Online Marketing Blog by FoundPages

Online Marketing Checklist: Are You Covering Your Bases?

2010-07-13T09:55:00.005-06:00

The days when all you needed for online marketing was a nice website have long passed. In order to be effectively represented online, you’ll need effective campaigns on several critical platforms. The platforms vary depending on the type of business you are in, but for those of you still finding your footing; here is a short checklist of platforms you should consider.

Stable Content

Website: Since its 2010, you should have professional website. If you don’t have one, get on it.
Bonus Points Wikipedia Entry: Businesses haven’t fully embraced Wikipedia but it is the authority for information reference. Having a Wikipedia entry will become increasingly important for online credibility and exposure.

Regularly Updated Content

Blog: A critical platform for establishing credibility with the online community and search engines. If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you are missing out on establishing yourself as an online authority in your industry.
Bonus Points Periodical Press Releases: Press Releases still have their place online, particularly when pushed out with a service like PRWeb.com. It can do more than just a blog posting or website update as it pushes to many channels, allowing for more exposure and credibility.

Social Networking

Twitter/Facebook Fan Page: Twitter and Facebook are the kings of social networking and an increasingly important platform to promote dialog between companies and the online community.
Bonus Points LinkedIn/Foursquare: LinkedIn and Foursquare aren’t for everyone, but depending on the kind of business you do, these maybe valuable platforms to reach potential customers.

Video Media

YouTube: YouTube continues to be a predominately an entertainment focused community, but its reach is undeniable. If you have how-to videos, or a business presentation, they are good candidates for YouTube.
Bonus Points Webinar: Webinars are a great way to interact with customers and the community. Webinars add great value for any customer base.

Search Engine Marketing

Google AdWords: This isn’t a must but for those of you who are just starting out, or struggling in competitive markets, pay-per-click campaigns with Google can get you that exposure when you need it.
Bonus Points Pay-per-click on Facebook/LinkedIn/Yahoo/Bing: Although Google is the most recognized player; pretty much every major platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, etc) has a similar version of the pay-per-click program. They may present a less competitive and more targeted environment to push marketing efforts.

Depending on your business and goals, the platforms mentioned may not be critical. Also keep in mind that just because you are represented on these platforms doesn’t necessarily mean you are being represented well on each platform. However, how to assess your effectiveness on the various online platforms is the topic for another post.

Do you have other platforms that are critical to your business’s online marketing strategy that you feel should be on this list? Please share it with us in the comments.

Author: Jimmy Wong

Effective Email Newsletters

2010-07-05T16:17:00.004-06:00

Many companies send regular email newsletters to their customers but not many of them measure the effectiveness of their newsletters and adjust them. I recently helped a non-profit organization improve its email newsletter campaign. They had been doing several newsletters each month in the past but they didn’t know if they were being read or even opened. Peter Drucker once said that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and this can apply to newsletters too!

When I looked at the newsletters. I found that it had too many articles. These articles covered many different topics and the staff had to spend quite a bit of time collecting these articles each month. They created long newsletters and there wasn’t any focal point in them. I then looked at the email opens and click thrus from previous newsletters and found that the numbers were very low.

As a result, I advised them to greatly reduce the number of the articles in each newsletter and focus on a theme for each month. For interested readers, we provided headlines and excerpts linking to longer articles on their blog and website.

I also noticed that they used the same email subject line for every month. The only difference in the subject line was the month. Many recipients will automatically set it aside in the hope that they would come back to it when they have time, but this may not happen unless the subject line has relevancy. I advised them to make the subject line more relevant and describe the theme of the newsletter with some curiosity and urgency for the recipients.

The results: It freed up time for the staff and the email open and click through rates increased significantly. Now the recipients see the value to them and some are even anxiously waiting for the next e-newsletter!

So the point is: You have to regularly monitor, measure and adjust your email newsletters to make it work. Don’t give up on it – it can be one of your most powerful marketing tools.

Author: Ray Yip

The Top 5 Mistakes Made When Setting Up Pay Per Click Advertising

2010-06-28T12:04:00.004-06:00

I spoke with a prospect recently who was disappointed with the results they were receiving from the Google advertising they had set up and paying as much as $5 per click with little or no response. Search advertisers make it very easy for business owners to set up a pay per click account but the costs of setting it incorrectly are not as apparent as they should be.

In today’s blog we look at the top 5 mistakes made when setting up pay per click advertising:

Not doing the right keyword research – Search advertisers provide research tools to find keywords to run your advertisements on, but often they suggest the highest searched keywords which have the highest competition. Selecting these keywords also requires you to bid significantly higher for them in order to have your advertisement show up. In most cases it is better to select keywords which have a reasonably high search volume, but lower competition, which will help to keep your bids down in the long run.
Not defining a daily budget – You can define a daily budget for your advertising where your advertisements stop showing after the budget is reached. Not doing this may result in your monthly budget being reached within a week or two and your advertisements not showing for the remainder of the month.
Not targeting the right audience – You need to define the cities, states or countries that you want your advertising to be shown in. It doesn’t make sense for a local service provider to show advertising across the nation. It is also important to set the time of day you want your advertisements to show (ex. Not in the middle of the night).
Not improving your website or landing page – If you do not get any business off your website currently, then driving more traffic using pay per click advertising does not always mean that will improve. Your company website needs to be credible and look professional before someone will contact you from it. Improve your landing page and add the right offers or calls to action to entice your visitor to make contact.
Not maintaining the advertisements regularly – There are a lot of moving parts in pay per click advertising that often get overlooked; It’s not easy enough to simply set something up and let it run. You need to pay attention to things like: bids, keywords, ad copy, click through rate, bounce rate, quality score, etc. It is worth the effort to run experiments and try different variations on ad copy and landing pages to see what produces the best result.

Search advertising is a very powerful medium to use when it is done right. It can produce a good amount of business and easily pay for itself. If you do not have the expertise or time to manage it, we recommend consulting with an expert who can help you to manage and achieve better results.

It is important to note that paid search advertisements are only clicked on by ~30% of search engine users; the large majority of search results are delivered through organic listings, so ensure you have a search engine optimization strategy as well.

Author: Paul Uppal

Healthy Websites Lead to Online Marketing Success

2010-06-15T14:10:00.005-06:00

Your website’s online exposure is a key component of business life, just like getting healthy and into shape is a vital component of our own personal lives. However, most people never ‘get into shape’. Many people buy gimmicky workout machines or slim fast drugs only to be tricked out of time and money. Many get confused, frustrated, or give up.

The Online Marketing Athlete
Online marketing is very similar to personal health and fitness, so don’t be tricked by thrills and gimmicks. Think of building and maintaining online exposure like training to become a competitive athlete. It takes planning, time, diligence, and the right combination of exercises.

Get Healthy
Most websites are not fit or robust enough for the internet search environment; many have problems they don’t even know about. Most websites aren’t very healthy, even if they look ‘good’. Fortunately, that means with the right ‘diet and exercise’ of a good online marketing solution, you’ll be ahead of the pack just by improving the health of your website.

Get Fit
Sometimes, just a clean bill of health isn’t enough. If you are in a very competitive environment or are playing in the big leagues, you’ll need to have an online marketing solution to match. You will need a highly regimented solution that is high impact and intensive.

Use a Trainer
Just spending more time or money on your website does not mean you are reaching your goals. The advice and on-going coaching from a good online marketing specialist is an essential guide for success. Lastly and most importantly, you don’t have to do it on your own. A good agency can do most of the heavily lifting to keep your online marketing in tip-top shape. And just like a trainer, it doesn’t require much of their time, and therefore it won’t cost you much.

Especially Important in SEO
This advice can be generalized to most streams of online marketing, but this is particularly important when assessing search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. The process of SEO is a credible and important part of any online marketing effort, however, be aware that SEO is becoming a growing buzz term associated with quick success schemes and effortless automated programs and software which search engines detest. Don’t be fooled.

Conclusion
Employing a physical fitness mentality and approach for online marketing will keep efforts focused, committed, and working in the right direction. It may be hard at the beginning but it won’t be long until you’ll see results. And even easier to keep that way!

Author: Jimmy Wong

Websites That Work Beautifully: Clearing a Path for Customer Action

2010-05-26T15:29:00.002-06:00

I got an email from Marketing Profs for a seminar entitled “Demolish the Roadblocks on Your Website: Clearing a Path for Customer Action, Sales and Loyalty“. I’m not here to sell this seminar, I just found the lead-in couple of paragraphs selling the seminar a great post all on its own.

"Too many people create websites that look beautiful. But what we really need are websites that WORK beautifully. It’s not enough to put some content up. It’s not enough to launch and leave an application or a new website design. If you want a website that makes money you must continuously improve the completion times of your customers’ top tasks. The most important thing you need to manage on your website is your customers’ time."

This is Coolaid that we drink all day every day; it is more important to be found, answer questions, generate a lead, than it is to look the prettiest. Of course the website can’t be a junker either, or that becomes a barrier (lack of credibility) all in itself. Just don’t spend all your money on the design, save 75% of your budget for promoting the website and answering your customers questions with webinars (and downloads of recorded ones), case studies, and white papers.

Author: Yves Matson

Webinar Recording - How to use Social Media in B2B Marketing

2010-05-11T09:00:00.005-06:00

Social media is becoming a popular avenue for businesses by creating a voice for their business and attracting prospective leads by distributing details, free offers and news about their product & services. For a long time, social media was looked upon as a personal communication channel, where you could provide your opinion about personal things. Since that time Social Media has greatly evolved into a channel for businesses that want to leverage social networks to share their respective experiences and how others can benefit from their offering.

Many have seen Social Media as a distribution channel, a value add asset for potential leads, and a means to offer promotions that will in turn entice people to follow them and be their customer.

Join Yves Matson, Director of Business Development at FoundPages as he shares emerging best practices that effectively integrate Social Media into online marketing.

Webinar Title: How to use Social Media in B2B Marketing

Click on the link below to access the webinar recording:
http://www.foundpages.com/social-media-webinar.html

Topics included:

* Utilizing newsletters, blogging, case study publishing, and webinars for social media marketing
* Using Social Media as a distribution channel for blog, newsletter, or website content
* Case Study: How ActiveConversion uses Social Media Marketing for B2B marketing and how they measure ROI using marketing automation.

Web Marketing Tools - Website Comparison

2010-05-04T10:39:00.001-06:00

One of the most popular free search engine marketing tools is the one providing Website Comparisons. The tool allows you to see how your website ranks, and compares your site against others such as your competitors. Here are a few key benchmarks of search engine marketing you should know about from the tool.

Alexa Rank - gives you a general measure of the traffic your website is receiving. The lower the score the better. It's very useful to compare the traffic trend to that of your competitors for example. If you do any social media marketing, it will play a part in how much traffic you receive from your marketing effort. The SiteInfo of Alexa will also tell you a lot about a particular website, like Traffic Stats, Contact Info, Related Links, Keywords, Clickstream and Demographics.

Google PageRank - is a numeric value between 0-10 that represents how important a page is on the web. It is based on a link analysis algorithm that is similar to a ballot system. When one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important that page is assumed to be.

Indexed Pages - reports how many pages of your website can be found on Google. More indexed pages usually indicates your website is search engine friendly and is ultimately beneficial to your ranking. As an example, we've seen a large DVD rental website that initially had about 100 pages indexed by Google due to search engine barriers on the site. With some effort and minor optimization of the website, it went from 100 to over 50,000 indexed pages in less than a month.

Inbound Links - reports how many websites directly link back to your site. Having a good number of credible links to your website will also boost your Google Page-Rank and improve the importance of your website within Google. It allows Google and other search engines to position your website higher in their search results. Of course, the content needs to be related to the search terms.

The Website Comparison tool is just one tool and a start for your online marketing efforts. You can also try the Keyword Suggestion Tool to see what search terms people are using to find your website and Webpage Analyzer to get a technical breakdown of key components of a webpage relevant to the search engines.

Untangling Social Media Networks

2010-04-28T10:13:00.012-06:00

Do all of these social media networks make you dizzy? Do you have the feeling that you are lost in a maze of blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Four Square etc? Posts are everywhere and sometimes they are repeating the same things. It may annoy your followers and friends and eventually you will get ignored. It doesn’t have to be this way when you know how to simplify and untangle the links that join social media networks together.

I’d like to show you one simple way to link the connections between your social media accounts so that you do less work and still spread your efforts to these social media channels.

I’d like to show you one simple way to link the connections between your social media accounts so that you do less work and still spread your efforts to these social media channels.

1. Blog – This is where you provide value to others by sharing your view point, expertise and experience. Blogging is also a great way to get organic traffic from search engines and allows others to reference to your posts.

2. Twitter – Twitter is the springboard and the broadcaster of your social media networks. Connect your blog to your twitter accounts to make your blog automatically send messages to other social channels you have.

3. LinkedIn – LinkedIn has partnered with Twitter. When you set your Twitter name in your LinkedIn account, your tweets will automatically update your LinkedIn status. You can also add your blog’s RSS feed to one of the link in your LinkedIn profile and add Blog Link app to your LinkedIn account to share your blog posts with your connections.

4. Facebook – I don’t think I need to explain much about Facebook. For me, it’s primarily for my personal network of family, relatives and close friends. By connecting your Twitter announcements to Facebook, it can automatically add your twitter to your Facebook status.

5. Google Buzz is the newcomer but not many people understand it yet. To make it work, you’ll want to create your own Google Profile. You then connect your Twitter account to your Google profile and Google Buzz to broadcast your status to your Buzz connection. The Buzz network usually consists of family and friends who use Gmail as their personal email platform. One feature of Google Buzz is that it allows you to share the items from your Google Reader and Blogger account through Buzz network.

Following are the tools that you can use to make the job of untangling your social media network easier:

HootSuite is a powerful tool to manage all your social media accounts. It can post messages to multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Four Square accounts. It also can connect with your WordPress and RSS.

DISQUS Comments: When you install DISQUS Comments on your blog, it replaces your regular comment forms. Your visitors can then use one of the social media accounts they already have to post comments. It will authenticate their identity to ensure quality comments. It will prevent opening up the blog to spam.

WordPress to Twitter plugins: There are a number of plugins to allow you to connect and broadcast your blog to your Twitter account. Most of them will also allow you to connect to shorten URL app and properly layout your tweets.

Everyone is talking about how to leverage and harness the power of social media but it can appear quite overwhelming. By taking simple steps to ensure the proper linkage of the connections, you can do less AND reap the benefits of the social media networks.

Lunch & Learn Seminar on Social Media and how to use it in B2B Marketing

2010-04-23T10:45:00.007-06:00

Join Yves Matson at Calgary Technogies Inc on April 28th 2010 from 12:00PM to 1:00PM as he talks about “Social Media and how to use it in B2B Marketing”.

Yves Matson is the Director of Business Development at FoundPages and he will share emerging best practices that effectively integrate Social Media into online marketing, utilizing activities that companies already engage in, such as newsletters, blogging, case study publishing, and webinars.

Using Social Media as a distribution channel for blog, newsletter, or website content produces highly qualified leads and referrals that are more likely to identify themselves and begin a relationship based on your expertise. This presentation is based around the eHow To Guide, created by ActiveConversion, called A Marketing Automation Guide to Social Media Marketing.

CTI Lunch & Learn sessions are free and held in a boardroom at the Alastair Ross Technology Centre (3553 31 Street NW, Calgary). Lunches can be purchased by cash only at Choices Cafe in the lobby.

mediaFRESH Awards Finalists Announced for the 2010

2010-04-21T13:41:00.011-06:00

The 2010 mediaFresh awards hosted by Digital Alberta are dedicated to the recognition of those Alberta Digital Media Professionals and Post-Secondary students who have created outstanding project and programs between September 2008 and November 2009.

Category: Best Entrepreneur Award for creative/business/technology entries will be judged on

40% Marketing Strategy
30% Commercial viability
30% Uniqueness of technology

Winning entries will be featured in a full color catalogue that will be published and distributed following the awards ceremony. Each winner will receive a complimentary copy of the catalogue for their portfolio. Additional copies of the mediaFresh 2010 will be distributed to promote digital media production in Alberta and around the world.

Fred Yee, CEO of Foundpages/ActiveConversion, is one of the nominees. We think Fred and the product / services fit the ranking criteria very well.

https://digitalalberta.wufoo.com/forms/peoples-choice-nominees-best-entrepreneur

Forrester Research: Interactive Marketing Forecast 2009 - 2014

2009-12-20T21:42:00.006-07:00

Forrester Research have come out with their forecast for Interactive Marketing for the next 5 years.

The table of contents is very relevant to online marketing:

Interactive Will Cannibalize Traditional Media
Interactive Marketing Spend Will Near $55 Billion By 2014
Search Marketing Still Leads Interactive Spend
Display Advertising Rebounds
Email Marketing Continues Healthy Growth
Social Media Fixes Itself In The Interactive Mix
Mobile Marketing Matters - Post Recession
WHAT IT MEANS - Interactive Trends Will Redefine Your Business

My colleague, Yves has pointed out some of the more salient points here:

When faced with budget cuts or the need for immediate sales, these marketers find that interactive tools are less expensive, more measurable, and better for direct response than traditional media.

Empowered consumers today expect a customized, interactive brand experience that goes way beyond a 30-second television spot or two-dimensional print ad. Forty-two percent of online adults and 55% of online youth want to engage with their favorite brands through social applications.

And last, even laggard industries feel that they have enough experience and data to prove interactive marketing’s worth. Online display spending by telecom companies in Q1 2009 grew 50% over Q1 2008.

Interactive marketing ad spend is still under represented and laggard compared to how much of sample media time is spent online.

You can sign up for a copy of the full report here, courtesy of DemandGen Report. More than ever, your marketing future may depend on it!

Google PageRank Fall Update 2009

2009-12-10T17:05:00.006-07:00

At the end of October, Google released it's latest PageRank (PR) updates. Has your Google PR gone up or down on your website? One of our brand new websites has gone from PR0 to PR5 in just two months and we thought we'd give you some insight on how we did this.

As many of you may know, Google PageRank is based primarily on a link analysis algorithm that is similar to a ballot system. When one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important that page is assumed to be. It is also calculated on the quality of those links. A handful of links from authoritative, trustworthy, relevant pages far outweigh hundreds of links from so-so sites. Keep in mind, the Google algorithm doesn't solely rely on this, and has literally hundreds of factors, but that is a primary factor.

Here are our tips on improving your Google PageRank:

1) Create professional and useful content or applications on your website. When people find your content valuable, they will likely link and reference to your web content.

2) Provide client testimonials to your vendors. They will be happy to post your testimonial on their website and link to your website to show that its legitimate and credible (format the testimonial with a link).

3) Post insightful comments on blogs related to your industry (like this one!). Avoid simply commenting with just "good post". In your comment, demonstrate a shared experience or even challenge their idea with relevant sources. Make sure that in your profile, your name links back to your website.

4) Your partners and clients are also good sources of relevant inbound links. Work diligently at getting links from them.

5) Does your business have other websites. Make sure you create links to your website from your other web properties (but make sure these are not mirror sites).

There are many more ways to get credible inbound links, such as getting a link building campaign done by professionals. Building up Googe PageRank through a link building campaign requires creativity and hard work. The upside is once you've earned a good Google PageRank for your website, the payoff is long term. You'll get ongoing 'free' visitors from Google that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Google's Local Business Dashboard - Don't Do Local Search Without It!

2009-06-09T22:11:00.005-06:00

Today, we'd like to show you how to take advantage of Google Local Business listings. The Google Maps team has just launched a new dashboard in its free Local Business Center that will provide you with information on how users interact with your local listing on Google Maps and Google Search.

This is very important as local listings has become an increasingly important part of the Google algorithm. Because the information is verified using humans or via phone book listing, Google gives strong weight to those who are listed. This will result in your listing being shown in more search results.

As you can see below, the dashboard will show you stats such as how many times your business comes up as a search result, how often people click through, which queries led customers to the business listing, as well as which zip codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location. All you have to do is claim your listing in the Local Business Center and go through a quick verification process to get access to this information.

For the local business who relies on Google in helping customers find the business, you can now measure the impact of search, especially the top search queries that result in your business showing up in the listings. Once you see these search queries, you’ll want to have your listing show up more often in searches. This will lead you into assessing whether you should move forward and buy the keywords in the Google AdWords campaign. You’ll also want to think about optimizing your website to get more inbound traffic from natural search results who are LOOKING for your product or service.

If you are interested in knowing more, go to the Office Google Blog to learn more details about Google's new Local Business Center Dashboard.

Google Local Business Listings

2009-03-18T09:47:00.005-06:00

If you're like most SMB's, you probably do a substantial amount of your business locally. Traditionally, people used local phone books or yellow pages to find services like yours. However, people are now turning to Google to find local service providers, and therefore you're at risk of losing to your competitors if your business is not listed in the Google Local Business Listings.

Google Local Business Listings typically show up when the user types a service oriented business followed by the city for their search. A Google Map appears alongside with up to ten URLs including phone numbers for each business. Google’s Local Business Listings are becoming even more important since they are being displayed more often in search before organic listings even start. As a result, they often get most of the clicks from users.

Google uses Yellow Pages and other business directory information from third party providers to generate the basic local search results. If your business is already in Yellow Pages, it'd likely be listed in Google local business listings. However, the information is often limited and usually does not take advantage of the new features that are available on Google.

Go to Google Local Business Center to create your free listing or claim ownership of an existing listing and update your business information. Remember to review your local listings from time to time. Google continues to add new features to the local listing, like the ability to integrate YouTube videos. Using Google Local Business Listings and its features will keep your listing exciting and attract more visitors to your website.

Online Press Releases - SEO Food

2009-02-26T22:46:00.003-07:00

One of the best and easiest ways to get PR is to issue online press releases. There are a number of outlets such as PRweb or PRLeap. In addition to getting the word out to thousands of news and blog outlets quickly and at low cost, SEO'ed press releases have the additional value of getting indexed almost immediately. They also enjoy the benefit of being fresh and new, and can get high rankings for the keywords it is using.

A search engine optimized press release can reach thousands of people if handled correctly. Google and Yahoo search engines and news is how today's journalists and reporters get their sources and facts. Here are some stats from PRWeb's website that press (pun intended) home this point:

98% of journalists go online daily
92% for article research
81% to do searching
76% to find new sources, experts
73% to find press releases

On an average day, 68 million American adults go online

30% use a search engine to find information
27% get news.

As you can see, the Internet is or is fast becoming the source for news and a properly SEO optimized press release can get you noticed far eaiser than traditonal press release outlets. This is because your release will be keyworded, so that can be much more easily found by journalists who are LOOKING for your content and news!

Online news outlets that are hungry for new content, along with bloggers who are looking for news, will quickly publish your release in the hopes of attracting visitors.

There's a modest cost for this, and in addition to get your 'news' out there, it will give your website some Google 'juice' if the content is properly linked back to your website. This will increase your website's visibility temporarily. All this will result in more traffic to your website, which usually isn't a bad thing.

Be sure to also put the press release on your website to get even more bang for your buck. More info on online press releases can be found here.

Free SEO Tools at FoundPages

2009-02-01T15:14:00.006-07:00

With SEO and SEM becoming more common and understood, there appears to be an upsurge in interest in tools for improving Google PageRank and traffic. For most websites, most visitors come via search engines (even if they know your name) than any other way. Something we don't promote but you should use are the free SEO tools available on this website.

Use it freely, as there is no cost, but keep in mind that they are tools. Tools that can help you analyze and measure your current situation, but they don't improve your website - only you can do that! There are many other resources on this website to help you with doing that.

One of the easiest things, is to update your website regularly. Updating content and adding more pages will get your website noticed by search engine crawlers, and new pages will add to the number of pages you will get indexed by the search engines. You don't need specialists to do this, and no one knows your business better than you do.

The pages don't have to be about your product or service. For example, if you sell cargo nets (like one of our customers), it can be about the legislation and laws surrounding the requirements. Or a page on how to install it properly on a truck. All this can get indexed, and help you with the 'long tail' in search. Just remember to add unique tags to them, and to add the page to the sitemap.

The long tail refers the keywords that are not searched a lot, but the many searches for various unique phrases that are very detailed and relevant for a searcher. For example, 'cargo net law' is a long tail search, that would bring visitors interested in cargo nets regulations, that then might interested in purchasing a cargo net that complies.

I'll have more on the SEO tools in the next few blogs, on what the benchmarks mean and how to improve them. These tools should be part of every online marketer's toolkit today. If you are a small to medium size business (SMB), you ignore search engine marketing metrics at your own peril.

Lower Bounce Rates Mean More Leads

2009-01-04T17:22:00.001-07:00

Among web analytic statistics, the bounce rate is one of the metrics often overlooked by many marketers. A bounce rate is the percentage of single page visitors to your website that left your website quickly after arriving. Some advanced systems also use visit duration to calculate bounce rate which treat visitors as bounces if they stay on the site for less than 5 seconds.

Bounce rate can also be defined as negative statistic. It measures how engaging your website is to your visitors and how it relates to the intention of them. It also measures how effective and 'sticky' your landing page is when it's used with a campaign. Lack of relevancy is a major cause of bounces, and solving this will increase lead generation by an order of magnitude sometimes.

A high bounce rate usually indicates something wrong with your website's landing pages. However, the problem can also be caused by where you acquire your traffic. Let's look at a few things you can do to reduce bounce rates (lower is better).

Analyze the bounce rate for your traffic sources
Many inbound marketers use social media as part of their marketing campaigns. However, many of these referrers are low-value. These visitors aren't "looking" when they arrive at your website so they tend to leave immediately. You don't have to worry too much about bounce rates from these traffic sources but you should know which referrers contribute to the high bounce rates. If you are using social media advertising like Facebook ads, you should have a specific landing pages to create demand and guide your visitors to whatever you're advertising.

Not giving the banana to the monkey
This is a classic conversion problem. When people arrive at your website and can't find what they want, they would leave right away and go to your competitors websites instead. You only have a few seconds to let the visitors know that they are at the right place so "give the banana to the monkey." Make sure you have clear and obvious conversion points for your visitors. These conversion points should also tailor to the different interests of the visitors such as home buyers vs home sellers at a realtors website. While home buyers want to see what listings are available, the home sellers want to know why they should use the provided services to advertise their homes.

Match interests to the sales cycle
This is mainly related to organic search engine traffic. A website might rank highly on certain keywords but these keywords are often irrelevant. Similar to the previous point, when people don't find what they are looking for, they leave. Many 'content' websites with high search visibility often receives high traffic for irrelevant search terms. You should understand the Search Buying Cycle and adjust your content to use keywords according to different phases of the buying cycle. Also avoid having too much unrelated content, like too much profile information on every client.

Improve landing pages
Pay-Per-Click campaigns often have high bounce rates. Simple landing pages with only one call to action are often the issue. Email marketing campaign can possibly cause high bounce rate too if the subject line is misleading or the links take recipients to an unrelated page. It might also be the offer that's too aggressive (eg buy now) on the landing page. Consider having micro-conversions on the landing pages. A micro-conversion doesn't turn the visits into sales but it turns visitors into leads so that you can nurture them into sales. This is particularly effective for B2B.

B2B websites typically have average bounce rate of 10-30%. If your bounce rate is higher than that, you should flag it and find out why. Having high bounce rates doesn't mean the end of the world if you understand what's causing it and take actions to improve it. It might take a few round of tests to nail it down but the effort you put in will turn you website into one that's relevant for your visitors. They will engage if it fits their needs.

The Sky is Not Falling on Online Advertising

2008-11-11T15:50:00.004-07:00

During economic slowdowns, business spend more carefully, yet need to increase revenue to offset a loss of business from it's existing customer base. So it's always a contradiction to see companies cut back on marketing, when they likely need it the most.

No so for online advertising according to the Rubicon Project. They indicate that more global advertising dollars will actually increase the online advertising market, helping to increase the total amount spent online.

According to their report, millions of dollars are being taken from traditional mediums such as newspapers and television. Why? It's not the usual easier to track and ROI arguement. It's because their researchers have found that online advertising has better reach globally than TV or newspapers.

Their researchers have found that out-of-country visitors make up about 40% of traffic to U.S. based websites, and more than 50% of traffic to international websites come from the U.S. So much for thinking that the traditonal broadcast mediums have more reach.

So with online advertising being lower cost, more effective, easier to buy, and now with better reach, it's easy to see how online advertising will continue to grow, even in the slower growth economy. And guess what? Afterwards, the advertisers will stick with it having tried it.

In other developements, comScore reports that there has been large jumps in traffic to financial websites, due in part to the financial markets. Put that together with what I mentioned above and you know one of the best places to advertise right now during tougher times is online, and on financial websites.

The sky is definitely not falling on online advertising.

Need A Little Chrome on Your Browser?

2008-09-12T16:41:00.005-06:00

Google is a little like most politicians. They keep denying this and that, when it's obvious that they are going to something. In this case, it was create their own browser. Called Chrome, they had to finally let the cat out of the bag, when this clever comic book was discovered by the public before they were ready.

Although there are a lot of reviews and explanations for Chrome out there already, I'm gonna give my simple-minded spin. The comic explains the reasons, but it's somewhat technical, and definitely biased.

Chrome is Google's ultimate weapon. They know if you control the browser, you get to direct user behavior. Sure, the reasons are better speed, easier to run web apps, security, less crashing etc, but the REAL reason in my opinion was ensure they had a platform that they could control to make all the things they want work - work. And to ensure that Microsoft didn't stop them by not allowing it, or SLOWLY cooperating.

Firefox is already open source and does most of the things that Google needs. But they don't control Firefox, and besides Firefox is only about 18-20% of the market. And because Firefox can't be bought because of their company structure, Google put their tremendous resources to work and built their own.

So what that mean to you dear reader? You will have another choice to make. With all the free applications and tools from Google, you can be sure they will run better in Chrome. On the other hand, some things, especially Microsoft products (both paid and free) will likely not be as compatible. Think of it as what a browser was supposed to do, but without the wrinkles that Microsoft plugged in to make their browsers 'better'.

What I'm going to do is keep using Firefox, until I see a clear need to switch to Chrome. I might have Chrome on my desktop, in case something I'm using really needs to run in Chrome (just like I have IE on my desktop for IE 'enhanced' web pages), but otherwise, the last thing I need is another browser.

Where it does make sense is when they make Chrome usable on a PC without an operating system. Which is what I think is the ultimate goal. No Windows, just boot up your Netbook and use your browser for everything. Then your phone is next with Google's Android project. No wonder Microsoft doesn't like Google.

BTW, the comic book a lot better in my opinion than the Seinfeld/Microsoft commercials, because frankly most people don't get the commercial...the commercial has a pile of inside jokes while at least with the comic, you can ask somebody what all the geek means.

Yellow Pages Advertising to Decline by 40%?

2008-08-06T16:53:00.003-06:00

According to a new report from Borrell Associates, printed classified ads will be virtually dead within the next 5 years. And in fact Yellow Pages advertising will begin turning to online versions at a rate of 38%. So although it will lose dramatically on the traditional end, Yellow Pages sales representatives will sell online ads at about the same rate to offset the revenue loss.

This apparently amounts to a loss of $5 billion over the next 5 years, and accounts for 39% of its annual revenue size.

The change is due the fact that online mediums are becoming the most popular with marketers and business owners. Online ads, video and paid search offer more bang for the buck, and allow changes even after the ad is bought. Add in campaign tracking and interactive capabilities, and you can see how online has a tremendous advantage.

Although traditional advertising is learning to switch to online, like the above example with the Yellow Pages, the question is: has the buyer? Yellow Pages online is not used nearly as extensively as Google or Yahoo, even with local search. Most people use online directories ONLY after not being able to find it using a major search engine. And with more and more advertisers understanding the value of being found in a search engine, they tend to ensure they are in Google so where does that leave the directories like Yellow Pages?

Get a download summary copy of 'Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages' by clicking here. It's a massive change that marketers and business owners should stay on top of, to get the most out of their limited advertising budgets.

Keep all this in mind when your Yellow Pages rep calls you next time. The directory industry has over 34,000 local sales reps, so you can bet you will getting a call.

SEM Canada Off, Vancouver Internet Marketing Conf Still On

2008-07-15T15:14:00.004-06:00

In case you were eagerly waiting for the SEM Conference in Calgary, you're going to have to wait a little longer. It has been postponed until October 2009. Apparently a major corporate sponsor is in the offing, but as you can guess, the big companies can't move fast enough to accommodate the short fuse that the conference has with it being originally scheduled for this September.

This is probably good, as being the first annual, there is a lot of ground work that still has to happen, that the relatively short timeframe didn't allow for. Better to wait and get everything ready and lined up, rather than rush it and risk a poor result. Also, the original date was VERY close to the Internet Marketing Conference in Vancouver, which attracts a VERY similar audience. IMC has not had a conference in Canada since Vancouver in 2002, and as a result, has a strong following.

We'll now have more time to prepare for IMC Vancouver, where we have both a speaking engagement on B2B search engine marketing, and a demo of ActiveConversion lined up. It's scheduled for September 11-12, 2008 at the Coast Plaza Hotel. Hope to see you there!

Interview by Brian Carter

2008-07-09T17:46:00.005-06:00

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brian Carter of Fuel Interactive, for the upcoming SEM Canada conference. I haven't had a chance to listen to it much, but it's a great way to cover alot of ground in SEM and online marketing.

Brian is the Director of Search Marketing for Fuel, based in South Carolina. Brian is an SEOmoz Pro Member and Google AdWords Qualified search marketing trainer, consultant, and speaker. Brian has more than eight years experience in the internet industry and is well known in the search engine marketing industry.

Being that one of our specialties in B2B and using SEO/SEM with longer sales cycles, we decided to cover those topics in detail. Brian was gracious to also ask me about www.ActiveConversion.com, which helps companies capitalize on search and online marketing.

The MP3 is around 45 minutes long, and I think you may find it interesting.

The interview is in his blog article which is here: http://adwordsconsultant.blogspot.com/2008/07/interview-mp3-with-fred-yee-of.html

Here is a condensed list of things we cover:

Search marketing in the B2B space
2.5m businesses that could benefit from SEM
Advantages of online marketing over offline marketing
Why Microsoft would spend so much to buy Yahoo
Branding vs. Niche direct marketing
Case study: Evans Console who sells $250k consoles to NASA and FedEx
Effect of interactive marketing on Yellow Pages
The Calgary business scene, and search marketing scene
Shifting from the part-time in-house to search marketing agency experts
Conversion tracking for lead generation campaigns
A more sophisticated way to track and stay in touch with long buying cycle sales prospects

Lightning round topics! Fred's quick opinions on...

Twitter
Yellow pages
LinkedIn
Local search
Canadians
Americans
Calgary

Google Ad Planner and Google Trends

2008-06-30T14:44:00.004-06:00

Online advertising just got even easier with Google's new tools for planning your online media buys. Google Ad Planner help advertisers match what they sell, with the demographic that is most suited for what they sell, on the websites that most likely has that demographic. So what that all means is you/we can easily find and advertise on the websites most likely to be interested in what you're selling

You may think you already know what they are, but with millions of websites out there, it is a lot of work going thru them, and figuring out if this is an appropriate website (and adding more). The info includes gender, income range, and education, that can make your ad planning much easier by being able to target exactly who you want to see your ad. It will also make finding those kind of websites very easy.

This had been a problem with Google's contextual ads before, which were keyword based, but could show on almost any website, unless you spent a lot of time specifying which websites you wanted to show the ad on. Most people didn't, and as a result, the click thru rates for contextual ads were usually very poor, especially compared to search ads. Google Ad Planner fixes that, and you will see contextual ads really start to take off as a result, if you know how to take advantage of it.

Google Trends is related, and pertains more to being able to 'loosely measure' the website traffic of a particular URL. Similar to Alexa and Compete, it uses a 'trend' to give an idea of how much traffic a website gets, relative to another similar website. You may seen Google Trends in another format, as a way to find the most searched keywords for the week, like 'Angelina Jolie'.

With tools like this, you can see why Google is going to continue to dominate online advertising and search engine marketing for the foreseeable future. The others have alot of catching up to do to keep up!

Future of Print Still Being Threatened

2008-06-03T16:34:00.003-06:00

According to a report by Eloqua, entitled 'State of the Marketer', which has been widely reported, print spending will continue to decrease. 55% of 200 U.S. marketers surveyed expect to decrease their print ad spending.

In addition, a large number of these same marketers (90%) intend to continue increasing their direct online ad budgets, with 15% 'radically' increasing their online spending.

Print isn't taking it on the chin only from online spending. Direct mail spend, social media spend and mobile ad spend will be increased.

The report also goes on to say that 64% of marketers believe their marketing programs are more effective now than three years ago. This is so much the case, that marketing budgets are actually increasing, and even in the down market in the U.S., that they will maintain or increase their marketing staff.

This leads me to believe that a) online marketing and advertising is continuing to grow b) because it is more effective c) leading to higher marketing spending d) and more satisfaction with the marketing department.

It's not a foolproof hypothesis, but I bet any of you out there using online marketing (like our clients) know this is likely closer to the truth than not!

Microhoo Deal Dead

2008-05-05T17:05:00.006-06:00

Over 3 months after making a $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, Microsoft has decided that 'clearly a deal is not to be done'. Microsoft's latest bid which upped the total price to $47.5 billion over the weekend, was rejected as inadequate.

So what does that mean? For one, it means I was wrong to expect that a 80% premium would be enough to convince Yahoo. And more importantly, it may mean that both sides didn't want to do the deal - which may be a good thing. Both sides have had over 3 months to get feedback from analysts, employees and even competitors as to the value of the merger, and if the point was to take on Google - they may have both figured out that this might have been a disaster.

From an online advertising standpoint, it will mean:

Google will get even stronger, especially in the short term
Yahoo might get better and be willing to change dramatically because of the scrutiny
Microsoft will have to grow this part of their business themselves, and get better at it.

For us and advertisers, I think this will mean we will have a more vibrant search engine marketing and online advertising industry. More competition usually means more innovation, choices and lower pricing. It will take some time to get there and it may hurt these industry giants but in the longer term, the rest of us should benefit.

One thing is certain. Online advertising and marketing is BIG, and getting bigger. If you haven't already, hitch your wagon to it.