Factors for Social Media Optimization
Posted on June 13, 2008
Social Media landscape is where marketing professionals would like to jump into, but have to essentially contemplate whether it’s a blog, or social network site or any other media or video site that the company needs to embark. Also they would not like be left alone from the social media bandwagon, as they can see their competitive peers engaged. But the inherent irony associated with it is :
1. Technology changes which need to be kept a abreast every time.
2. Viral Marketing failure vis-à-vis the success stories.
3. New Social Media sites being launched everyday and to determine the best or hot site.
4. Most importantly the metrics issues.
If these are the deterrents to your deciding, then the factors that need to be kept in check or under consideration would arise from drawing a simple synergy by assessing your buyers, your target market and the competition faced.
Firstly, you could begin with conducting a survey of your clients and gain insight to their engagement with social media the level of participation. Where is it that they would go on web to know and learn about new services and products, or what are their most frequented blogs, online associations etc. Based on which you could determine the sites which have an appeal to your clients, the frequency of conversation and the quality of posts which helps determine relevancy with relation to your business. Also it would get you first hand info about the set of clients who might be strong influencer’s or maybe just trend followers.
Secondly its imperative to know what is the competition upto. Here start off with knowing competitor activities with context to their web presence, their services or products on relevant sites. Are they on the social media vehicles like blogs, forums, networking sites and have they connected with the clients initiating them to comment. More importantly are they syndicating content to destination sites.
Once you have the information on the factors enumerated above you would have just the right market tactics to get your company strategically positioned on the social media landscape and with less likely hood of being drawn into the latest frenzy.
» Filed Under Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization | Leave a Comment
Web Advertising aka Internet Marketing aka Online Marketing
Posted on May 13, 2008
Online marketing (Internet marketing), Internet advertising or eMarketing are all one and same terminologies for marketing of products and services using the medium of internet. Placement of ads on websites (just a subset of entire gamut of online marketing) is popularly known as Web advertising or Web Marketing. It has equipped the marketing and advertising honchos with an interactive and instant response elicitation mechanism, coupled with low costs benefits to target a global audience.
Internet Marketing (Web Advertising) aims at creating visibility, brand awareness and increasing sales to generate profits. The best part being, binding together the creative aspect to the technical know-how of the internet, right from design, development, implementation, advertising and monitoring of sales. Internet Marketing (Web Advertising) encompasses a wide array of services each having its own methodologies.
To begin with,
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which is SEO and PPC, Advertising – display or text based or interactive,
Marketing – e-mails or newsletters or behavioral or affiliate,
Online Reputation Management,
Online Market Research and
SMO inclusive of blog & viral marketing.
Internet marketing (Web Advertising) draws a media strategy to address the specifics at the various stages of client engagement, incorporating an array of aforementioned services (single or multiple, with recommendations to compliment each of the stages) and Web2.0 strategies based on the organization’s business model.
Advantages of Internet Marketing (Web Advertising):
1. Wide audience reach
2. Fraction of traditional media costs
3. Personalized marketing messages
4. Behavior or Interest based targeting
5. Greater accountability
6. Campaign metrics- tracking, measuring & testing
7. Lesser Advertiser Risk
8. Performance based model availability
Disadvantages:
1. Use of newer technologies
2. Low speed internet
3. Complicated and heavy web pages
4. Security concerns for transactions
5. Personal information privacy
Online companies have come up with innovations like stronger encryption enabling conversion of the data to cipher, which cannot be intercepted without authenticated authorization into the program, thus taking care of security and privacy constraints. Internet Marketing has found favor with the music, movies, banking and the advertising industry.
So profound is the effect of online advertising, that within a short span it has grown to billions of dollars, with growth registration of 69% in 2007, 60% in 2006 and 69% in 2005. The average internet advertising growth has been 65% as against the 19% growth for the rest of traditional advertising media industry. The 2008, PriceWaterHouseCooper’s report states, web advertising in India will be Rs.4.5 billion this year end. Globally, the total revenue for the internet earnings is pegged at $44 billion. Moreover, Google’s results for the last financial belied expectations of the NASDAQ, which is a clear indication of online advertising being on the right track and of having rapid growth for the years to come…….
» Filed Under Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Web Advertising | Leave a Comment
Long Tail Concept - fundamental applied to PPC & SEO
Posted on April 19, 2008
The Long Tail is an economic concept that says the collective demand for less-popular and hard to find items, exceeds that of all the most popular added together in a particular category.
The term was first coined around 2004 by Chris Anderson to describe the niche strategy of certain business of online music, online books and movies. Products being digital, these businesses reaped significant profits since they were not faced with the distribution and inventory cost issues. Most of these businesses got aware to the Long Tail principle that, its just not about pushing the market with hits that are popular to many, but mining many a unpopular, to quite a few. Please see the graph below for further clarity.
We normally tend to equate mass market with quality and demand, while in fact it just represents domain familiarity, advertising impact and a time based appeal. Factually, whether it’s a hit or a miss both are on a equal footing, as they happen to be entries into a online database which can be accessed on demand. Our assumptions of popularity are based on a poor supply-demand match due to inefficient distribution. With the advent of online distribution and retail we are into a world of abundance, which in turn is revealing service related truths on the multi –faceted wants of the customer, thus fuelling more algorithmic recommendations based on the feedbacks, leading to more sales.
The sheer size of the Long Tail is what’ really amazes me. Combine enough non-hits on the Long Tail and embark on a market bigger than the hits.
Barnes & Noble carried around 130,000 titles on an average. But more than half of Amazon’s book sales are from outside its top 130,000 titles, which implicates the fact that, the market for books that are not even sold in the bookstore is larger than the market for those that are sold. If only we can get over the economics of scarcity, the potential book market appears to be twice as big.
The same is true for all other aspects of the entertainment business, a comparison of online and offline businesses clarifies it : An average Blockbuster would carry around 3,000 DVDs. Yet a fifth of Netflix rentals are outside its top 3,000 titles. Rhapsody streams more songs each month beyond its top 10,000 than it does its top 10,000. In each case, the market that lies outside the reach of the physical retailer is big enough and getting more bigger.
Google, illustrated Long Tail idea to investors way back in 2005 and makes most of its money off small advertisers (the long tail of advertising), and so does eBay with a tail of niche and one-off products. Google and eBay have discovered new markets and expanded existing ones.
The Long Tail fundamental can be applied to the PPC and the SEO. The inventory of obscure, yet valuable keywords is inexhaustible, for the pay-per-click campaigns, hence it is extremely encouraging to use the concept of Long Tail to have an ever-larger keyword buys. Not to be missing out broad matching on Google. It is reported that the traffic has a better conversion when tapped into the tail. The best or dirty ( you decide) part is that the Long Tail concept can also be applied in a much better way for keyword optimization by having loads of good quality content leading to better ranking in the natural results and getting a sizable traffic which could be a possible relief from running paid campaigns.
Since queries forming the keywords for the Long Tail are illustrated behind the head. Online businesses need to harness both ends of the curve. Great Long Tail businesses drive customers further by following the contours of their likes and dislikes, fueling their exploration of the unknown.
This is the power of the Long Tail.
» Filed Under Long Tail Theory, Search Engine Optimization | Leave a Comment
Meta Description Tag Optimization
Posted on April 9, 2008
The Meta Description Tag is a part of HTML code that allows you to give a short and concise summary of your web page content.
The Search Engine Results Pages, displays the Title, a user usually reads the description which follows and then decides whether to visit the site or not. A good meta description tag can boost the page rankings on some engines for the targeted search terms. Incase of Flash, Frame or All Image sites that have no content some engines use meta description tag as a site’s summary on their search engine results pages. Hence it is required to make its contents crisp and enticing to the user, thus improving the click through ratio.
Meta Description Tag as it appears in your website’s HTML code:
Some search engines do not give very high prominence to the meta tag description, but then it also is the tag supported by some search engines. Google ignores the meta description tag and instead will automatically generate its own description for this page. Others like Teoma, MSN, HotBot, Yahoo supports it partially.
Guidelines to be followed:
1. Avoid excessive keyword repetition as some of the search engines consider it to be spam.
2. Focus more on the sequence of keywords and place the important terms in the beginning of the meta description tag to form a logical sentence.
3. Make it a point to have an unique meta description tag for each web-page, using the keyword phrases that are relevant to that web page.
4. To avoid truncation by search engines keep your meta description tag to a maximum of 225 characters, if possible limit it to 150 characters.
Its certainly worth the effort to create crisp, compelling keyword rich meta description tags optimization, if it can lead to a better listing in the search engine result pages and higher click through ratio.
» Filed Under Search Engine Optimization | Leave a Comment
Title Tag Optimization
Posted on April 4, 2008
Keyword research forms the most essential aspect of any SEO initiative. Assuming the content for the web page is driven by thoughtful selection of keywords the immediate work to embark upon would be Title and Meta Description Tags. At this juncture I would like to cover Title Tag optimization.
Title Tag is an HTML code that shows the words that appear in the title bar at the top of your web browser. The title tag is followed by the meta description and the meta keywords tags.
Title Tag as it looks in your web site’s HTML code:
The usage of keywords in the title tag gives it the highest weight, amongst the places wherein important keyword phrases could be used. It is therefore important to be highly focused, while using the keyword phrases in the title tag. If the keywords intended to be used in the title tag do not appear anywhere else in the page content, then avoid using them as the weight of the keywords in the title tag gets diluted. But the keywords in the title tag, can also be in the page content and the meta description tag.
Sequencing of keyword phrases correctly in the title tag is essential. The order in which they appear is of great importance. The title is displayed in bold, in the search engine results pages (SERP’s) by having the most important and relevant keyword phrase towards the beginning of the title tag.
Title Tag is important of all tags amongst other SEO related options:
1. It communicates the theme of the web page to the visitors serving as anchor.
2. It is considered very important by the search engine crawlers during the ranking process to analyze relevance of the web page to determine the page rank.
3. It is the hyper-linked text title that is displayed in the search engine results page (SERP), a prominent source of information to searchers.
4. It is also used as the text to ‘bookmark’ a page or add a certain web page to the ‘favorites’ list in your browser.
5. It is also used by resource librarians, directory editors, and other webmasters when they link to your page.
Attributes to follow:
1. Both singular and plural forms of the keyword phrases in the title tag can be considered.
2. Title Tag length: According to W3C standards the length ideal is 64 characters, but since Google reads more, upto 70-75 should be fine.
3. Density of your keywords does not matter in the title tag, therefore avoid using keywords repeatedly.
4. Sequencing keywords appropriately in title tag is important. Use natural phrases for, which conform to the keyword phrases and are a better read.
5. Same title tag should not be used throughout the site. Always use a unique title tag for each web page with keyword phrases that holds theme relevance to that page, enabling additional keyword phrases to be utilized.
6. Most search engines are not case sensitive; therefore, it gives a flexibility to write title tag depending upon the nature of site.
7. Title Tag usually appears as the text when you bookmark’ or add a page to your favorites’ list it should ideally read like a phrase that makes some grammatical sense, not just a collection of keywords.
» Filed Under On-page optimization, Search Engine Optimization | Leave a Comment
Interactive Channels of Web Marketing for Marketers – Get Started!
Posted on March 28, 2008
There have been talks and articles on the many forms of web-marketing, an enterprising web strategist needs to or has undertaken as a tactic for web marketing. And at this point in time I would add, it is for marketers to adopt the interactive marketing strategies, rather than just relying on time tested & proven methodologies of the web, like the mainstays in the form of E-mail Marketing & Search Marketing, the complimenting standbys in the form of static & interactive display advertising.
It is a time to adopt the following interactive channels, social media channels & Rich media channels:
Interactive Channels:
1. Mobile WAP sites
2. Mobile Text Messages
3. Branded Micro-sites
4. Contextual Targeting
5. Behavioural Targeting
Social Media Channels:
1. User generated content
2. Blogs
3. Social Networks
4. RSS feed
Rich Media Channels:
1. Ads with online video
2. Advergames
3. Video created by marketing
4. Podcasts
5. Virtual Worlds
6. In-game ads/ product placement
What promotional mix would be apt for your related services or products is a question to be pondered, nevertheless it would not be a fruitless venture to delve into and seek the answers for self. Though at this point there would be apprehensiveness to be venturing into the terrain, wherein there is essentially a void in terms of having some concrete proof in the form of case studies to avoid the ramifications which would arise in the due course due to adoption of any of the aforementioned channels.
The essential fact is customers are moving quickly and adopting the emerging channels. Blog readership is at 29% and is growing strong, podcasts usage has reached 10% in 2006, which is up from 1% in 2005. Consumers are a step ahead with creating profiles in virtual world like Second Life as well. Mobile penetration is at it high.
So the question is where to get started from when it comes to interactive media?
Well to start off, adoption of behavioral and contextual targeting would improve the responses, at lower costs. Then, get into the RSS, Blogs & Social Networks, as these channels show rapid consumer acceptance and awareness. It is pertinent to have an evaluation of these channels on case to case basis, thus enabling you to determine your next move or determine the next channel based on understanding of your audience. Also, it would be imperative to stay abreast of the latest developments given the rapidly changing nature of the emerging interactive channels. Lastly the metrics, consistent monitoring is the way to be determining the effects of emerging interactive media.
* Source - Forrester
» Filed Under Blogs, Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Optimization | Leave a Comment
Potential of Blogs - Reasons to be blogging
Posted on March 25, 2008
The potential of blogs is being seen by businesses and most of them have come to an understanding of the power unleashed because of the following reasons:
1. Blog increases link popularity for the website.
2. With content being added to the website daily, causing the search engines to crawl the website more often and increasing the number of pages indexed in the search engines.
3. A blog allows you to display a specific product or service each day, thus acting as a showcase to the website. Enhancing the visibility for the product or service.
4. Blog posts written with relevant keywords translate to webpages, which can be optimized for search engines if SEO has already been contemplated.
5. Blogs not only can be submitted to directories and be indexed by search engines, but they have additional advantage of being available to relevant search engines (Technorati, Blogsearch etc) which are meant only for blogs, thus providing additional exposure.
6. Blog is additional passage to the website. With each blog set up the chances of someone finding out about the website increases considerably, as is the case of accessibility to a hall with multiple passages.
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Social Media Optimization (SMO) or Social Media Relation(SMR)
Posted on March 18, 2008
The utilization of the available media for generating visibility, publicity or awareness through a social interaction with online communities through community websites is Social Media Optimization (SMO), the term coined by Rohit Bhargava.(Also attributed the 5 Rules of SMO).
Unlike traditional media, most of the social media is aimed at interaction between people to share their views or comments using technology, a two-way communication process and is user driven. Result, SMO becoming a pertinent to the SEO process encompassing the On-Page optimization and the Off-Page optimization exercise. On-Page optimization would include adding links to the book-marking sites and the Off-Page optimization would get article submissions into blogs, forums or niche communities (quality content is must).
It also involves the utilization of the social networking sites as a communication medium, which is an ideal way to initiate a social relation with audience or community of relevance. Communication in social networking platforms being two-way enabled process, acts as an excellent PR feedback tool for corporate, thus enhancing the social media relations (SMR) & the word of mouth (WMO) publicity. A ideal way of propagating Viral Marketing or initiating Viral Seeding.
Initially there was ambiguity over the tangible or measurable returns with SMO activity. But now, with burgeoning activities in and around SMO and with constant modifications in this sphere it is possible to have the numbers in place. Again just as in SEO, SMO is result oriented but its just a matter of hanging on there with patience and wait for it to work for you.
SMO definitely has gained a place of importance in Search Engine Marketing. Also, to an extent that it would be perhaps difficult to say whether it is a Marketing or Public Relation Tool. Well, with multi-purpose utility I would say is SMO is just like having an all-rounder in cricket.
» Filed Under Social Media Optimization, Social Media Relation, Viral Marketing, Viral Seeding | Leave a Comment
Website Analysis (Evaluation) – Website Ranking (Optimization)
Posted on March 14, 2008
Hundred Thousands and more websites are available on the internet based on a particular topic, services, business etc. We find that some of them rank higher in the search engine queries and user or visitor seems to run through a few websites which appear with the first 2-3 pages of the search results. The rest of the websites or web-pages just seem to lose out. The question here is why does it happen so?
There may be a host of differentiators for faring well and for not. Today it is not very difficult to know the reason for the same. With a host of SEO Companies providing Free Website Analysis or Evaluation Services. Now, the question here is, does it cover up all the reasons in an elaborate manner and with context to my related topic, service or business? What is that my competitor or the website listed within the first pages of the natural search result have, which my website lacks? Free offering could just be a first hand prognosis of the website
The very objective of website analysis or evaluation (result) is getting an usability metrics to chalk out a well thought strategy for website optimization campaign (decision). And the ideal goal being, to obtain desired website ranking and be featured in the natural results for the specified keywords, without spending a huge amounts as is the case in paid inclusions. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process itself has a multiple number of activities, but is influenced highly based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the website report.
Custom Made Web Evaluation or Analysis Report should methodologically analyze and comment on home page design, navigation, usability or search functionality, hosting infrastructure, page loading time, browser compatibility and the content on the website with recommendations for improvising the website making it search engine friendly.
Also entail the following details based on how the competitor website fares with respect to (be sure to specify number of keywords):
1. Keywords
2. Ranking & PR
3. Inbound Links
4. Outbound Links
5. Indexed Pages
It also quantifies a specific number for the website on the aforementioned parameters that is required to outrank competition.
It is imperative after this to have a website optimization campaign to seek the desired website ranking for the desired keywords resulting in more visibility.
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Keyword Research & Analysis - Master Key
Posted on March 11, 2008
Well, keywords are a very basic feature which initiates the entire series activities or processes which entails a good search engine optimization campaign or a pay-per-click campaign. Keyword Research & Analysis has triggered various thoughts, with some being for & some against professional help in this domain. Why I say this is, keyword tools are easily and free so lots of people are of the opinion that a keyword research is child play and it would be foolish enough to embark on professional guidance at this moment. Again, there at a set of people who are of an opinion that a meticulously planned Keyword Research and Analysis from a Professional is just the right thing to ramp up the later part of the on-going activities which leads to desired results. Not to say, that the folks who do not want to spend that extra dollar fail or do not understand the importance of keyword research and analysis.
Just as in any physical endurance building activity it is always advised to have a professional instructor, so likewise it would be imperative to have a professional to work up on the Keyword Research & Analysis with the essential intermediates (not elaborated here) & everything else needed for it. Professional would conduct keyword research to determine which search keywords will drive a qualified torrential traffic by quantifying people based on keywords and the competitor analysis for your site based on keywords you have. More importantly, the research would lead us to figure out other optional keywords to tap the customers which you were not aware of in the beginning or never thought of possibly. Be it the SEO (Search Engine Optimization- Optimisation) campaign or the PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns, if the result has to be great then the basics have to be right. All Search Engines may have different parameters for driving campaigns, but the user or visitor knows just to key in words the way he wants to and Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) are driven by keywords.
Therefore with the least of reluctance I would say that Keywords Research & Analysis is one of the Master Keys to unlock the challenges of any internet marketing campaign. Well begun, is half done……..is it not?
» Filed Under Keyword Analysis, Keyword Research | Leave a Comment
