Online Marketing Blog

Genetic SEO

Hypegen Marketing — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:46:33 +0000

If you’re well read on the basics of SEO and SMO then you’ve heard that “good content” and “lots of it” are key in making your online presence pop. This is very true but disparities do exist which you should consider.

Some sites are more predisposed to natural online success due to what I call “Genetic SEO”. This is the idea that core business operations will naturally contribute to additional online exposure. For instance, what one business might be able to accomplish through an aggressive business blogging, social media channeling, article writing effort, another site might be able to duplicate with relative ease by simply managing their core business, e.g. adding more-and-more index-able content in the form of new product, service, and review pages.

I recently came across an interesting new site that exudes these attributes and carries huge Genetic SEO potential. Finervista.com, an online portal for all-things online and educational.

They tout themselves as “An educational resource for business professionals to grow their professional “net worth”. Search, find, and attend free educational webcasts and online seminars in all areas of business and Information Technology. Over 10,000 live and recorded webcasts in the searchable index.”

If you search through their upcoming section you get a sense of all the possibilities. Backlinks alone over the course of several months could represent a very nice natural SERP rank.

If your site cannot claim the benefits of Genetic SEO don’t fret. Find ways to add “good content” and “a lot of it” to your site. Go the social media optimization route and execute!

Technorati Tags: seo, smo, webinar, webcast, online training, technology, search engine optimization, social media optimization

Link Equity Enlightenment

Hypegen Marketing — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:21:05 +0000

I recently came across an article in the Spring issue of Search Marketing Standard which reminded me of the real-world consequences of poor link equity management.

While in negotiations for SEO services with a prospective client we discovered that an older online catalog system had just been replaced with a new one to allow for a larger number of cataloged products. In the process this business had unknowingly wiped-out their entire link structure and all ranking progress they had made up to that point. Almost within a week they tumbled into SERP oblivion and immediately experienced a drastic slow-down in sales inquiries costing them untold thousands.

They say that knowledge is power and I would certainly agree in this case. A few steps and they could have completely avoided this unfortunate situation.

“It is important to realize that not losing a link is effectively the same as acquiring one.” From pg. 42, Spring 2007, Search Marketing Standard.

Important take-aways:

It is possible to redirect traffic from an old page to a new page with 301 redirects thus preserving your link equity
Run a link checker to make sure you don’t have duplicate content, this will divide the equity of that link making it less valuable
If in doubt you should enlist the help of a qualified SEO/SEM or at least educate yourself about the possible implications of your site change

More on this topic from Lee Odden of TopRank: http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/03/the-cost-of-no-seo-migration-plan/

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization

New Trends in Customer Out-Reach

Hypegen Marketing — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 20:03:03 +0000

With the astonishing popularity of sites like Amazon and MySpace many lesser known online retailers are taking notice of the elemental differences. Allowing for customer comments, photos, and more importantly reviews is quickly becoming a requisite feature of any e-commerce business and it’s a move that’s paying off! Studies show that customer reviews are around 80% positive and that 63% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a site featuring reviews and other forms of feedback.

Ok, that sounds great if you are or hope to be a high volume retailer of consumer products but what if you’re a business with longer sales cycles and more expensive products? What about the consultants of the world? How can they attempt to duplicate the customer review phenomenon for the same commercial benefit?

Enter Social Media Optimization (SMO)

The process of soliciting and displaying customer feedback for others to read and share is in itself a social media. If direct product page customer feedback isn’t a fit there are many other ways that businesses can begin to leverage the power of social media. One of the best choices would be the creation of a blog such as this one. By allowing customer feedback to exist you appeal to the customer’s sense of trust by:

Conveying responsibility - it’s nice that they would be interested in my feedback as a customer
Showing accountability - if there’s a problem I can leave a comment to be read by many other customers, they’ll have to help me with my problem
Displaying confidence in the business - they must be confident in their products and services to take the risk of bad press being displayed directly on their website

Read more about Social Media Optimization

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, smo, social media optimization, social media marketing

The SEO Trap - A Word of Caution

Hypegen Marketing — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:49:03 +0000

These days search engine marketing firms (or SEMs) offering everything from SEO and Social Media Optimization to Branding and Article Syndication are absolutely everywhere. While a good percentage of the industry uses what is affectionately known as White Hat marketing strategies you should also be aware that there are many out there with very questionable marketing practices.

Their typical claim-to-fame is that they can deliver higher rankings within days or even hours of purchasing their services. They will usually also “guarantee” a specific search engine placement result and/or will offer a very affordable one time fee. A simple rule-of-thumb is that if it sounds too good to be true, then it most probably is. Online marketing is a time consuming process, one that you can’t really rush. In reality it will take months of tweaking, analyzing, and re-tweaking to be successful. This is one of the primary reasons for contracting this kind of work to a respected firm.

Search engines have been engineered, re-engineered, and cross-engineered to return the most relevant results based on your search terms. This is an unbelievably complex technology which will reward and penalize sites based on the “detected” methods for trying to attain rank. They will not discriminate, if you or your hired SEO cheats it will only be a matter of time before you are caught and punished.

Remember that short-term results may be realized but the methods for reaching them could have long-lasting negative effects on your rank and ultimately your business.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization

The Lowdown on Social Media Optimization

Hypegen Marketing — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:25:34 +0000

Social Media Optimization (aka: SMO) is a fairly new concept defined by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. The concept of Social Media Optimization makes perfect sense with the emergence of Web 2.0 sites like myspace, digg, del.icio.us, stumbleupon and youtube; and essentially creates additional distribution channels for your web content. The result can mean omnipresence on the Internet.

According to Rohit, SMO is about executing changes to an existing website (or blog) so that your web visitors can easily link to it, tag it, post a comment to it; and/or submit it to their favorite social bookmarking sites. The result of implementing a Social Media Optimization strategy as a part of your overall marketing mix is more visibility in the social media channel, more exposure on Technorati, inbound links (an SEO strategy that is essential for ranking in Google); and an increase in targeted web traffic.

Speaking of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

We have been asked by many clients if adopting a Social Media Optimization strategy is an alternative to Search Engine Optimization; and our answer is the same time and time again. Social Media Optimization compliments SEO for a variety of reasons:

Search engines love blogs because they are constantly updated with fresh new content (assuming you post one to two times per week); and will rank your site extremely well, especially for the long tail keywords
If you have a blog or any other type of killer content on your website; you will automatically gain inbound links because other’s will want to link to you
If you make it easy for your content to travel; your content will gain more visibility, links, subscribers and even revenue

The objective of SMO is not about building inbound links to your site, nor is it about increasing your natural search engine rankings; however, if done right, your website can reap these benefits almost instantly.

The Difference between Social Media Optimization and Social Media Marketing

SMO is the process of optimizing a website so that its content can easily travel across the Internet to external, Web 2.0 social and online communities. The most common example is adding social bookmarks, trackbacks, RSS subscription buttons to a site’s page and/or blog, such as “add to delicious”, “stumble this” or “add to digg”; similar to this blog.

In contrast, I would say that Social Media Marketing is somewhat of a different strategy within the same space; where a company will create compelling content and aggressively target the social media channels (like Myspace, Youtube, Digg, and Stumbleupon) by creating profiles (Nike, Cingular, Jack in the Box, Aquafina), buying media; and engaging in conversations with consumers in places where they frequent. Social Media Marketing can be closely compared to viral marketing; where the content will gain tons of interest, visibility and spread across the Internet like the Ebola Virus.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, smo, social media optimization, social media marketing

Got Analysis?

Hypegen Marketing — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:21:30 +0000

In the world of online marketing the buzz words blog, spend, viral, and social media abound but with few exceptions there is a very important word missing … analysis. What’s the point of developing online advertisement programs, publishing articles, optimizing your meta tags, and increasing your inbound links if you can’t accurately and intelligently track the effectiveness of all your efforts?

There’s no excuse! Since the late 90s packages have been readily available to track just about every aspect of a visit to your site, does anyone remember Webalizer? These days the systems are ridiculously intuitive, extremely cheap or even free, and far more sophisticated in their ability to gather and report data then their predecessors.

Get on track! There is one solution that seems to be a great fit regardless of your requirements (cost vs. feature set), Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html. The configuration is simple; sign up, enter the domain to track, and insert the analytics code (provided by Google) on each page you wish to analyze and Voila, you’ve got usable data in a few hours! Note: don’t forget to place this code on all campaign specific landing pages to track the results, this is easy to forget if you have several running at once.

As indicated earlier the systems these days are very sophisticated but there are some basic functions that will be immediately beneficial to you:

• Visitor loyalty – tracks how many times a visitor comes back

• Unique visitors – shows how many first time visitors you have

• Referring source – indicates where your visitors are coming from

• Returning visitors – depicts the percentage of total users who return

On the more advanced side Google Analytics features a very handy goal system which allows you to set a path which when followed triggers the goals completion. A simple example would be a visitor landing on your home page, then clicking on products, then clicking on buy now. You would then be able to view the percentage of visitors that were completing this goal, check to see where most visitors were abandoning and modify your site pages to help reduce the abandons.

With the cost of implementation gone there really is no excuse. If you are serious about the success of your online business then make sure you task someone with monitoring your sites performance metrics.

Happy analyzing and remember to avoid the Big Mistake for Small Business.

Technorati Tags: online marketing, marketing, seo

Achieve immediate online exposure with Press Release Optimization and Distribution

Hypegen Marketing — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 07:41:56 +0000

Press Release Optimization and Distribution is an effective marketing strategy that has the potential to generate sales, leads, online/offline publicity, and increase the brand awareness for your product or service. Additionally, a well written press release that appeals to the media’s thirst for a good story and that is properly optimized with keywords that you want to rank for can naturally increase your back links (one way links); a search engine optimization tactic that is essential to rank high in the search engines.

Optimizing a press release simply means that you sprinkle relevant keywords and phrases throughout the body of the release; and possibly the title. Keep in mind, however, that your press release will be read by ‘state-of-the-art’ software using algorithms that only scientist can understand to determine its relevance and categorization; but more importantly, it will be read by human beings as well so make sure it flows naturally.

Along with the traditional benefits of distributing press releases (media coverage, buzz, etc.), a keyword optimized press releases can rank very high in news search engines like Google News, Yahoo News and MSNBC; as well as in the respective search engines.

Furthermore, to track the effectiveness of keyword optimized press releases, it would be wise to direct web traffic to a specific landing page; so that with the help of a web analytics tool, you can see where your traffic is coming from, how long they are staying; and whether or not you are converting them into customers.

Of course, anyone can string words together and hope that they can garner media attention and increase their search engine rankings; however, it’s not as easy as you might think. Optimizing a press release takes careful research and execution and an online PR firm or credible SEO firm usually has the expertise to get this done. However, if you are small company and can’t afford to hire a firm, here are some valuable tips that you might find useful when writing a press release:

Timing is crucial. Unless you are the head of PR for a Fortune 1000 company, simply announcing that your product or company exists will barely draw a yawn from the media. It’s important to find a hook; or a way to piggy back on something that’s currently making news (i.e. Cisco suing Apple for copyright infringement); especially if your company sells iPod accessories. Reporters, journalist and bloggers are always looking for new angles for their follow up stories/blog entries. Oh, and don’t plan on taking vacation the day the release hits the wires.
The Five W’s; who, what, where, when and why. A given, right? Unfortunately, not. I come across press releases all the time that don’t follow this simple rule. Readers of your press release should be able to gather all the relevant information in the first paragraph. If they don’t find the information there, they won’t read any further.
Include quotes from an “expert.” The expert can be you, a representative of the company or someone from executive management. The bottom line is that he/she should be able to authoritatively speak about the topic of the release, and should be available to the media for interviews.
Keep it short and simple. A press release is just a teaser to get the media interested in your company and what you have to offer. If reporters, journalist or bloggers want more information, they’ll contact you.
Last but not least, optimize the press release by adding keywords and key phrases to the body of the content. Don’t over do it though; and remember that you are writing to people.

Press Release Distribution

When it comes to distributing your press release, you can use well known distribution services like PR Newswire or Business Wire; there are a ton of them out there. Ideally, you should use a press release distribution service that can target your release to members of the media that specifically cover your market or industry.

Keep in mind that press release distribution can take some time before you see the results. Any immediate responses to your press release will be from online sources; however, that doesn’t mean that an editor at the Wall Street Journal might read your press release and write a story about in the coming months.

Technorati Tags: press release optimization, online pr, press release distribution

A Quick and Easy Guide to Article Syndication

Hypegen Marketing — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:01:03 +0000

Article syndication is not about writing a substandard article, paying a distribution service to spam several hundred article directories; and then driving the user to a horrible customer experience; usually a poorly designed website bombarded with Google Adsense.

A successful article syndication campaign involves writing an article that educates and informs readers about a particular topic. In other words, it has value; it’s well written with no grammatical errors, and persuades readers to take action. It also involves submitting the article to several websites and article directories such as Buzzle, Associated Conent, Ezine Articles, WebProNews, SiteProNews, Goarticles to name a few.

If the article does provide value to its readers, I can guarantee that it will get syndicated (or republished) across the web on several websites, blogs, forums and opt-in newsletters; and in some cases it will create a viral market effect that will yield great results for your web traffic.

A little history about Article Syndication

Article syndication is not only an effective marketing technique to expand the online presence of any small business; but it also contributes to the number of back links (or one way links) to your website which is essential for ranking in Google. The more websites that republish your article, the more back links your site will receive.

The evolution of article syndication has derived from a well-known online marketing strategy called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a practice where a website is optimized with keywords and published online in an effort to increase the search engine rankings.

Research

Prior to writing the article, keyword research should be the first step in any article syndication campaign. It’s good practice to add the keywords that you want to rank for throughout your article. For example, if you sell dog food online, it would be wise to sprinkle ‘dog food’ related keywords throughout your article; as well as the article title. However, it should be done carefully, keeping in mind that you are writing to a person and not a search engine. In other words, don’t over do it.

Writing the article

It would be an unwise decision to just slap together paragraphs of useless information and call it an article. You would be laughed at, mocked, stoned; and your article will get absolutely NO exposure. With all joking aside, your article needs to be well written, provide value to its readers and follow the basic rules of grammar.

The primary goal when writing the article is to take an objective approach and educate your target consumer about your industry and/or expertise. The article should not be a sales pitch, an advertisement or review of your product/service. In fact, many websites will not accept articles written promoting a specific product.

A second critical component of article syndication is the distribution of a website’s URL, commonly referred to as back link. Most article directories allow for an author resource box where links can be easily placed. Publishing a website’s address at the end of articles will allow interested readers to conveniently visit the site by clicking on that link. Here is an example of what would appear at the end of the article:

Click here more information on dog food related products and services.

Distributing the article

This is the critical component of article syndication that takes a considerable amount of time. It is good practice to manually submit your article to each directory; as most directories have banned article distribution via automated software. By using automated software, there is less control of the article and the article resource box as explained earlier. However, if you do it manually, you can vary the anchor text which will help you rank for more than just one term. Lastly, don’t bother wasting your time by distributing your article to every directory on the Internet; because there is always a new one launching every day. Instead, be picky and choose wisely about which directory you want to house your article.

The benefits of article syndication

Article syndication does more than simply reinforce your brand and expertise across the Internet. Unlike traditional marketing, it actually presents a unique opportunity to educate, inform and persuade your target consumer group in an effort to build long term, profitable relationships with them. Paid advertising usually loses impact and relevance over time. But a well written, quality article will continue to be syndicated across the web; and thus, trigger a viral marketing effect that can possibly last for months at a time. The following are additional benefits you can expect from article syndication:

Relevant One Way links - article syndication provides one way links from websites that are categorized within an article directory according to its topic such as marketing, technology, society, education, etc.
Viral Marketing and website traffic - most article directories allow other webmasters to reprint (hence, the term syndication) any articles from their directory. Although you probably won’t receive a ton of traffic from the directory itself; you will see a mass influx of website visitors from sites that syndicate your article.
Mindshare and market share - a random visitor to your website is just that…a random visitor; but someone who has read an article and clicked through to your website can be considered a highly qualified visitor who has been partly sold on your value proposition. Meanwhile, even readers who do not click through have been exposed to your message which can reinforce your long term brand effectiveness. And, of course the more visitors you can convert into customers, the more market share you can sustain, or gain.

The conclusion, well not really

No need for a lengthy conclusion here. Adopting article syndication as an element in your overall marketing mix is simply a no brainer.

Technorati Tags: article marketing, article syndication, article distribution, article submission

A Big Mistake for Small Business

Hypegen Marketing — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:05:10 +0000

So you’ve taken the leap and started your own business. Congratulations, you’ve done what most will never do … taken a risk in pursuit of a dream! You already know that starting a new business is an extremely daunting task with a myriad of things to accomplish.

So what now? If you’re like the vast majority of businesses you’re going to need stuff and lots of it to help you get from concept to tangible results. From software to new employees, office space to that new phone system there is an enormous amount of potential equipment you could purchase to help get your business off the ground. Deciding what is absolutely necessary and needed NOW takes a bit of investigation.

While looking into this further remember there are many businesses trying to sell you on the idea that their product or service is an absolute requirement for success. While this may be true in some instances it’s more often not the case. Making an incorrect choice at this point only adds delay, frustration, and additional negative cash flow which can demoralize you and your team putting your entire operation at risk.

Also remember that the eventual goal is customer acquisition, a basic and obvious idea but forgotten nevertheless. An important question to ask yourself is, am I purchasing this product or service to help acquire a customer or retain a customer? And this leads us to the Big Mistake for Small Business. Most startups will put disproportionate emphasis on the retention side of the equation leaving out the most basic of business theorems … It pays to advertise! You don’t need Fortune 500 class infrastructure before acquiring customers.

The moral of the story … in the chaos of driving your dream to fruition don’t leave out one of the most important tenants of business success. Make sure you have a strong marketing team that can map out a plan for aggressive growth and deliver significant value to take your business to the next level.

Technorati Tags: small business branding, website usability, website strategy, marketing

Drive Business to Your Competitors - A Proven Strategy

Hypegen Marketing — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:49:38 +0000

What? Ok, sure the title is a bit misleading but there’s a simple yet important lesson to learn about branding your business. Ask yourself, how many times have you been browsing the net and you come across an unbelievably horrible website? The colors are off, the copywriting is bad, and the graphics look like they were created by a 3rd grader. Many times the product or service is desirable but there is something in your mind that says FIND IT SOMEWHERE ELSE.

What causes this response? In short it is because we all expect some level of quality; a poor representation of quality can serve as an insult to our inner consumer. If your business has a hastily prepared web presence then like it or not you’re sending a message to your customers that you either don’t have money, don’t really want their business, or simply don’t care. Think of your homepage as the lobby of a hotel, the first impression says everything about what customers should expect of their stay at your hotel and in the same way your homepage suggests what they should expect from your company.

A good step in the right direction is to understand the importance of a well thought-out site experience. Try to put yourself in your potential customers’ shoes … is the logo memorable, does the navigation make sense, is it obvious where and how to buy, and is it all flowing together? If you’re not asking these questions of your own company then you’re likely to Drive Business to Your Competitors! You don’t have to be an art major but you should know your limits, for most people bringing all of this together without help is not going to payoff, in fact it may end up being an exercise in futility. Don’t make the same mistake; give yourself and edge and enlist the help of professionals who have a passion for creating and revitalizing brands to produce results.

Technorati Tags: small business branding, website usability, website strategy