Local Paid Inclusion – Get Up to Date

Have you heard the buzz in the SEO community? Bruce Clay announced on Facebook, later followed up by this Search Engine Watch post, the launch of a new service that guarantees top listings in local search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. The service works to promote your business listing for a nominal fee, guaranteeing a top position – in organic listings! It also boasts to be a cheaper option than PPC. UBL, the backend partner of Clay’s in this venture, verifies that they are still in the beta phase and are currently testing the system (now being vehemently denied).

When I first heard about this news I had to look at the calendar – April 1st? Seriously, this seems a bit far fetched. Within a very short time the SEO community reacted with amazement; it’s common sense that this type of service would be looked down upon. Miranda Miller’s Search Engine Watch post did a good job of sharing her investigative research and the comment section is a worthwhile read. Additionally, friend of SEM-Group.net, Dave Harry wrote a summary post with some good reactions in the comments as well.

Bruce announced on Twitter that they’d have a statement this morning regarding the local paid inclusion fiasco. Google, Bing and UBL all deny involvement in lpi as reported in Danny Sullivan’s post. More reactions include thoughts that this is just some clever marketing plan or package done by Clay’s team – but gone awry maybe? I was intrigued by a comment on the SEW post by Bob Bigellow, he stated:

“I bet I know exactly what this is. 

It probably requires each individual to install a plugin or extension or script or to otherwise implement some sort of service which will insert these “results” into the organic results area. Google has a service similar to this for a while where you could subscribe to certain feeds and, as a result, certain searches would trigger a special result on the page which was artificially put there by a third-party. 

So, this likely won’t be anything new and won’t be very significant in that it will require opt-in, which means it will never reach the full breadth of Google.”

So what’s your take on the whole thing? Hoax, bad PR fiasco for a new service, or an April Fools Day joke 2 months early? Who knows, the whole thing could just be a ploy to get links or some elaborate SEO experiment….

I Just Sent Out My First Ask Gerald Newsletter

I’m excited to announce that everyone who’s already signed up for my Ask Gerald newsletter should now have the inaugural edition in their inbox. If you haven’t had a chance to sign up yet, it’s not too late to become part of my free newsletter.

The point of the Ask Gerald newsletter is to make it as easy as possible for you to directly ask me questions. While you will continue to see great content on the blog, I wanted to create a place where people feel comfortable asking direct SEO questions. After evaluating several options, I decided a newsletter was by far the best. Not only does this format allow me to answer individual questions, but it makes it possible to share that information with an entire community of people who truly care about SEO.

Once you sign up, don’t forget to send in your SEO questions. Whether you’ve got a question about building links, increasing your social media presence or dominating a local business niche, I want to provide you with answers. So, be sure to send your questions to askgerald at sem-group.net so I can start answering them in the next newsletter!

Sign up now so you don’t miss out on the next Ask Gerald newsletter:

4 Vital Digital Marketing Trends (or Developments) for 2012

Keeping an eye on what the future holds in its palm is key to growing your business and reaching out to new audiences. Trends will continue to change directions. And if you aren’t ready to embrace the upcoming developments, you can easily lose the race. As we proceed into 2012, it’s highly essential that you become cognizant of the top digital marketing trends.

Given below are four key trends that you’ll need to watch in 2012, so that you can make your digital marketing efforts fruitful and elevate your business to new heights.

#1. Location, Location, Location!
Location-based marketing (LBM) is one of the top trends in the digital marketing arena, as the year 2012 continues to unfold. Focusing on delivering content (instantly usable information) to the user should always remain a high priority, if you’re really serious about generating more leads as well as staying ahead of the competition. With the ever-increasing population of mobile device users, delivering content to consumers based on their location becomes even more important.

The biggest benefit of location-specific marketing is that you can immediately increase the rate of conversion for your business. To improve your location-based marketing, you can follow these tips.

Buy country-specific domain names (.co.uk for UK, .com.au for Australia etc)
Create a mobile-friendly version of your website
Use Facebook ads to target audience by demographics, interests etc
Master the usage of free tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc
Use services like foursquare and Gowalla to engage consumers
Don’t forget to claim your Google Places page (Google Places Optimization)

#2. Video Advertising Leads the Way
According to a recent report by emarketer, online video advertising spend in the US will cross the $3 billion mark in 2012. Online video marketing is an emerging trend due to two major reasons – better reach and better measurement. Since more than 1.3 billion videos are watched in the US per day, video advertising happens to be a rich medium to establish an emotional connection with consumers, engage them quickly and achieve a higher conversion.

#3. Gamification Drives Social Momentum
Yes, it’s not just the latest fad. Though adopting this marketing approach depends on the kind of business you run, gamification can present some of the most potential opportunities you wouldn’t want to miss. To get started with it, you should first of all get the concept pretty clear in your mind. Gamification is not entirely similar to games. In fact, the concept that underlies the term is the application of gaming principles to non-game experiences in an effort to drive social momentum among the audiences. Several brands have gamified their marketing strategies to engage customers (by offering incentives) and provoke them to take action. Start-ups can benefit from this concept the most.

#4. Privacy Concerns are Growing
User privacy is another burning issue that digital marketers should pay careful attention to. Today, consumers are more vigilant about the usage of their personal data by businesses. Whether you’re an advertising agency, a retailer, a trader or an OS creator, you can never keep consumers in the dark about how you’re going to handle their personal data. The more knowledge and control (over personal data) you provide, the more trust you can gain from users.

There are many more trends that you’ll need to watch out for, to bolster your digital marketing strategy further. What’s really important, however, is that you don’t get distracted while getting the basics right.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on other upcoming trends in digital marketing. The comment section is all yours.

60 Hours a Minute – Video Marketing in 2012

Monday Youtube announced the mega site hit a milestone – 60 hours of video is uploaded every minute, up 30% in the last 8 months. Surprisingly this milestone was less than the company’s goal of 72 hours, but regardless is quite astonishing. Along with this milestone, Youtube humorously developed OneHourPerSecond.com showing you exactly what can be done in various lengths of time visually. It’s worth a watch.

With a days worth of video (24 hours) uploaded every 24 seconds it can be worrisome for marketers. Will your video stand out? How can you capture viewers attention? Is it even worth it? These are growing questions, only made the more clear by Youtube’s recent announcement.

So what are marketers to do in 2012? What does 2012 have in store for video marketing? Here are a few tips and blog posts to help you put together your video marketing plan for this year.

1.) Use Insights for Audience to see what interests your demographic and what they like to do on Youtube.

2.) Build greater audiences with the creators playbook on Youtube, full of tips and best practices.

3.) Make use of these 29 tips from experts on how to better integrate video into your marketing efforts this year.

4.) Try your hand at a video tutorial. Using a program like Camstudio you can take an otherwise boring tutorial and turn it into an easy video.

5.) Next time you do keyword research see if any long tail terms come up that you could turn into a video. Make a goal to identify, research, plan and shoot a new video every quarter, to address some of the questions or keyword phrases you found in your research.

6.) Consider doing a series of videos and knocking them out all in one sitting. For instance – arrange to interview a few experts. Book a space to shoot the video and capture them all in the same day. Then promote them as a series to build momentum and encourage regular visits to your blog as well as increase in email opt ins.

7.) Remind yourself that it’s not too late to get into this whole video marketing “thing”. With a flip cam and a few hours to burn, you can turn a seemingly simple idea into one that transforms beautifully on film. When you think of content start thinking about video too.

8.) Cisco predicts that by 2015 almost 80% of all internet traffic will be video. That’s quite astonishing when you think about it. Video communication isn’t a new concept, but due to the increased availability of video compatible devices (including iPhone 4S) video has become all the more popular. Frame Concepts names video as one of the hot marketing trends of 2012. They suggesting thinking about running customer events via video or even producing a video newsletter, a pretty cool concept!

9.) Check out these creative tips for video marketing newbies, this video highlighting how Realtors can use video in 2012.

10.) Attention spans are getting shorter, as pointed out in this post by Omaha Video Solutions. All the more reason to shake things up and start saying the same message but in a different format – with video.

11.) 3D is gaining momentum and can take a dull and boring video project and make it into something a lot more exciting. Realistic, creative and interesting video is a thing of the future. While it might not be in your 2012 plans, it is something to consider if you look to take your video marketing to the next level anytime soon.

12.) As more and more people use handheld devices to access the internet it’s important for websites to cater to this growing trend. Optimizing your website for mobile and optimizing your video for mobile is extremely important.

What do you think about video marketing in 2012? If you have additional feedback to share feel free to do so, in the comments below!

5 Question & Answer Sites to Help You Build Authority in Internet Marketing

I love Question & Answer sites for two reasons. First of all, they allow you to build your authority in almost any niche by letting you demonstrate your expertise on any given topic to those who are seeking answers. Second, they provide a hotbed for discovering popular topics to write about on your blog. The following ten Q&A networks should have questions for people seeking to answer them in any niche.

LinkedIn Answers

If you have a LinkedIn profile, you’re already set to participate in LinkedIn Answers. This professional network covers categories ranging from Administration to Technology, including Blogging, Internet Marketing, and Search Marketing. Those whose answers are selected as the best answer have the chance to be listed as the category experts.

Tips to maximize your LinkedIn Answers experience include:

• Be sure to complete your LinkedIn profile prior to participating & make sure it is public. This way anyone who enjoys your answers can learn more about you and head on over to your website! Pay particular attention to creating a crafty headline as this will be shown next to your name when you answer questions.
• If you have a blog post that supports an answer you give, add it as a web resource.
• Great answers can lead to job opportunities, clients, and leads, so make your answers count!

Quora

Quora is a Q&A network with an estimated 1.5 million unique visitors per month. Their network covers a wide range of topics from A to Z including SEO, Web Marketing, and Blogging.

Tips to maximize your Quora experience include:

• Filling out your profile. This includes adding links within your bio information to your website and top social profiles so people can check out your website.
• When you follow a topic, go back to your profile and click on the Topics link. Then add a quick blurb for each topic in the “Describe your experience” area. This will be added next to your name when you answer questions within that topic.

Focus

Focus is a community that connects businesses with experts. Their Q&A network covers over tons of business-related topics including Internet Marketing, SEO, and Link Building.

Tips to maximize your Focus experience include:

• Fill out your profile completely. Your job title will be listed next to your name when you answer questions. Your profile also allows you two dofollow links, so choose them wisely.
• You can add links to your answers as well – just paste in the full URL and it will be hyperlinked automatically.

Stack Overflow

When you think of Q&A networks, Stack Overflow may not come to mind at first. But with 8.1 million unique visitors per month, it should. Their community is mostly focused towards developers and programmers, but it does include questions tagged with SEO, SEO Friendly, and Social Networking.

Tips to maximize your Stack Overflow experience include:

• Subscribe to your favorite question tags via RSS. That way you can keep up with new questions without having to visit the site daily.
• Prepare to talk to a very technical audience as most of these people are developers, not Internet marketers.

Yahoo Answers

While the Yahoo Answers community is not always professional, it is still the Q&A network whose questions get featured in search results often. Hence it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on the Search Engine Optimization category to see if there are good questions to answer.

Tips to maximize your Yahoo Answers experience include:

• Get your 250 points early by answering easy questions. Once you get 250 points, you reach Level 2 and can add links to your answers. Before you reach Level 2, your links will not be active.
• People seem to prefer cartoon avatars over actual photos. You’ll be in the minority if you put a real pic on your account.

Do you use Q&A networks? What other networks would you suggest for helping build authority, find blog topic ideas, and building links?

Marketing to College Students Online: 5 Tips

Today’s students are online more than ever, which makes online marketing a prime medium for advertising dollars. Marketing to the much sought after 18-30 year old demographic can be tricky and requires a bit of creativity. Also keeping up on popular trends is important too. If you’re just getting started in this space be sure to do your research.

Thankfully resources abound in this industry, with top higher education marketing blogs sharing case studies, blog posts, video and more on a regular basis. To add to the list, here are my 5 quick tips to help in your efforts to market to college students online.

Optimize for Mobile
Mobile phones with Internet access aren’t uncommon anymore. Just about every 18-30 year old has one (91% of Americans do, according to this survey). So don’t you think your website should be easily accessible and user friendly on a mobile device?

Consider mobile developing a mobile app, simplified navigation, reduced content or text, mobile only version of your site and mobile only features. If at this point you haven’t looked at your site on a mobile device or thought about mobile optimization – you should! (Just found this Google webinar about mobile optimization – check it out!).

Short and Concise
Getting right to the point within the context of your web copy is important if you’re marketing to college students. They don’t want to read flowery sales copy or cheesy testimonials. Get right to the point, be short and concise with your copy. Not only is long copy hard to read on a cell phone, it’s also often unnecessary to get your point across. Keep this in mind as you develop content not only on your website but offsite as well.

Think About Parents Too
Most students cannot afford college, it’s a fact of life. Parents often contribute to children’s education and should be in your thoughts as a marketer. Do you have sections on your site that cater to the parents of college students? Help answer their questions and give them the information they want to see. They’re the ones holding the purse strings.

Diversify
Don’t limit your efforts to just Facebook because you now that’s where a lot of people spend their time. Diversify your marketing efforts to include other social networking and offsite content marketing practices. Guest blogging can be big in this space too, so don’t count it out. Develop relationships with higher education bloggers and start writing content. Perform keyword research to find long tail phrases students and parents might be searching for, and develop content around those phrases.

Let Them Speak
A recent study found that college students want to hear from other students and that is can play a large role in their decision to attend. Similarly so, if you are marketing a product to this demographic you need to let them see what others are saying about you. Allow comments on your brands Facebook wall, monitor review websites and encourage engagement through social channels. When the need to respond to a comment arises be sure to use your best judgement. A negative review very well could turn into something worse if you don’t respond in the right way. Reviews can be a necessary evil in some cases.

These are just a few quick tips. Have some additional to add? I’d love to hear!

Marketing to On Demand Consumers

We want what we want when we want it. This on demand nature can impact the success of your website and your business. From website speed to free downloads, there are a few things you can do today that can live up to the on demand requirements of today’s society.

Speed

Nothing frustrates savvy online users more than a slow website (pop-ups are certainly up there on the list too!). Increasing the speed of your website will help users download content faster, view photos with ease, watch videos quickly too and of course buy products.

A few areas you can increase speed today:

• Compress images and specify image dimensions in HTML code
• Consolidate the number of external JavaScript and CSS files
• Minify HTML
• Test your host – upgrade if necessary
• 10PoundGorilla.com provides a few more tips here

FAQ

Have you ever asked your sales people, customer service agents, or other employees what the number one question they’re asked is? Find out what it is and make sure the answer is on your site. Seems simple enough but is often overlooked. And for those on demand folks they won’t wait to find the answer and many won’t even call – they’ll just go onto the next site that has the answers.

Prices

While an often debated premise, putting prices up on your site for your services and products can bode well for your bottom line. Certainly it depends on your services and industry, but many experts suggest adding prices to your website. For an on demand society they don’t want to wait to see what your prices are, or fill out a form just to get directed to a sales person. Give them what they want – prices!

Free Downloads

Using free guides or white papers as a way to bring visitors to your site is a great concept. Where some businesses may slip up is by making their content only accessible after a lead form is filled out. Check out these 9 epic free eBooks. Quite a few of them from large content marketing agencies aren’t opt-in. Before you automatically assume you should have an opt-in form think about making it 100% free to your visitors.

Sign In

When I happen to land on a site that allows me to login with Facebook or Twitter I usually do. One less form for me to fill out? Yes please! Using the login button for Facebook or for Twitter promotes a more engaged user base and makes the process of signing into your site much easier too. If a user wants to log in then let them do it quickly and easily by integrating these buttons onto your site.

Easy Purchase

Creating the easiest possible shopping process is ideal for eCommerce sites. Easy to access add to cart buttons, personalization options, ship-to-store availability, quick browsing, and reviews at the ready are all parts of making the shopping process easier on your site.

Sharability

Sharing a new purchase with a friend or getting feedback from a family member on a possible purchase is a regular occurrence these days. Make it easier for prospective customers by adding share buttons to each of your product pages and thank you pages as well.

How do you deal with marketing to an on demand demographic? Let us know, in the comments below!

Creating a Content Calendar – 4 Tips

Do you prepare a content calendar? Its surprising how many publishers fail to plan out their content, even if only in pencil. Sure, plans change but at the very least having a rough outline is suggested. Why? Calendars help you organize ideas, prepare for busy times, avoid delays, and keep consistency and relevancy.Here are a few tips to help you along the way when you develop your content calendar.

Tip #1 – Research
The first step to developing a content calender is figuring out what type of content you’re interested in producing. Doing your research can help you undercover the right types of content and potential topics.

• Examine the types, frequency, and style of content your competitors are producing and the topics they’re writing about.
• Utilize Google Insights to view cyclical patterns with certain keyword phrases. Keywords that are popular during certain times of the year should be examined and integrated into content during those times of the year.
• Pay attention to lags in popularity for terms. These are times you should hold off publishing and save budget and efforts for busier times.
• Conduct keyword research to find long tail search terms such as questions and statements that your prospects may use during the research phase of the buying cycle.

Organize your content ideas and start thinking about how it might relate to certain months out of the year. Keep subjects and themes consistent throughout the months and making a rough outline will be a lot easier.

Tip #2 – Timelines
Understand how long it takes you and your team to come up with, research, develop and place content. This should dictate deadlines and help you fill in the content calendar outline you developed after doing research. Look for opportunities to make processes efficient to reduce delays and always plan ahead for delays as much as possible.

Tip #3 – Measure
Use an analytics program to help you measure the results of your efforts. Also look into measuring with third party tools. Account for this in your content calendar to help remind you.

• Goals/Conversions/Price Per Visit – Figure out the conversion metrics you want to track to help you understand if any purchases, goals, etc… were completed after a visitor viewed your content piece.
• Traffic – Determine where your traffic came from, paying particular attention to social networking sites and referrers. These metrics will help you understand which promotion efforts are working and which ones aren’t.
• Time on Site & Bounce Rates – Are visitors finding the information they’re looking for? Examining time on site and bounce rates can help you answer this question. If users aren’t finding what they’re looking for then it might be time to revamp your content piece. Also look at the keywords visitors used to find your content piece and examine these factors.

Tip #4 – Promote
When developing your content calendar remember to account for promotion time in your calendar. Every piece of content should be good enough to be tweeted out, shared on Facebook, +1’d, bookmarked and linked to. Develop a promotion campaign around your content to include each of these methods along with others such as: guest blogging, press releases, social press releases, commenting, manual link building, and media outreach. Do your research to start a resource spreadsheet of all media contacts, website contacts in your niche, bloggers in your industry, websites to promote on, free resources, etc… The first few promotions you conduct will take longer, however over time you should save a bit of time by organizing your resources.

Have some experience developing content calendars? Add to the tips, in the comments below. 

4 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Website

Just about anyone who’s anyone in the world of business is on LinkedIn. The site has grown exponentially to become the largest social networking site for professionals. Its widespread popularity can be largely attributed to the variety of ways in which users can connect with others and market themselves as well as their businesses.

There is a long list of ways that you can use LinkedIn to promote your website and at the same time help you build the authority of your site. You can’t go wrong with the basics, however. The following list will outline the most effective ways in which you can use LinkedIn for these dual purposes.

Personal & Professional Profile

When creating your personal profile, be sure to customize the three spaces provided for links to your website, blog and personal site. Don’t just leave the default text that reads “Blog.” Instead, plug a relevant keyword to describe your website instead! “Inbound Marketing Blog” is a much better choice than simply “Blog”. A few other tips for your profile from this post about optimizing your social profiles:

• Make sure you use your name as the filename for your profile image – LinkedIn sets it as the alt tag.
• Job titles are H3s, so be sure to optimize them as much as you can.
• Add targeted keywords to your headline, summary, specialties and skills sections as well.

Secondly, set up your company profile. Fill out all the available fields for your company, including your URL, in order to use LinkedIn to promote your website.

Use LinkedIn Answers

Build your credibility and authority by answering LinkedIn questions that relate to your industry. This one is simple: search for questions within your field of knowledge and share your expertise. The result? An instant increase in your brand credibility, which leads to more clicks through to your website and an opportunity to drop a link when appropriate.

Don’t Forget Your Status Messages

Update your status messages occasionally. While it’s important not to overuse this feature, you should do your best to avoid under using it as well! Posting occasional updates about your latest projects is a great way to increase your site visitors and spark interest for your company and website.

Ask For Recommendations

If you have some strong relationships through your contacts on LinkedIn, getting a professional recommendation can be another great way to boost your business and promote your website. Recommendations work in much the same way as testimonials, with the added bonus of visibility across the site! During this process take the time to also ask those individuals to link to your site from theirs, or ask to use recommendations on your own website as testimonials.

While there are several more ways to use LinkedIn to promote your website, this list offers a great start. Just one of the many factors involved in building your websites influence, using LinkedIn can help whether you’re a B2B or B2C company. Check out the other ways to build authority in the Infographic located below!

How do you use LinkedIn to build your sites authority and promote your website? 

Internet Marketing Infographic by Vertical Measures

Ramping Up During the Holidays – Marketing on Foursquare

There are so many marketing options available for brands that it’s especially hard during the holidays to decide where your efforts should go. After reading a blog post on B2B marketing on Foursquare I thought about options for any brands that might be looking to use Foursquare this holiday season. With a bit of creativity there are many things you try out this holiday season.

Offer a Special
Increased foot traffic in malls or shopping plazas can mean more people near your business. By offering a special on Foursquare you stand a chance of having someone within range of your business visit your location, check in, share their location with friends, and of course possibly purchasing something to get the discount.

It’s surprising to see that so many businesses offer specials to their customers through varies medias but don’t put that same exact special on Foursquare. During this time of year especially, specials and discounts can get more traffic into your doors. It doesn’t take much to set up on Foursquare and to let your staff know about the special.

Make One-On-One Connections
If someone is checking into your business shouldn’t you say thank you? Having someone on staff monitor check-ins at your location during the holidays can help give an added personal feel to the experience at your business for a customer. Try welcoming them while at the store, offering assistance, or asking how their experience was.

Don’t Forget the Mayor
Have a few regular customers battling it out to become mayor of your establishment? Continue the battle across multiple platforms and create a contest over the holidays on Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook. This can help spark others to get in on the game, coming back to your establishment often. Have a leader board posted at your location and keep tally. Aren’t in the mood for a game? Simply offer a discount to the mayor and thank them for their patronage – few businesses do it.

Holiday Markets
Craft and art fairs, bizarres, and holiday markets are all great places to sell your wares during the holidays. Monitoring the users who check into the event and directing them to your booth is easy to do through the use of Foursquare and other social media platforms. But why stop there? Try connecting with people before they go to the event by setting up a search on Twitter, or connecting with them afterwards too. Use this opportunity to help build your client base to take you through the new year.

Offer After-Holiday Discounts
By setting up a Twitter search of all the mentions of your brand name or store on Twitter, you can be notified when someone checks into your store or mentions your brand (even if they aren’t using Foursquare). Not only should you thank them for checking in but offer them a discount code (via DM) for the next time they stop in. You have the possibility of turning that one time sale or one time visit into more. Don’t forget – it’s not just about Black Friday deals. Customers are likely to appreciate a non-black Friday deal too, so get them to come back into your store after the holiday rush.

B2B
Discussed in the post I mentioned previously, B2B marketing can be done using Foursquare quite easily. Most of the suggestions offered will require businesses to allow their employees to use social media. Limiting employee social media usage is a trend that has been decreasing over recent years. A recent “Robert Half Technology” study shows social media permitted in the workplace for business purposes becoming more common. If you happen to be in a B2B market and allow your employees to use social media try out this suggestion to use Foursquare to market your brand.

Events - Foursquare can help you promote holiday and company events, and pre-buzz through other social channels can help as well. Igniting conversation about your brands activities, involvement in the community, or camaraderie  can sometimes boost sales. If you are hosting a holiday party set up an event and have your staff tweet, Facebook, and check-in on Foursquare. Encourage them to take pictures too.

These are just a few of the ways you can use Foursquare this holiday season. Have more to add? Feel free – in the comments below!

*Update*

Andy at SmartBlogs.com wrote a great post about how to use Foursquare for word-of-mouth campaigns. Check it out!