Is leveraging the web important in order for your company to take a big step in growth? If you’ve got questions about how to approach your target audience, designing your website, measuring web ROI, or how you could do better with search engine optimization – we invite you to the “Ask a Web Strategist” open Q&A webinar.

Submit your question and we’ll answer you on Tuesday, August 31st at 11AM EST.

Is reputation monitoring important in my case? The question really isn’t “Is it important?”, but: “How important?”. Let’s look at some stats:

• 90% of business purchases start online – Forrester (and that was 2007!)
• 83% of businesses use the Internet to research and find potential vendors – Enquire: Business to Business Survey
• 84% of consumers surveyed said that browsing reviews influenced their decision on whether or not to purchase a product or service. – Opinion Research Corporation

If you are a capital management firm investing millions of dollars of clients’ resources, then reputation monitoring is probably very important. At the other end: if you’re a manufacturer of unseen widget components, your online reputation probably isn’t nearly as critical. You know your industry. Ask yourself: If someone posted a negative comment specifically about my company, product, or service – how might it impact us? Would it be worth a couple hours each month to know about it?

It doesn’t take much more than a few seconds for someone to publish something negative about you, your company, or your products and services on the web.

What’s the best way to start monitoring?

If your company, product, service, or team members are not brand new, it’s a good idea to see what mentions are out there.

1. Make a list of keywords unique to your organization.
   This list should include your product & service names, key team members’ names, company name(s), and any other key events, publications, subjects your company is directly in charge of.
2. See if anything pops up on Google.
   Search for each these phrases. Note the type of information that’s returned. If results are too broad, refine keywords to be more specific. Putting quotation marks around a phrase will  return only exact matches: ( “Dr. Leonard McCoy” ) returns much more helpful results than ( Dr. Leonard McCoy ). You can also use the minus sign to only return results for Dr. Leonard McCoy that don’t have to do with Star Trek: ( “Dr. Leonard McCoy” – “star trek” ). Revise your list as you go by removing phrases than always seem to return irrelevant stuff and change the syntax to get better results using quotation marks, minus signs, and extra wording where necessary.
3. Setup alerts to be notified if and when you or your company is mentioned.
   Go to Google Alerts and setup an account (or tie it to your existing account). Create an alert for each of the phrases in your list. Choose the appropriate notification schedule. Expect to tweak these alerts over time. Some will simply “spam” you with email. Other phrases may never show up. If you don’t have time for this, delegate it.
4. Try advanced tools and services.
   If the scope of what you’d like to monitor is large, try using advanced tools and services. Mashable has a great list of  “Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For“. The biggest benefit these advanced tools provide over Google Alerts is having a Dashboard and increased convenience. Prices range from $20 / month on up.

Google knows about almost everything that is publicly accessible on the web. If it’s out there, there’s a good chance Google will find it for you.

I found negative comments – What do I do?

Depending on what you found and it’s context, there are different ways to respond to it. The worst thing you can do is do nothing because it will most likely sit out there on the Internet staining your name. Take action by getting involved, becoming an advocate, and proactively participating in the conversation. Here are some important guidelines on how to act online to maintain a positive reputation. These should be followed no matter what your company is “saying” on the web: whether you are responding to negative comments or just publishing opinions.

1. Only post positive comments, responses, and statements online.
   (Just like with any other form of communication, right?)
2. Always respond to neutral or negative opinions about you, your company, your products, or anything else in a genuinely helpful and professional “voice”.
3. If there is a negative perception published about your company, product, or services – work to make it right and satisfy online complaints publicly on the site where they are posted. People tend to respect companies that come out, take ownership, and rectify a problem or misunderstanding publicly.
4. Got something that just won’t go away? Natural search engine optimization can be used to “push up” other results. In doing so, it “pushes down or out” negative results.

How can I help prevent negative comments?

• Establish a corporate sponsored social group or forum to give people a place to find answers, get help, etc.
• Start a blog on topics that answer common questions and help solve common problems. It’s likely your blogs will show up in search engines and attract these visitors before they go to another site and vent.
• Be accessible on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media venues.
• Review your company vision, mission, culture regularly with your team to stay inline with it. If these statements don’t cover how your company acts online, it will prudent to spell it out.

Can I get help with this?

There are many reputation monitoring and management services. Depending on size, complexity, and importance, hiring an outside party may provide great value – saving your time, and avoid or correct embarrassing blemishes on your reputation.  Effect’s Radar service incorporates reputation monitoring as well as keeping you apprised of other important happenings with your competitors and other topics.

Share Your Thoughts

What is the value in monitoring your company’s reputation?

Before reading this blog: This blog assumes you know the basics of how Pay-Per-Click increases website traffic. If you are not sure what Pay-Per-Click is, please read
“The Difference Between SEO and Pay-Per-Click” first.

1. Google Adwords reaches the most people. Yahoo Search Marketing is #2. MSN Search Marketing is #3. Start with Google Adwords.
2. Look before you leap. Formulate your ROI equation to estimate investment and return. It may look something like this:

   I want ____ new customers per month from Pay-Per-Click.
   x historical sales conversion rate of __%
   = we need ____ leads each month
   x historical rate of __ % of visitors contacting us through website
   = we need ___ visitors / month

   Not sure how to do this? Ask us.

   Then you can find out: Which keywords may bring that amount of visitors? -and- How much will it cost to target those keywords?

3. Quite often the #1 ad spot is not the best bang for the buck. The fourth position has been known to bring more visitors per dollar. This is because it’s usually the first in the sponsored ads on the left hand side of the screen. This all depends on how much competition there is. The take-away here is to test positions #2 – #5. You tell Google which position you’d like to be at most of the time.
4. It’s possible to pay less per click than a competitor and rank higher. Google Adwords’ “Quality Score” is a rating of how well your keywords, ad, and landing page jive.  Higher relevancy = less ad spending + more conversions. Have your ads, and landing pages use your keywords for that ad.
5. The landing page is critical to converting visitors into buyers/leads, but landing pages are often overlooked and not optimized. For best results, have everything about the landing page be consistent with the ad, give clear benefits, adequate illustrations, and a clear call to action. A professional website design helps instill a little trust with visitors too.
6. Google Adword’s “Remarketing” can raise brand awareness and leads. It displays your ads to visitors who did not convert on your site after arriving their from Adwords. These ads show on other websites. The idea is if you’re target audience keeps seeing your ads, they may come back. It also makes it looks like your company is “everywhere”. Try it out.
7. Review estimated keyword data with a grain of salt. Google’s Keyword Tool and other tools can provide great insight into what people are searching for and how often. This data can really help you plan. But remember, this is “estimated” data. The only way to get actual numbers on impressions, cost per click, and other metrics is to run a campaign. Consider your first two months as “testing” months.
8. Bidding on broad keywords costs a lot and usually brings little ROI. If it looks like there’s plenty of people searching for your keywords, whittle your keyword lists down to be more specific. Use “exact search” and not broad search. Also use “negatives” to ignore phrases or variations of keywords that do not bring sales/leads. This has led to lower cost per clicks, and more clicks without increasing budgets for our clients.
9. Opt out of “content networks” that don’t bring in results. All the major Pay-Per-Click programs display your ads on “content networks”. Find out which ones are costing you without bringing in results and opt out of them. You can usually find these, by reviewing your web analytics and looking for referral sites with high bounce rates. You’ll be able to use that portion of the budget towards the venues that work.
10. Review your cost per click and calculate cost per sale/lead so you can improve web marketing ROI. We started working with one client – managing their search marketing and helped them see they were spending $400 to sell a $500 product. They didn’t realize the majority of their sales came from natural Google ranking. With this now evident, you can believe we rearranged the strategy.
11. Cast your net wide and then narrow it down based on your data.
12. Proactive testing and measuring optimizes the spending and return. The “Set and forget” approach wastes money, and misses opportunities. Constantly test and measure new variations of ads, landing pages, and text to find what sticks – but make sure you clearly detect the results of your changes. Too much change can make it difficult to tell what change really made the difference.
13. Hire a specialist to partner with you to achieve your objectives. You’ll gain from their experience, expertise, and constantly be in-the-know on how to get the most from your Pay-Per-Click budget. The investment usually pays for itself quickly.

What would you add to this list? Post your comment below.

First, let’s clarify what Local Search is and is not: Local Search is where your business is listed on a directory by location, or listed in “local” results on search engines – like when someone searches for “web design company in warsaw, indiana“. Local Search is not the same as natural search engine rankings or Pay-Per-Click advertising.

What are the benefits of being listed?

• Being “everywhere” contributes to your website’s credibility in the eyes of Google and other regular search engines. Thus, it tends to improve your natural search engine rankings over the next 6 months (roughly). So even if you don’t want local customers or you’re a manufacturer, if your natural rankings are important for you, this is one of the easiest ways to contribute to that. (This is not an end-all SEO method – not even close, but it is one of the few “one-time” things that does help).
• You’ll get some level of traffic you wouldn’t of had otherwise. And because your listing is usually by someone searching for particular services/products, there’s a good chance you’ll get decent prospective customers to your site looking to buy.

Which Local Search websites should I list with?

There are dozens of Local Search websites and directories. The most popular are: Google Places (Maps), Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, and Best of the Web.

How much traffic can I expect to get my local listings?

The number of visitors you’ll receive depends a number of things:

• Population of your city and how far you are from the center of the city
• How well you titled and presented your business listing
• If you are B2B or B2C. B2C will generally get more traffic.
• The level of credibility your website has in Google’s eyes (helps ranking in Google Places)

Roughly speaking, you may get anywhere from 1 person a month to a couple thousand, depending on the factors above.  With all these factors, the only way to really know is to try it.

How much time does it take?

If you go to each of the five directories mentioned above, and reuse the text you submitted for each, it may take around 3  hours.

As an alternative, Effect offers a Local Search Listing Distribution service. (This is not natural search engine optimization. This is creating “local” listings and/or taking control of them). Effect distributes your business listing information to these five directories plus 135 others.  This option takes about 15 minutes to 45 minutes of your time to prepare your business listing information and send it to us.

How much does it cost?

Doing it yourself costs nothing to get regular, free listings. Many directories do have advertising options that may be worth investigating. If you’re interested in this, I recommend looking into advertising with Google Adwords, and niche directories.

Effect’s Local Search Listing Distribution service costs $125 / year. You can update your listing when things change and we’ll redistribute it for you anytime. Just contact us if you’d like us to help you with this.

To Sum It Up:

If natural rankings are important or you want more local customers, this is one of the most inexpensive ways to to do both. In most cases, Local Search should only be complementary to your other online marketing.

Customers decide if they’re open to working with you within a split second of seeing your homepage. Could you get more leads out of the traffic you’re already getting? Take 15 minutes today and ask 3 people outside your organization to go to your homepage and answer these 3 questions:

• What do we do?
• Who are we for?
• What does one do next?

If you pick people not familiar with your organization, you’ll be able to rate your site’s effectiveness by their answers. Like anything else, there are exceptions. Perhaps your target audience is so narrow that only your specific audience will “get it”. That’s fine, but for 99.9% of us, this exercise provides valuable insight. I guarantee you’ll get a good return on your 15 minute investment.

1. What do we do?

It’s really easy to be “in it” so much that we don’t see anything wrong with the way we communicate what we do. This sorta thing tends to happen in cycles. Every so often, we need to ask questions that challenge our thinking to improve results. Remember “Dead Poets’ Society”? Mr. Keating suggested that we continually look at things in different ways in order to grow.

2. Who are we for?

Is it really clear who your offering is for? Perhaps you have multiple audiences – is it clear to all of them that they are at the right place? For Stoett Industries, this meant changing the presentation drastically to jive with the middle to upper-class home owners.

3. What does one do next?

Is it totally clear what a visitor should do next? It’s it not obvious, you have room to increase leads. Often times, websites give visitors too many possible next steps. This creates the assumption that there’s “more work involved with this site than another”. The number of people who look further depends on their level of interest and availability of “competition”. In short: Make the next step absolutely clear.

walking the walk

We (Effect) recently asked ourselves these questions about our own website. We evolved our offering and wanted to make sure we communicate our approach clearly. The feedback we received was a little surprising. With the focus on the !nsight Lab service, people wondered if we still provided web development and online marketing services. We revised our homepage. (What do you think?)

If you’d like to know what we think of your presentation, just ask.

Let’s take a look at the search engine landscape. The objective here is to understand where focus your marketing efforts.

Which search engines do people use?

1. 86% Google
2. 6% Bing
3. 5% Yahoo
4. 2% AOL
5. 1% Ask

These numbers have been averaged over the past 6 months (November 2009 through April 2010). We’ve not included the “Other” category because it’s less than 1% and these numbers have been rounded. Source: StatOwl

What’s the story on each?

• Google continues to grow and weave together it’s various search venues like Maps, Products, Images, Twitter, News. There’s no end in sight.
• Bing replaced Microsoft’s MSN/Live Search in 2009. It’s a little different, but still seems simple to influence. Bing tends to index new things very quickly.
• Yahoo’s natural search will soon be replaced by Bing. Microsoft has made a deal with Yahoo to replace Yahoo results with Bing results starting sometime in the near future. At that point, Bing will have about a 11% market share.
• AOL Search is powered by Google. The results are virtually identical. If you rank well in Google, you rank well in AOL Search.
• Ask.com has it’s own propriety search engine. Google supplies the sponsored results. It’s not big enough warrant your specific attention at this time.
• Mobile services providers continue to jump around on which search engine is default on smart phones.

What’s the best general approach?

If your target audience uses a specific mobile device – see which search engine they use on that device. Otherwise the best general approach is to focus natural search engine optimization efforts on Google first. You’ll inherit AOL Search ranking as a bonus. Once results are as high, review your ranking and opportunities with the next biggest Bing. Chances are, if you’ve executed your natural search engine optimization (SEO) well, you’ll already have a good headstart in Bing.

Many companies are not aware of the full gamut of search engine optimization (SEO) methods that build long-term reputation and ranking.  Are you aware of the more advanced SEO methods beneath the surface – waiting to be leveraged? You may reevaluate your strategy after reading this blog.

First of all, let’s make sure we’re on the same page:

• You never pay a search engine for ranking
  (You do with Pay-Per-Click however. Learn about the difference between SEO and PPC here.)
• Effect’s definition of search engine optimization:
  The process of proactively influencing the growth of your search engine reputation by preparing and communicating valuable and relevant content to search engines in the way they expect with the objective of achieving top-of-first-page ranking that ultimately rewards with leads and buyers.

What Most People Know

Most people see only the tip of the SEO iceberg. They understand:

• It’s critical to figure out which keywords are relevant and actually searched for.
  (So you know what to target with the objective of achieving top-of-first-page ranking.)
• It’s good to use these keywords in your page titles and content.
• The more links to your site – the better.

What Many Companies Don’t Leverage

The factors above are  important and should be done correctly. If that’s the extent of one’s SEO strategy, SEO results may better, but will soon grind to a halt.  If your goal is to increase website traffic long-term, taking the process of building links and reputation to a higher level is becoming more and more crucial.  Google is sizing you up using many indicators:

• Content Syndication for Link Building
  Content can be created not only for on-site purposes, but also for the purpose of syndication to other sites to build links.  The great thing about this strategy is it offers the ability of using optimal anchor text for the links within that content that point back to your site.  This content syndication strategy can be used with article directories (such as EzineArticles), Web 2.0 sites (such as Squidoo), and in guest-blogging campaigns. Understanding which venues to invest into and how is important in knowing what kind of results to expect, how quickly results happen, and how long they last.
   

• RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
  The RSS feeds from a blog or other content syndication channel can be used in advanced strategies for link building – often making it possible to multiply the number of incoming links per unit of effort.
   

• On-site Blog
  An on-site blog is a great way to build your website’s reputation with Google.  Google loves new, unique and relevant content. The long-tail traffic that results from regular blogging can be significant. (”Long-tail traffic” are visitors from search terms and variations that you aren’t targeting specifically. These are usually 3 or 4 word phrases.) Properly structuring blog pages can also improve the internal linking power of your site, thus improving organic search rankings for priority keyword phrases.
   

• Off-site Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, News
  In a nutshell, creating off-site content frequently on appropriate venues helps your target pages appear of the top of various listings. This positions your website as an authority and help convince search engines that you’re a valuable resource. Be aware that many directories/websites do not allow search engines to give you any credit for being linked to. Because of this, it’s important to know where to send new content so it actually contributes to your reputation.
   

• Focused Site Hierarchy
  Avoiding too many levels in your website hierarchy will improve indexing of your site by Google and other engines.  At the same time, it’s important that pages do not compete against each other for ranking. Usually your homepage targets your general keywords, and subpages target specific keywords. The more pages of your site that Google can index, the better the potential will be for rankings improvements.
   

• “Link Bait”
  Link bait is the concept of creating website content that is so unique that it makes other people want to link to it.  Social media sites such as Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, and others, in addition to content-sharing plugins installed on blogs, make it possible to gain a large number of new backlinks quickly.
   

Summary

A long-term, successful SEO campaign will have invested most of the effort into the these beneath-the-surface methods. According to SEMPO, “Nine in every ten companies polled said they will use search engine optimization (SEO) in 2010“. The right keywords and titles are vital, but should be considered “setting the stage”. To revisit our “think of Google as a person” analogy: For Google to continue to think well of you, Google needs to hear and see what you’re doing on a regularly basis. A set-and-forget SEO strategy allows competition to easily surpass you. Continually growing a base of quality content and distributing it properly will keep you balanced while others begin to compete proactively.

Give us your 2-cents:

• Did you learn something new?
• Did we forget something?
• What do you want to know that wasn’t mentioned?

Marketing Professionals are trying to size up and evaluate every potentially relevant new marketing channel the web produces. The purpose of this blog is to help marketing professionals cut to heart of what they need to know about Google Buzz.

Facts

• Google Buzz was released February 2010.
• It’s a Social Media tool geared for sharing information, including photos and videos.
• Currently, a person must have a Gmail (Google Mail) account to use Google Buzz. This may change in the future.
• The biggest differences Google Buzz has over Facebook:
  • Fused to your Gmail email address
  • If you are mobile, Google Buzz has some additional functionality based on your current location
  • Makes is easier for people to engage in ongoing discussions
• There are currently major privacy concerns with the way that GB makes a user’s connections public. Read more about these privacy concerns on Wikipedia.
• The percentage of those who actually Google Buzz is currently unknown. GB was immediately available to Google’s 170 million users. Facebook has 400+ million users.
• Gmail demographics according to Quantcast show the audience is very general with the exception that 51% of users are between the ages of 18 and 34 and 23% being between 35 and 49.

Opinions

• There are drastically, mixed opinions about Google Buzz’s long-term impact from “Facebook-killer” to “another me-too product”.
• Many people aren’t sure how they would maintain all these channels. People seem generally tired of too much noise from Social Media networks. I believe that, like anything else, people will evolve how they perceive and use Social Media tools and must optimize the quality while generally lowering the frequency of their posts.
• I believe that Google Buzz will help evolve Social Media, but is not the “end-all”.

Recommendations

• Like anything else, understand your purpose and objectives clearly before investing much into Google Buzz.
• If you are selling a product or service customers typically buy again and again, Google Buzz may be worth testing and measuring.
• See if and how “competition” is using Google Buzz by using the 3rd party, public search engine http://buzzzy.com.
• Like other Social Media venues, Google Buzz should be approached much more as a way to engage your target audience, than an announcement center.
• There are many ways in which Google Buzz may evolve. Check on it from time to time.

Conclusion

If we boil it down: Google Buzz is Social Media channel with the potential for marketers to engage their target audiences. It has the potential to become a big, fast, but that is yet to be seen.  With Google Buzz just released, there is very little data available.  There may be greater opportunities for some business types over others. For example: a classy local restaurant may have much more potential leveraging Google Buzz with their location-specific sharing features for reviews and recommendations, than a company whose target audience buys once in a blue moon (like with heating and cooling systems).

The big question is: How can your company/product/service be share-worthy?

We’ll continue to publish “Sized Up” blogs to keep you in-the-know. We love constructive criticism. Please share your feedback on how this blog could better summarize Google Buzz for marketing professionals?

We asked Linked In members of the “Marketing Executives Group“:
What’s the #1 thing you need to figure out about the web?

Over 100 marketing professionals responded. We’ve sifted through all the responses to group and quantify them into an insightful list. Here are the top things marketing professionals want to figure out about the web in descending order:

• Understand who your target audiences are and how they see and use the web.
• How to measure ROI.
• Have a strategy for how the web should work in the overall marketing plan.
• How to leverage Social Media effectively.
• How to integrate marketing.
• Making sure your objectives are clear.
• How to leverage Search Engines.
• How to harness the myriad of tools available effectively.
• How to adapt or reinvent a business model to the new world.
• How to balance inbound and outbound marketing dollars.
• Use your website to present your brand and offering well.
• How to convert visitors into leads.
• Don’t get caught up with the band-wagon mentality, but focus on your specific situation.
• How to leverage your website as a direct extension of your sales force.
• How to get your target audience to find you.
• How to get people to engage my brand.
• Leverage mobile channels.
• Become a trusted authority or source of solution.
• Find a web specialist partner.
• Get Sales and Marketing teams to work together on strategizing the web strategy.
• How to provide genuine value to your target audience.
• How to make your website easy to use.

What’s the number #1 you need to figure out about the web? Post your thoughts below.

Large consumer giants like Coke and Unilever are switching up their digital strategy again. According to a recent article from New Media Age,

Coca-Cola and Unilever are shifting their digital focus away from traditional campaign sites and towards community platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, as social media begins to dictate their marketing activity in 2010.

This move comes as no surprise as many companies are now relying on full-throttle, web strategies and not just a corporate website.

Microsites will not be eliminated completely, but rather serve as a method to drive users to social applications and sites. As proponents of social media, brands like these are relying heavily on being active in the social space so they can “fish where the fish are.”

Prinz Pinakatt, the Coca-Cola Company’s interactive marketing manager for Europe, said, “In some cases some of our campaigns won’t need a coke.com-hosted site. In most cases these will still exist as it’s the most obvious destination for a consumer, but it might only be a page linking to YouTube encouraging people to join the community there.

“We would like to place our activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform,” Pinakatt added.

Aggressive reliance on social media well help these companies achieve great brand awareness and loyalty, while participating in conversations that are already taking place in the customers’ backyards (Facebook, Twitter, etc).

One question I have is how these mega brands are going to pull off a rich, engaging experience that is often created through microsites, if they must stick with the current design constraints that are in place at most of the social networking sites.

What do you think? Are corporate websites and microsites a thing of the past and will companies rely solely on social media, or where there be a hybrid model that includes reliance on both social sites and websites/microsites? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.