Webfor: Search Engine Optimization News & Updates

The Best Time to Publish Your Blog

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:48:09 +0000

While it's not exactly fair to say that timing is everything in successful blogging, it plays a significant role. An infographic from the folks at KISSmetrics gives a breakdown on the subject. What it reveals is that different times of the day can give different kinds of benefits.

Here is a selection of some of the interesting data from the infographic, given in Eastern Time (EST):

- 70 percent of blog readers say they do mostly of their reading in the morning.
- The average blog gets the highest traffic rate at about 11 a.m.
- Are your customers mostly men? Nearly 60 percent of men say they read blogs at night, but only about 40 percent of women do the same.
- Monday is the best traffic day for blogs.

KISSmetrics’ infographic is a third installment from a series of called “The Science of Social Timing.” In their first installment, they examine the best times to post to Twitter and Facebook, and the second part was about the ideal timing for email marketing.

French Court Fines Google for Offering Free Maps

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:52:20 +0000

We've all heard of price gouging. What’s the term for the exact opposite? Google has been found guilty by a French court of abusing their dominant position by offering Google Maps for free. The verdict comes with a $660,000 fine.

The Paris court upheld the unfair competition complaint placed by Bottin Cartographes against Google France and its parent company Google Inc.

“We proved the illegality of (Google's) strategy to remove its competitors... the court recognized the unfair and abusive character of the methods used and allocated Bottin Cartographes all it claimed,” said Jean-David Scemmama, attorney for the company. “This is the first time Google has been convicted for its Google Maps application."

Retargeting Ad Campaigns: Fine Line Between Growth and Alienation

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:16:20 +0000

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Or, in Internet marketing terms, try a retargeting ad campaign.

If your company is involved in online advertising, obviously the goal is to maximize your conversion rate. One of way of doing that is a retargeting campaign (also referred to in slightly less aggressive language, remarketing). Say you have a conversion rate of about two percent on visitors who land on your website, but you’d really like it to be higher. Well, why not try to hit up that 98 percent of people who left your site empty handed?

That, in a nutshell, is what retargeting or remarketing is all about. When someone visits your website, when they surf away, your advertisement will “magically” appear on future websites they go to (assuming they are on a site in your ad network).

It’s highly specialized, in that you are only targeting people who were previously on your site. It can even be more nuanced by targeting visitors who only went to a specific page on your website.

A "retargeting pixel" is placed on your site. So when visitors come to the page(s) with the pixel, they are cookied. When they visit websites in the display networks you are using for a retargeting campaign, they are shown your ads.

Real Time Insights

kevin@webfor.com (Kevin Getch) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:18:47 +0000

The consumer buying process is at the heart of all great marketing. Understanding your customers (both potential and current) is key to being able to effectively communicate your value and reach them in all stages of the purchasing process.

Google has recently released "Real-Time Insights Finder"

This tool is a great tool to get insights into consumer behavior and it's FREE!

Start playing with this new tool below

Check out there demo video.

Doctors Fear Bad Online Reviews

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:34:10 +0000

One of the more important issues facing businesses today is managing their online reputation. You know this is big deal, in part, because there has been a surge over the last year or so in advertisements from Internet marketing companies pitching their reputation management services.

Not all companies share the same level of danger in regards to having a soiled reputation. One of the more sensitive is the medical industry. Of course, sometimes bad online reviews for doctors and other medical professionals is perfectly warranted, but if they happen to get a bad review from someone with an agenda (or is a bit loopy), a doctor’s practice can see severe consequences. The reason is obvious: there is no profession more sensitive to bad reviews, because we don’t want to take the chance with a doctor even if there’s the slightest chance they are not good at what they do.

Keep the Positive Effects in Mind Too

While businesses may often gravitate towards worrying about bad reviews that may pop up on the web, there is something good that comes out it for consumers. It forces not just medical practices, but any business, to improve their customer service.

Media Responsible for Growth of Twitter

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:00:55 +0000

There are many ways to grow your business. But having the media on your side is a pretty powerful tool that not many have the opportunity to grab hold of... unless you happen to be Twitter.

According to researchers at MIT, news media played a big role in Twitter’s growth. The researchers used Google Insights for Search to track weekly news stories from Google News searches. They found spikes in Twitter use had corresponded with news coverage.

The study also found that from 2006 to 2009, more traditional forms of social networking played a significant role in Twitter’s initial growth. Conventional wisdom regarding the Internet states that it has "flattened" the world, meaning your geography is no longer a factor. That’s not totally the case, at least in the case of the MIT study. They found that initially, Twitter grew as a result of people who lived in close proximity to each other and with people communicating with similar socioeconomic traits. The study also pointed out the importance of word of mouth in the spread of the social networking site.

Time Spent on Mobile Devices Passes Print

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:27:27 +0000

We live in mobile times. People are gravitating towards mobile devices more and more, not just for phone conversations, but for accessing the Internet and email. They do so on smart phones and iPads.

In fact, we’ve hit a bit of a milestone in the presence of mobile devices in our lives: people now spend more time using mobile devices than reading print media. According to estimates by eMarketer for last year, time spent on mobile devices and print publications by adults in the U.S. was approximately 50 minutes for each.

When we get to 2011, time spent on mobile phones each day has increased by 30 percent to an hour and 5 minutes. That beats out the 44 minutes spent on all print publications combined.

A Surprising Offline Benefit to Online Marketing

info@webformedia.com (Kevin Getch) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:30:59 +0000

While everything seems to be about online business these days, in reality e-commerce only accounts for five percent of total sales in the U.S. Online business will only continue to grow, but armed with that knowledge, it's a good idea to broaden your horizons in regards to what your goals are in an online marketing strategy.

One of those goals relates to local SEO and how an Internet marketing company can greatly influence offline business for their clients. For instance, a new study reveals an interesting fact about paid search engine marketing: it has a much bigger impact for local business offline than it does with online sales.

Over a two-year period of research, retail marketing firm RevTrax found that "for every $1 of e-commerce revenue generated from paid search, marketers can expect to see approximately another $6 of in-store revenue."

For the mathematically challenged, that’s six times more in-person business than online. What does this tell us? While this is a study about paid search, do businesses see the same benefits from organic search? Anecdotally, there doesn’t seem to be any reason a direct correlation can’t be made.

SEO Top Priority for Small Businesses

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:52:16 +0000

Not that I think search engine marketing professionals have frail egos that need to be stroked on a frequent basis, but here’s a little news that can make us puff our chests out a little bit:

A recent survey by MerchantCircle of 2,500 small businesses found that if they had to choose just one marketing channel, it would be search engine optimization. The question asked was as follows: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?”

Other choices included paid search, mobile, social and traditional media. Interestingly, SEO beat out the competition handily.

Cyber Monday Spending Hits Record $1.25 Billion

jasonk@webfor.com (Jason Knapfel) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:49:37 +0000

This past Monday was Cyber Monday, which if you don’t know is a marketing term used to entice people to spend money online. It was invented in 2005 by Shop.org, which is part of the National Retail Federation.

While in the early days of the Internet, retailers and people in the investment community wondered if consumers would ever fully trust and latch on to the idea of shopping online, those days are long gone.

ComScore, which tracks Internet data, has announced that this year’s Cyber Monday was the biggest yet, with a record spending of $1.25 billion. It was the heaviest online spending day in history and the second consecutive year it has surpassed the billion dollar mark.