our leads got better and better. Why? BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T READ! If you can bring the content to them, you’ve got them. If you have to choose between reading the text on a page, or watching a video that summarizes what the text says, what would you do?

Video testimonies are what we are focused on now, because online reviews are a huge catalyst that encourage consumers to choose one service over another. It’s something about putting a face with a name, and hearing (and watching) a real person rate a product or service. That is a huge influence! It’s word-of-mouth advertising at your fingertips!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Online Marketing, Online Reviews, Online Video, SEM, User Generated Content, advertising | No Comments »

Social Media Marketing Tulsa

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

social-media-marketing-for-your-online-businessI must admit that I was slow to jump into social media. A large part of me didn’t want to reconnect with my past – I knew that if I did get into it, I would purposefully use it as a tool and not a time waster. It wasn’t long before it proved to be a very effective way for me to be in front of thousands of people that would probably never Google us or go to our website.

Social media marketing is all about finding ways to bring content directly to the end user instead of finding ways to get them to search for it or solely relying upon people that would look for you anyway. It is awesome! I know for a fact that there are companies that are not taking advantage of social media to extend the brand of their products and services or to create leads or sales. At the VERY LEAST use it as a tool to change the way that you communicate with your CURRENT CUSTOMERS! I don’t even think a smart business owner should have to waste time trying to justify the usage of social media integration for company marketing for this simple reason: your customers are using social media to communicate with everyone.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that not long from now, our mobile devices and cell phones will be used more on the social media communication tools to reach out to people instead of actually talking on it with people. And where will you be as a business owner if you didn’t take an hour or two each week (hint: this is really all it takes – 20 minutes a day, Monday – Friday is all it would take) to learn more about social media marketing and actually develop a presence online for your company on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc?  You’ll be wondering why the phone isn’t ringing talking about how, “people just aren’t interested in that ‘personal touch’ anymore.”  No, no they aren’t.  The personal touch has been redefined.  People want CONVENIENCE because they lead busy lives and have busy schedules.  There’s no room for a telephone call when they are out running errands, but they do have time to respond to a comment or post on their Facebook wall while they are sitting at the stop light on their iPhone.

Stop trying to use a telegraph machine when everyone else is using a phone!

The biggest question for small to medium businesses owners remains:
1. How can it be used to generate leads and sales?
2. How can I keep my employees from wasting time on it during work hours?

Can I tell you a secret? You won’t know unless you start doing it, and they are already wasting time during work hours.  Get out of the dark ages and dedicate some time to do some of these things.  And, if you don’t want to do it, contact Innovated Media and we’ll bring you up to speed and past your competition.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Online Marketing, SEM, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, advertising, marketing | No Comments »

More Businesses Going Digital in 2010?

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

The next trend in corporate marketing is going to be relying less on traditional advertising and marketing agencies, according to the latest State of Marketing Report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council. Continuing to build online awareness and generating higher digital demand were the top initiatives reported for 2010 by the global affinity network of senior marketers.

Nearly half of the members surveyed (46%) reported that their companies are presently undergoing a “digital marketing makeover” or will be sometime in 2010. Fifty-eight percent said they were going to train and develop existing staff specifically in this area, and 36 percent expect to hire new talent with digital marketing skills. Forty percent of corporate marketers will be adding or expanding their support from agencies that specialize in digital marketing while an all-time low eight percent plan to conduct advertising agency reviews.

In reviewing where the digital marketing dollars are likely to be directed, 65 percent of respondents said they were evaluating investments in new social media and online communities, 43 percent in Internet media channels, 32 percent in mobile messaging and 31 percent in new methods of online content delivery. In contrast to 2009, most marketers are seeing their media budgets stay the same or increase slightly, with the biggest increases reported in interactive/Web marketing, social media, search marketing, SEO, and mobile communications areas.

I forsee many of these companies using old phone book money to put to better use online. A great first step is to revisit the design and setup of the current website that promotes the organization. Right now, a good rule of thumb is: if you haven’t made significant changes to your website in the last 24 months, go ahead and redesign it and have it redone in WordPress.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in E-mail Marketing, Online Marketing, SEM, SEO, Social Media, Social Networking, Web Design, advertising | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Better Tag Cloud