Business owners often times find themselves at odds with the popular proverb “the best things in life are free.” Fortunately even in business this enchanting life lesson can at times prove to be true, and it just so happens that some of the best ways to boost your organic page rank really are free. Below I’ve compiled a small list of ideas, tools, networks, and websites that every business should be utilizing whether it’s an owner of a small business undertaking these strategies personally or a major CEO using his resources to have an interactive marketing agency with more experience and manpower tackle the tasks outlined below. (If you outsource this work I  would suggest using Definition 6  - an Atlanta Internet Marketing company - of which I of course recommend without bias)

The top 7 free ways to boost your organic page ranking;

1)    Link Building:

Links are to rank as to what Sunny is to Cher. Of all the ways in which marketers try to lure search engine spiders to their page, link building is perhaps the most used as well as one of the most effective in search engine optimization. In laymen terms, you want to have links on your site that link to other sites and vice versa that have relevant, useful information and resources for your visitors. If you link to irrelevant or random content, the search engines will shun you. The more relevant the content, the more likely search engines are to recommend your site to others.  It’s important not to abuse this strategy as over-linking will become more harmful than helpful.  You can build your link network by simply requesting your partners link to you, registering on link directories (you can add yourself to almost every link directory in one single swoop at http://www.addurl.nu/), or by consistently interacting with other websites on forums and blogs in the hopes that they link to you naturally.

2)    Online Press Releases: 

If you’ve launched a new site, redesign, application, service, or online utility it’s important to get the word out through the virtual newswire. Telling news outlets relevant information about your technology or business developments is a great way to get instant linkbacks and even social bookmarks for your article. It’s important to once again not to abuse this strategy, as sending out irrelevant press releases every day will get you banned.

If you’d like a one-stop-shop for getting your releases to the major players I’d recommend using www.prweb.com and www.prleap.com .

Here’s a great example of how Definition 6 used PR to increase its organic search rank and traffic; http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-27-2009/0005066618&EDATE=

3)    Squidoo Lenses

Think of Squidoo Lenses as free micro sites that allow you to create debates and forums for topics specific to your industry or company. They are quick and easy to set up and allow you to link back to your website along with each corresponding lens you create.  If you post thought provoking, controversial, or useful lenses the odds are very good you’ll not only see a big boost in ranking but a significant boost in traffic. I personally come across dozens of Squidoo lenses every day by way of Google search and end up at the lens creators’ website. 

www.squidoo.com 

4)    Social Media

Unfortunately I would do this topic a great injustice by pretending I could summarize each social media outlet and the use/benefit of each. Instead, I will simply say that if you’re not currently on the social media landscape your competitors are one step ahead. Statistics show time and time again a direct correlation between businesses social media activity and their websites rise in page rank and traffic.  Definition 6 alone has received numerous business leads this month from its Twitter & Facebook social media marketing. Unfortunately many marketers have shyed away from these mediums mainly due to their lack of understanding, but I would highly recommend if you’re unwilling to dedicate a respectable portion of your budget to social media marketing that you attempt to read up on your own and establish your presence on the following social media sites which have been proven to significantly boost page rank;

•    www.facebook.com
•    www.myspace.com
•    www.twitter.com
•    www.flickr.com
•    www.technorati.com

Here’s a good example of how Definition 6 has leveraged Twitter; http://twitter.com/definition6

5)    Social Bookmarking/Voting Websites 

Social bookmarking sites are quickly becoming one of the most powerful ways to drive traffic to your site. Many businesses abandon the use of bookmarks because they themselves fail to keep their social content (blogs, facebook, twitter, etc) updated. Moreover, many marketers fail to provide useful, relevant, engaging content for their viewers. Major businesses such as Dell & Apple have made millions of dollars just by leveraging social bookmarking sites. By providing users with contents, breaking news, or useful tools and resources one of your website landing pages can spread as virally as a yawning kitten video on youtube. Here are a list of the most important social bookmarking sites;

•    www.stumbleupon.com
•    www.reddit.com
•    www.digg.com
•    www.delicious.com

6)    Forum Signatures

It’s not enough to simply have a space in the interactive market; you need to interact with it as well. Another free (and at times laborious) link building/traffic boosting strategy is forum & blog posting. By engaging with consumers and peers on industry forums as well as blogs you accomplish a multitude of goals: you show you’re engaged in your field, you are accessible, you are knowledgeable, and most importantly you can end your posts with your website link thereby building your rank, credibility, and traffic.

7)    Blogs

Lastly, and perhaps the fastest of these growing trends, creating a blog. Just like the strategies before this, it’s important to note that creating a blog for the sake of creating a blog does nothing for your website or your brand; in fact it may negatively impact it. If you plan on creating a blog, which you should, be sure to actively post but more importantly post relevant useful information. It’s better to hold off posting for a few weeks to wait for an exciting topic or item than to boring and unhelpful articles every other day. Blogs are a great way to tie in social bookmarking, social media, and link building.

If you were involved in a CMS (or WCM - Web Content Management) purchase decision 5 years ago, you likely heard about the "open source" phenomenon. And, you probably cringed at the thought of supporting your revenue-producing, lead-generation website with low cost alternative to the Interwoven and Vignette giants. Cringe no more, open source solutions not only provide very similar features, the good ones are now fully supported as well.

Here's a recent article written by JT Smith on Website Magazine. (Choosing An Open Source Web Content Management System) He successfully details the differences between closed and open source systems (without bashing the Big Guys). Ultimately, every company has their own decision to make, their own contstraints, processes and budget concerns. A WCMS solution has to adhere to these points, so open source may not be for everyone. But it's certainly worth taking a look at some of JT's points:

As your business grows, your needs will change. The open source model provides a mechanism for adapting to that change without relying on proprietary software to catch up to evolving trends and new technologies.

Budget...Budget. If budget is a concern, and likely it is these days, open source makes sense. Period. Save the budget for your other interactive marketing strategies.

Fully supported. Lack of support used to be a pitfall of open source solutions. That has changed. You'll find that well established, reputable solutions offer not only support, but also a vast community of developers and end users.

Somewhere in between. Open source CMS does not necesitate custom application development. Nor does it necesitate costly professional services contracts. It really falls in the middle. The benefit of open source becomes the ability to lean in either direction.

I love JT's quote: "Using closed source CMS can be likened to buying a new car with the hood welded shut, the wheels permanently attached, and your only maintenance option is a visit to the dealership."

Give open source a look. At Definition 6, we utilize one of the "good ones", Umbraco. We've been through several (> 20), successful implementations for a variety of clients. Including websites in the travel, telecommunications and online retail industries. I'm proud to say that we're also the first certified solutions developer in North America.

I have seen several articles recently about how Dell made $3 million using Twitter (How Dell Generated $3 million in Sales Using Twitter, Social Media ROI: Dell's $3m on Twitter and Four Better Examples).  Interestingly enough, the articles stress that having the $3 million in sales is not the most important thing that Dell is doing, but rather a good result to a much bigger strategy.  The important thing Dell is doing is customer communications.  They are actually listening to their customers.  They listen for their complaints and listen for their ideas and then they interact with their customers by replying to them.  Customers love it when a company responds to them.  By building a constantly growing base of customers, Dell is earning more respect.  So it is no wonder that when they started posting promotions on Twitter they generated a lot of sales.

It is important to note that even though Dell was able measure a hard ROI of sales that came directly from Twitter, there is a more difficult measure called "soft" ROI that no doubt led to the hard ROI.  The soft ROI is measured in things like fewer support personel required to take phone calls, the value of an online community that openly discusses a company's products or services, and the value of forums where people can search for answers rather than waiting on hold for a customer rep on the phone.  I think if you can build the soft ROI's, then the hard ROI's will be easy to create.

Definition 6 is an interactive marketing agency that can help companies start with the basics to build up a strong and powerful customer base using social media and then help to start generating hard ROI's.  We can help you with your long term strategy rather than just focusing on getting a company Twitter account up and running.  Just having the account is not going to help you generate revenue or customer loyalty.  It is how you use that account that will accomplish those.

In my previous post regarding the need to include auto-generated emails within a email marketing strategy, I reflected on the lack of love given to emails automatically generated through end-user website activity. It's time to give benchmarking some love too!

The promise of a new web project or marketing initiative leaves stakeholders dreaming of online success, higher conversion rates, higher traffic volumes and positive bottom line results. Quite often, the strategy for measuring success gets lost in the shuffle.

Some of you reading this might be thinking, "Why waste the time? Higher conversion equals success." In some cases you may be right on track with that thought, but most of you probably know it's more than that. Success can be measured in many ways, I'll get into that in second. But understand that it's worth a deeper dive into the metrics that are important to you, your company or your industry, before you start on a new initiative. Ask yourself what data you'll be reviewing a week after a website launch to determine if you're on your way towards a positive ROI. It might be PPC reporting, website analytics, email marketing, CRM comparison or another set of metrics that is specific to your industry. I've seen it before, 2 months after redesign and stakeholders are trying to figure out what to measure. By that point, you're probably not going to have the baseline data needed to show a comparison. Solution? Benchmark. And do it early. The strategy and planning phase of any project is the perfect time to start thinking about it.

So what metrics should you benchmark? There is no perfect answer. Sally, who manages an online retail business will have different success factors than Frank, the owner of a property management services company. Sally cares about online sales and revenue generation, but Frank wants to see an increase in online lead generation. It can be a daunting task, so here are a few good places to start:

1. Website analytics - If your initiative includes the enhancement or redesign of a website, start the project with an examination of your existing analytics data. If you don't have any, stop reading this and go get it. Figure out what will be important to you later. It may be as simple as traffic volume, visit duration, cost per ad spend or conversion rates. But you may find a need to collect custom data as well. Almost every analytics package out there has that capability.
2. External data - In this context, external data is performance data obtained through your CRM package or 3rd party sources. Call center volumes or in-store data would fall into this category. You need an adequate way to access it and you need historical references.
3. Email marketing - If your initiative includes modifications to email marketing programs, make sure your provider is collecting meaningful data on open and click-through rates. And make sure you'll have access to historical data to create a trending analysis.

There are plenty of other data sources to benchmark against to determine success. The main goal is to ensure you have the data you'll need to measure success after you've spent time and money to get there. And do it early. Your ROI calculation will depend on it.

In my continuing research into marketing to the Hispanic consumer, I'm finding great articles from MediaPost that provide good information on why and how to reach this particular audience.  So here is an article by Joseph Kutchera (Why Does Google Send U.S. Hispanics To Foreign Web Sites?) that talks about what Google is doing with search results for the Spanish speaking community and how you can apply similar ideas to your marketing campaigns.

The first thing he points out is that if you search in Google using Spanish words, 50% or more of your responses are going to be for sites outside of the U.S. borders.  So why does this happen and why do marketers miss this target audience?  Kutchera provides the answer.  "Google and other search engines index sites globally while we marketers, agencies and media sellers work within the economic and political borders of the U.S."  When people search using Spanish words and terms, Google is going to return sites that have Spanish content on them.  Does your website have Spanish content?  If you do, you may still be missing out on this audience for a few different reasons.  Kutchera points out the following.  1) Your Spanish site may not be optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) like your English site.  2) Many Spanish speaking Hispanics like to go to sites of their country of origin. 3) Spanish language markets are more likely to spend time on their content, making it more relevant than someone from an English language market who is updating a Spanish language website. 4) U.S. advertisers have been slow to move budgets toward online marketing and therefore not providing the resources necessary to provide the content that is necessary.

So what can you do to reach the Hispanic population:

- Purchase non-U.S. targeted inventory on your search buys along with your U.S. targeted inventory.
- Reach out to Hispanic country-of-origin web sites through ad networks.
- Apply behavioral, contextual, and language targeting to further segment and understand your Hispanic audience.

As a Senior Consultant at Definition 6, an interactive marketing agency with expertise in Web Search Engine Optimization and Search Marketing Consulting, I'm seeing lots of evidence for companies to shift some marketing dollars to specifically target Hispanics in the U.S.  This growing population is getting online at a very fast pace.  There are millions and millions of them out there that could be buying your products or services if they could find you.  Are you willing to let them go to your competitors?  We can help you target them.  We can help you get ahead of the curve.
 

I just got a call from a strategic business partner, and as an Interactive Advertising Agency we stay up to speed on most things in the marketplace, and he was calling me from a break at a conference for his company.  As he said hello, I congratulated him on their company raising another round of VC dollars.  He said "Wow, how did you know that?!"  I told him simple; Twitter!  I was a follower of his company's partner account and at the same time they told the company they tweeted about it.  Interactive communications is so fast, that in less than 5 minutes the word was out!  Now this is a great story because they are an eMail marketing partner of ours, he is a long time friend and the news was good.  We talked about what the investment meant to his company and our partnership, we discussed how online ad agency business was continuing to see good growth this year and that 2010 was going to be a great year, and hung up smiling.

Now what if the news had been bad?  What if they had a meeting that was altering the relationship with partners and it was negative?  And someone had tweeted about it? I suspect our call wouldn't have been the same. 

Let's talk about your online interactive marketing and message management.  Do you have a twitter monitoring policy?  Do you have an account?  Do you follow your partners, customers, employees, competitors?  I do, you should too. Website Development is a very small part of being digital, search engine optimization is only a part as is eMail or even PPC. The big parts are listening, monitoring, and watching the ecosystem and being informed as quickly as possible to make decisions as rapidly as possible.  So next time you are with your Interactive Ad Agency, ask them what they know and when they learned it.  You will be amazed at how fast Digital has become.

 

At our Interactive Ad Agency we continually help our clients make good decisions regarding their online media usage. Social Media, eMail Marketing, PPC/Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Display, Mobile and Video are just the headers of the variety of options available to us. But recently Twitter has been owning the headlines.

 

David Martin, vice president, primary research, Nielsen Online, wrote in a blog post: "People are signing up in droves, and Twitter's unique audience is up over 100% in March."

 

But today I was sent a great article from MediaPost about an online / microblogging / SMS option to reach the masses that might not be the techno elite, but make up the mainstay of consumer America. More spending power and more of the participants in creating UGC for all our social media sites. The company is called Predicto and it is very focused on the celebrity world, think People, US, The View, TMZ, etc. http://www.predicto.com/

 

Between October and December 2008, Twitter had approximately 812,000 unique SMS users, but Predicto Mobile interacted with more than 2.3 million unique users. "We have a mainstream audience, which can help us grow faster," Kathein said. "Our members aren't necessarily the early adopters. Our customer base isn't made up of heavy iPhone users."  The full article can be found at http://bit.ly/M1QQy

 

I think this a great example of how Interactive Marketing is very niche and how you shouldn't fall in love with one channel, because your users might be better served with another channel.

Social Media Strategy is one of the most interesting things we do here at Definition 6, Atlanta Interactive Agency.  The rise of Web 2.0 Applications as commonplace within our daily lives has made Socail Media mainstream.  Sometimes we are asked how can we use social medai to improve search engine optimization and other times we are asked how can make social media fit into an integrated online marketing plan.  But it is a daily topic of conversation and I've found a really good report from destinationCRM.com that talks about a 5 year forecast for social media. The key points from the author, Jessica Tsai citing Jeremiah Owyang, are:

The report breaks down the past, present, and future state of the social Web into five overlapping eras:

1. The era of social relationships: Beginning in the mid-1990s, people signed up for online profiles and connected with their friends to share information.
2. The era of social functionality: As it exists today, social networking is more than just a platform for "friending," but one that can support a broader array of what Owyang calls "social interactive applications." However, identities are essentially disconnected silos within individual sites.
3. The era of social colonization: By late 2009, technologies such as OpenID and Facebook Connect will begin to break down the barriers of social networks and allow individuals to integrate their social connections as part of their online experience, blurring the lines between networks and traditional sites.
4. The era of social context: In 2010, sites will begin to recognize personal identities and social relationships to deliver customized online experiences. Social networks will become the "base of operation for everyone's online experiences."
5. The era of social commerce: In approximately two years, social networks will be more powerful than corporate Web sites and CRM systems, as individual identities and relationships are built on this platform. Brands will serve community interests and grow based on community advocacy as users continue to drive innovation in this direction.

So if we are doing a good job of being Interactive Marketing Strategists to help prepare our clients for the "era of social context" and upgrading our customer's sites to incorporate OpenID and Facebook Connect today. This will help them meet their customers where they are and with what they are doing online today.  I'll talk more about being ready for your customer in some future posts.

Lately I've been reading articles related to the Hispanic consumers.  I think most of us have read or heard about how the Hispanic population is growing so much in the U.S.  It seems to me companies that have products or services to sell should be paying more attention to this and shifting some (or a lot) of their marketing efforts toward the Hispanic consumer.

In an article on MediaPost by Jose Villa (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=98883#comments), he talks about a very good reason to shift some focus to the Hispanic community.  Put plainly, they may be in better shape after the recession than any other ethnic sector.  In his article, he points out that unlike the previous recession, most consumers will not be able to go back to their old spending habits because they won't be able to get the same credit that they received before.  And we all know how our society loved to spend money on credit.  In the article, this is referred to as the "deleveraged consumer".  The Hispanic community, on the other hand, typically stayed away from spending on credit.  So when the economy recovers, they'll be more likely to continue their same spending habits they had before the recession while others will have to learn to cut back on their excessive spending.  Their lack of debt means that "the Hispanic market represents a beacon of opportunity as a truly deleveraged consumer" according to Jose.

I really like the idea of spending some marketing focus on the Hispanic community because I think there are a lot of potential buyers in that group that are untapped.  The three top ideas I can think of would be:

1. update your websites to offer a spanish version.  Although many of today's Hispanics that are online speak both English and Spanish, it is a welcoming gesture to let them choose their language of choice.  But don't forget to update imagery and styles of the Spanish website and not just the text (Jose has another article that addresses that: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=103345)

2. allow your users to decide which language to receive their emails in.  You'll want to be sure you have proper tracking tools in place so that you can see how well your Spanish emails work and compare that to your English emails.

3. advertise in places where Hispanics spend more of their time.  In a previous blog post I discuss what some of those websites are.

Definition 6 is an interactive marketing agency that can help you analyze and plan a course of action to market to this untapped group.  As an application development company and online marketing company we can also implement your web applications and email marketing campaigns as well as provide analytics of both.  So take advantage now and don't leave out this important ethnic group.

I have found that the Interactive Ad Agency community and the Online Ad Agency segment is having a good time with this economy.  I say this not because they are immune to economic downturn, but because in a tough economy measuring the ROI is more important than every.

I recently was in a meeting with a client about their SEO results and the focus had come down to "what 5 words matter most?"  That is pretty focused and very on point for a client. We went through with them the top 20 words in terms of search queries, traffic, conversions, and competitiveness. Ultimately we decided 7 words mattered most to their SEO performance and overall ROI for their Search Engine Optimization Marketing plans.
 
What was nice was that the web analytics combined with a detailed SEO approach gave us the tools to make a certain business decision in uncertain times.

As the CEO of an Interactive Ad Agency, I have been in the digital marketing arena for about 14 years now and it still boggles my mind when I read an article that highlights the lack of metrics use in the world. I have included a link to the full article at the end of the post but I wanted to highlight this particular quote: "Less than half (47%) of marketing professionals in North America and the U.K. recently surveyed by Alterian reported that they currently use analytics to measure on-line campaign results." Are you kidding me, how can you not use web analytics? It is like not having a scoreboard at a game or a speedometer on a car. Driving traffic to your web site without a control panel is stupid! Sorry to offend those of you that are in the majority, non web analytic users. Why would you spend money on SEO, email marketing, interactive advertising or even hosting services if you are not tracking what is happening on-line and on your site?

I guess maybe it is because it cost so much to implement analytics when doing website development! I barely could type that sentence without laughing - it can be Free and done in less than 5 hours! So I understand that a full blown deployment maybe more than you can handle, but no software cost, no usage fee and less than 1 day of effort to track what is happening on your website, seems like a no brain-er to me.  Check out Goggle Analytics if you are part of the 53% that are doing nothing. If you are part of the 47% that are, what do you do with the information?

A good Interactive Agency should be making monthly or quarterly recommendations to improve conversion and a weekly adjustment to PPC spends (or even hourly) and a good Media and Advertising partner would be accountable to you for the results. Of course if you don't care about management, then I'm sure your agency is very happy to charge you without accountability. 

Sorry about the rant, I was just blown away.

Fewer Than Half Of Marketers Use On-line Metrics

by Karlene Lukovitz, Friday, February 20, 2009, 2:02 PM

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=100692

There's a good, quick read from Kelly Spors I found online at the Wall Street Journal  called 'Tough Times Call for New Ideas'.  She explains how in the current tough business environment, firms need to develop new ideas, approaches, products and services to stay competitive and stay in business.  There are a few key take-aways from the article:

1. search for new outlets
2. expand your services, offer a wide range of services
3. hit a wider audience

Given the current economic situation, firms need to be proactive to maintain and even grow market share.  "Waiting it out" is not a strategy for success.  Instead, implement new marketing tactics and promotions using rich media advertising, social media marketing and search engine optimization marketing.  Read through our blogs to find out leading interactive agency Definition 6 leverages our experience and expertise to deliver digital solutions to clients in a turbulant economy.

Definition 6 Business Development Exec, Ken Brantley, points out what search engine marketers should know about sorting through social media strategy fads and laying the groundwork for leveraging media and advertisting in the interactive space...

Jennifer Winners, Chief Operating Officer and Social Media Specialist of DISC, Inc., sums it up well in a recent article on VisibilityMagazine.com.  She explains that, up until the era of Social Media,” the internet was largely impersonal, random, and largely intimidating.   It was difficult to know which businesses were legitimate, which sources of information were accurate, and generally who could be trusted.”

There were some key points that I took from the article:
1. Social Media offers tools for people to behave online much as they do offline
2. It’s important to understand which social media tools are the best fit for communicating with your customers
3. Social Media is a loose term for all things “social” on the internet for example: blogs, wikis, video sharing, podcasts, social networking sites, picture sharing, social bookmarking. Social refers to the ability to interact, and Media refers to the tools.
4. Behave with your customers online as you would offline

At Definition 6 we certainly understand that in today’s world, marketing and technology strategies are interconnected.  We leverage expertise in all interactive areas including social media marketing and strategy.  Contact us today or check out some of our additional blog posts on social media to find out how we can help implement and manage your next digital business solution.

As an Interactive Advertising Agency executive one of the things that we have learned is to talk about how "things are different" on the internet.  Certianly interactions in the social medai space are different and web analtics allows us to track differently than traditional advertising.



And from a cost perspective email marketing is very different than direct mail. But it isn't about us, it is about the users. I found these stats interesting.

Generation X (ages 33-44) continues to lead in online shopping:

• 80% of Generation X (33-44) internet users buy products online
• 71% of internet users ages 18- 32 buy products online
• 38% of online teens buy products online
• 56% of internet users ages 64-72 do  
• 47% of internet users age 73 and older buy online

This is According to surveys through 2008 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and can be found at: www.pewinternet.org

I find these nubmers to indicate that if you are 18 or older you are always more than 50% likely to buy on-line than not and in your peak earning years 80% likely to buy on-line. That to me says that the consumer will buy on line if you make it avaliable - at least better than half the time. Think about that, is a consumer likely to buy from your retail store 50% time if you are in one mall, town, or corner?  Probably, if they see your store, it has things they want and the price is decent (a good reputation helps).

So if you have good search engine optimization, ppc plans, the right amount of online information to engage a buyer and a good reputation witin the social sphere - then you have a 50/50 shot or better. Digital doesn't seem so different at all.

As the CEO of a traditional Atlanta Interactive Agency I find the evolution of Socail Media Marketing to be a great emerging domain for our consultants and our customers. I am attending Socon 09' and will be bloging a few times today.
The breadth of this conference is pretty wide and it appears taht the use of eMail Marketing, Web Site Design, Search Engine Optimzation have evolved as teh buidling blocks of a digtial stragey but the newest engagment tool has truly become the social network. That community of on-line users who connect to share, colloboarte, publish, listen, learn and grow, all digitally and all the time. This makes the job of a marketer harder than ever because the messages crafted to describe why to use our customers products or services is now being absorbed and maniupulated by the end users and then enforced by feedback from others. Like an echo chamber the expereince, good - bad - or avearge is amplified, repeated, and heard hundreds or thousdands of times over.

It should be an interesting day, I imagine a few new thoughts will emerge and couple of old ones will die and mostly more details will emerge as the conversation continues.

I just had to post some pictures from this weekend with my daughter.  And as a regular consumer of all things American Girl doll, I expected to see something amazing -- meaning "it shocked me".  As in Interactive Advertising Agency CEO, I spend my days developing marketing and ecommerce solutions to drive store traffic. I must admit, that I don't think anyone would have believed me if I had said "we can get parents to pay $20+ to have their child's dolls hair styled" - that will drive traffic. However look at this:





I think that this is a great example of customer insight and if I were their online Ad Agency I would make sure that they search engine optimized for this unique service and offered a discount on purchase with a hair styling appointment. They do a good job doing search engine optimization marketing, but they need to tie it to some offers. I know my house will use them!

James MacAvoy, a Definition 6 Project Coordinator, conveyed his thoughts on an article about search engine marketing he recently read on ClickZ...

As opposed to just bidding on and optimizing for keyword pharases that get the largest number of searches, local companies can bid on highly specific phrases.  This is not only cheaper when it comes to PPC bids but also allows for a higher conversion rate because users who search with these more specialized terms will help find content the user is seeking.

James brought up three key points from the article:

1. Most companies go for keyword phrases that get the largest number of hits, however this can be expensive and have a great amount of competition.
2. Long-tail terms do not get as many searches but since the searches are so specialized their conversion rate is generally higher.
3. Its all about keyword research.  Think of specific terms your customer will be looking for, then specific locations and specific products or services you offer.

James's closing point to the group was that with overall industry declines in traffic it is now important to research alternatives to keep the traffic rising.  Since budget has been a constant concern and many common keyword phrases are taken by portal sites, this may be a cost effective way to integrate keyword phrases that get a better return on investment. The full article about web search engine optimization can be viewed at: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630757

As the holiday season approaches, the prospects for record setting sales appear dim for most retailers.  The economy is, well, you know...  Competition is keen and consumers are spending on necessities, if that.  This will make the 2008 holiday season especially challenging for marketers and retailers.  So for eTailors, and those in the electronic commerce space, getting it "right" this year can mean staying in business, or not. 

So I suggest a pre-holiday, eCommerce audit to ensure a successful holiday season.  Make sure your web site is search engine optimized by reviewing page tags, keywords, meta data and header information.  Ensure your home page has a strong call to action.  Are there special promotions prominently displayed on the homepage and above the fold?  There better be, because your competitors will have that nailed!

Have you checked the web channel integration with your inventory application?  Better make sure that inventory purchased on-line is reflected in your database in near real time, as the costs of returns will be higher this year, with gas prices as they are.

Are you planning special promotions and marketing events in your other channels?  Ensure that the web is being leveraged to support and augment those initiatives.  Are your call center employees up to date with your latest web promotions? 

If your website is hosted by a third party hosting provider, have you alerted them to that great new web promotion you are planning?  You'll need to ensure they can handle the anticipated increase in bandwidth.  Those managed services providers might also offer some ideas on how to keep that traffic even by varying messaging by the time of day and even day of the week.  This will smooth out traffic and promote a more consistent user experience.

And let's not forget the all important email campaigns.  Have you segmented your target audience so they can receive offers indicative of the part of your website that got them to opt in in the first place?  Are you promoting higher margin products so you don't generate a lot of traffic and revenue but no profits?  Are you sending emails often enough to keep your prospects engaged, but not too often that they stop opening your emails?  Can you do timely email clickstream analysis to identify which promotions are generating the most traffic, and stop the low performers and supplement the rain makers?

And have you reviewed your search and SEO strategies?  Will you be doing a lot of paid search?  Buying brand terms, category terms or product names?  Do you have a comparison or analysis regimen in place so you can add to the converting keywords and dial down the laggards?  Can you run timely metrics reports to get a good snapshot on how your website is performing on a daily basis?

If you have not thought through all of these interactive marketing concepts thoroughly, 2008 might be the year you learned a lot more about eCommerce than you bargained for.  And the way 2009 is shaping up, that job search will be long, prolonged and difficult.  So contact Definition6 now, and have us perform that eCommerce audit and tune up for you.  You'll sleep better, outpace the competition and ensure that 2008 is a stepping stone to a more prosperous 2009.

When it comes to a search engine optimization strategy, many of our clients are either puzzled by the ever changing algorithms or mislead by the differences between paid and organic search.  Undoubtedly, there is a great deal of misinformation out there when it comes to search engine optimization marketing.

Lance King, a Definition 6 Technical Project Manager, researched the topic and came across an article written by Michael Estrin who addresses some of the most common misperceptions about search engine optimization marketing.  A common thread that Lance sees when talking to his clients about search engine marketing is that they think that if it’s not paid search, that it’s free.  Depending on the website and the campaign objectives, you will want to budget properly for an SEO program.  Just as important, you need a seasoned SEO consultant on hand who not only understands the strategy behind internet search engine marketing but who also knows how to benchmark and measure your SEO successes.  To read the article in its entirety, go to:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19803.asp