Special shout out and thank you to TDM’s original founders: Anthony, Keith, Derek and Jeff.

A couple of other recognizable accomplishments we can now share, as part of the Inc 500 List include:

• #1 Fastest Growing Advertising & Marketing Business in “The Carolinas” (NC & SC)
• #5 Fastest Growing Advertising & Marketing Business in the Southeast (10 states)
• #31 Fastest Growing Advertising & Marketing Business in the United States
• #8 Fastest Growing Company in North Carolina

While we are biased towards our own offerings, it is exciting to see that 3 of Top 5 channels that will receive the highest percentage of Internet Marketing Spend in 2011 are our 3 Primary Areas of Expertise!

• Search Engine Optimization (via SEO tool, SEO Consulting & link building campaigns)
• Blogging (via blog design, blog marketing & link building campaigns)
• Content Marketing (via educational/authority content & distribution services that generate quality backlinks)

Do you know where your business and its website(s) have the greatest areas for improvement?  Market share opportunity?  Competitive Advantages? Feel free to include your thoughts and comment on this post.  You can go here for the full study & additional commentary.  If you’d like to discuss your 2011 Internet Marketing Initiatives and where your budgets are best spent, we’d love to talk to you!  Don’t be shy, contact us.

If your business is constantly trying to get its website ranked above the fold in Google, Yahoo & Bing — then you know the importance of link building.  Below is a recap of the Top 10 Factors discussed in the SEOMoz article.  As you read this list, think about your own link building practices and determine if your company is heading in the right direction.  The types of link building services we provide to online retailers, fortunately, meet the majority of these criteria and our clients’ ranking results speak for themselves — that’s why we’re such a fan of supporting this list!

• Links Higher Up in HTML Code Cast More Powerful Votes
• External Links are More Influential than Internal Links
• Links from Unique Domains Matters More than Links from Previously Linking Sites
• Links from Sites Closer to a Trusted Seed Set Pass More Value
• Links from Inside Unique Content Pass More Value than Those from Footers, Sidebar, Navigation
• Keywords in HTML Text Pass More Value than those in Alt Attributes of Linked Images
• Links from More Important, Popular, Trusted Sites Pass More Value (even from less important pages)
• Links Contained Within NoScript Tags Pass Lower (and Possibly No) Value
• A Burst of New Links May Enable a Document to Overcome Stronger Competition Temporarily (or in Perpetuity)
• Pages that Link to Webspam May Devalue the Other Links they Host

There are obviously many other factors that influence the Link Graph and Value of Backlinks in a competitive landscape — but take the above list to heart when auditing the successes or failures of your past link building efforts and look towards the future with a closer eye to detail.  After all, SEO is all about the execution and standing apart from your closest competitors.

Other key highlights important to the search marketing space, in particular SEO include:

• In 2010, companies expect to spend 43% more on SEO than they spent in 2009 — the big question is where is this extra spend going?  To be competitive, it should go towards strong link building and ongoing SEO site analysis
• Social media marketing budgets are still small in comparison to SEO & PPC spend — so spend wisely and don’t get sucked into the social media craze!
• 90% of respondents actively engage in search engine optimization — which has remained steady since 2007.  See bullet point #1 — it’s about to get much more competitive!  Are you ready and are you investing the in the right SEO opportunities?
  • 31% of companies are spending $25,000 – $150,000+ per year on SEO
  • 17% of companies are spending $150,000 to $3,000,000+ per year on SEO
• The Top 3 objectives companies have for SEO are (based on #1 priorities & in order of importance) — nothing new here, but consider that generating leads & selling products/services is a function of ranking well for mid-tail and long-tail keywords; not exclusively the top 3 keywords in your industry.  Smart marketers rule the day.
  • #1 – Generate Leads (34%)
  • #2 – Drive traffic to website (32%)
  • #3 – Sell products, services, or content directly online (26%)
• 67% of Companies have at least two (2) people responsible for search marketing — this is very interesting to say the least. If your company doesn’t want to carry the overhead of another employee OR needs to increase productivity per employee, you really need to do yourself a favor and check our our SEO technology (SEOtool) — it’s proving to be an invaluable “employee” for objective SEO analysis and ongoing QA on a site-wide basis for in-house marketers.

Without question, the SEO industry continues to experience fast growth as more and more advertisers pull marketing budgets from print advertising and other traditional vehicles which just can’t compete from both a scale, visibility, monetization and measurability perspective.  SEO is hear to stay — granted the landscape will keep shifting —- but companies who spend wisely and in the right SEO strategies WILL be successful.  Contact us to learn more about how dominant our clients have become in their own natural search competitive landscapes and in what ways we can accelerate your business objectives.

Here’s the official release:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/triangle-direct-medias-seotool-selected-to-present-at-internet-summit-2009-demo-showcase-68850962.html.

If your company has a focus on improving its search engine optimization, then you should speak with us about SEOtool and the unmatched intelligence and SEO metrics it can uncover for your website(s).  We’re biased, but we strongly believe there is not a single web-based platform that can deliver the amount of insight and depth that SEOtool provides to both in-house SEO teams, agencies and web development firms.

Learn more about SEOtool:

http://www.seotool.com

http://www.triangledirectmedia.com/seo-tool.htm

If you’ve not seen the video from Socialnomics yet, titled “Social Media Revolution”, then you need to carve out 5 minutes to watch and enjoy! If you or your team are trying to get buy-in & more budget, from upper management, for social media content marketing, please share the below video. You can also speak with a New Media Account Executive here at TDM to learn more about solutions, strategies and ways to greatly leverage the power of social media and search optimization.

The problem with this study, as many studies & surveys in the online marketing industry, is that it is SKEWED to the target audience.  Below are some reasons why the study is wrong in its claim that PPC is more likely to bring buyers than SEO.

Key findings from the study included:

• The conversion rate from paid search is 2.03% versus 1.26% from organic search, according to the study, which is based on traffic to 26 e-retail sites in the 12-month period that ended June 30.
• Paid search visitors bought the most, with an average order value of $117.06 versus $109.27 for those coming from other sites, $106.64 for visitors from organic search and $95.29 from direct referrals, such as from a bookmark or direct entry of a URL.

The known trends (SEO vs PPC) from many other industry studies that have been overlooked in this study, thus skewing the claim that PPC can bring more buyers, include:

• MORE visitors are reached through SEO as consumers are significantly more likely to click on organic listings over PPC listings (recent Hubspot researched showed 75% of clicks are to SEO listings, 25% to PPC ads)
• Due to the sheer volume of traffic delivered through organic search, odds are the conversion rate will decrease.  SEO delivers the masses (3-4X reach of PPC) — so conversion rates logically would be somewhat less.
• PPC will have a higher conversion rate due to the sophistication of landing pages purely for PPC.  As a holistic strategy, SEO can’t really operate with depth of landing page refinement that PPC can.
• In aggregate, SEO typically has higher ROI due to rising PPC costs and the fact that SEO clicks are “free”.  Granted, you do pay a retainer fee for SEO services to get you & keep you ranked.  (SEOMoz study found that 88% of budgets go to PPC, while 12% go to SEO). Net-net, what’s the better ROI?
• PPC is the equivalent of renting a house.  SEO is like owning a house.  The investments in SEO have significantly stronger long-term benefit than PPC.

At the end of the day, PPC has tremendous value for advertisers, and is a powerful mechanism when combined with successful SEO.  The study discussed here does have useful findings, but it’s missing important data for eCommerce decision makers.  When one looks at the complete reach of SEO, cost-analysis and long-term value —- the benefits of a well run SEO campaign outperform PPC and in sum, bring more buyers.

While Google is still king of the mountain in terms of search engine market share (65%), one can reasonably conclude that Bing’s search engine will now reach approximately 28% of US search engine users! This is derived from June 2009 comScore numbers where Yahoo garnered 19.6% and MSFT 8.4%, of the US search engine market.  With the continued advertising push by MSFT for Bing.com on prime-time television and other media outlets, these numbers could keep rising as most feedback has been solid for the Bing ‘experience’.  It’s obvious Yahoo likes their advancements!

Online marketers who are experiencing success in Bing.com, with mediocre results in Yahoo, should have an added level of excitement and anticipation with these latest announcements.   In contrast, if you’re “off the grid” in Bing.com, you might want to get your act together sooner than later as Yahoo results are about to experience quite the makeover —- which sounds best, “BingHoo” or “YaBing”? ;-)  Stay tuned for more to come on this partnership or contact TDM’s new media marketing staff with any questions and how this affects your website’s future.

A couple of points web-driven businesses should recognize with SEO-driven branding:

• Offline Branding, as a marketing strategy, is a concept many companies shy away from because it lacks immediate results, is very difficult to measure, and often falls far down the priority list as a “want” and not a “need”
• Online Branding, as it relates to search engine rankings, is a much more justifiable approach when one considers costs, time investment, resources, measurement, and channels to proliferate a brand.
• Practical and proven methods to conduct “Online Branding” include but are not limited to:

+ Blogging
+ Community & Industry Participation
+ Press Release Marketing & Optimization
+ Social Media Content Creation
+ Link Building through Strategic Outreach

“All of these help you gain reach and frequency.  Most importantly, you’ll reach those who are interested in (and searching for) your products and services.”

• Create great content (on-site & off-site) that educates your audience and strategically links back to your most relevant website pages and you’ll see positive progress.  As this content is syndicated and viewed by engaged audiences, you will naturally build “votes” through mentions and natural backlinks.

As we commonly say, Social Media Marketing is converging with Search Engine Optimization.  This is proof positive in the Branding component that continues to influence some of the organic search results.  We are clearly seeing this in the movement of our client’s rankings, campaigns and success.  Those small, mid-size and large brands who embrace the shifting landscape (as is always the case in organic search) and stay ahead of curve, will continue to thrive in ultra-competitive environments.