For the past few months, there have been strong signals that a company’s “brand” is becoming an indicator to Google’s algorithms in determining organic rankings. There was a great deal of chatter back in late-February about this topic within the SEO industry. If this concept is news to you and your company, then you need to take some time to consider how your website is impacted. There is a solid article over at SEW about this very topic and how businesses (small & large) are successfully “branding” themselves online and gaining benefit in higher search engine rankings.
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.
CollegeHumor.com has a funny video on the new advancements with Bing.com and how it is revolutionizing search for consumers!
Actually Bing does have some nice usability features and is quite an improvement over it’s predecessor, Live.com. Will be interesting to see if MSFT’s advertising and branding campaigns can keep Bing more top-of-mind for searchers in an attempt to swipe some marketshare from Google & Yahoo! Surprising that they have not added in a sound component when you “Bing!” — like a bell at a front desk.
When blogging, every person, company or entity wants to establish and preserve it’s own “voice”. There are obviously many blog writing, blog marketing and branding strategies for a myriad of reasons personal & business reasons. When it comes to writing posts that hit the heart of a topic and may be critically important for increased exposure and SE friendliness, bloggers rarely think about keyword research and search engines.
Well, Wordtracker put its hat in the firefox plug ins game — and it’s fantastic! You can quickly build a keyword list of important terms to include in your post. It’s simply a blog writing “insurance policy” and valuable tool for those posts you really want to optimize for search engines. Based on the topic you want to cover, simply enter some important keywords and start “adding” chosen keywords to your line-up of keywords. This can become a great tool in a bloggers aresenal and regular daily practices. If you have any thoughts or early experiences to share, please feel free to! Hat-tip to SEOBook.
Then just start blogging. When you’re finished with your post, then go back and spot check the # of times you’ve used these keywords. To show this in action, I’ve screenshot how this tool is tracking this current blog post as I type. Here comes a Before & After.
BEFORE
Now just start adding keywords into your blog post once it’s finished — here’s a simple bullet point list to show the tool in action:
keyword research
seo services
free wordtracker tool, free wordtracker tool
keyword reserach
seo services
AFTER screenshot on keyword mentions is below. We’re not suggesting you just bullet point keywords to get them in a post, but for the sake of this example, you can see the increase real-time as you add important keywords (that get search traffic) into your blog posts (and at your own discretion).
Many of you have already seen this alert from Facebook, but we wanted to be 100% certain that all clients working with or considering to work with Triangle Direct Media had advance notice of a very important Facebook Alert:
Starting on Saturday, June 13th, at 12:01am, you’ll be able to choose a username for your Facebook account to easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile.
This opportunity is great for individuals, companies and groups that have established Facebook accounts. Specifically, odds are that a “vanity”, more personalized Facebook URL will lead to increased Google rankings for “branded” search terms. As reputation management continues to grow in popularity and as a pro-active strategy for companies seeking to control the first 10 organic results in Google — this seems to be a “layup”.
Fortunately, Facebook has rigid guidelines preventing “name squatting”, which has given Twitter a blackeye in recent months but securing these new, vanity usernames is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Shar VanBoskirk and Forrester have released a new report called “Interactive Marketing Channels to Watch in 2009″. MarketingPilgrim served a great chart (see below) showing 10 Interactive categories and where US budgets are currently spent and will be spent over the next 12+ months. The highest growth category over the next 12 months is “Created Social Media” (blogs, podcasts, content, widgets, etc). The top 3 categories where monies are currently invested in US marketing and will continue to be over the next 12+ months are:
Email marketing
SEO
Created Social Media
Over the past 9 years in Internet/Search/Social Marketing, companies have consistently ramped up their online marketing efforts starting in June & July for the last half of the year. Because of the cost effectiveness, reach & measurable ROI – more and more traditional dollars are shifting online (fueled by current economic woes). Of those spending money online, experienced marketers are investing into SEO & Content-drive “Created Social Media”. IS YOUR COMPANY ACTIVELY IN THE GAME IN IT’S OWN INDUSTRY?
If you’re trying to champion the cause for these services in your company, contact TDM to find out how you can engage and fire up your “Created Social Media” & SEO successes!
US Interative Marketing Spending 2009 Forrester Report
A recent study conducted by Forbes called the “2009 Advertising Effectivness Survey” has proclaimed that both Viral Marketing and Search Engine Optimization will experience the fastest growth and highest percentage spend increase in company budgets throughout 2009. The study surveyed more than 100 key CMO’s and Marketing Executives who hold roles in advertising, marketing and media.
Key findings from the report include:
In the coming six months, respondents expect that ad networks will see the biggest declines in allocation of marketing spend; viral marketing and SEO will likely see the biggest increases.
$1MM+ respondents are significantly more likely than total respondents to point to viral marketing (54% vs. 42%), SEO (50% vs. 40%) and pay-per-impression ads on digital publications (36% vs. 26%) as areas where investment is expected to increase over the next six months.
As a leader in innovative SEO, viral marketing and social media marketing services, TDM is well prepared to work with clients seeking to leverage and exploit the benefits of these highly-efficient online marketing channels. Feel free to contact us for a free new media marketing consultation and to learn how your company can take its online marketing to new levels of success!
Due to the downturn in the economy, budgets for PPC advertising are shrinking with more attention and budgets shifting towards SEO. The costs, potential for results, and long-term benefits of a well-planned and executed SEO campaign cannot be denied. But how exactly do you ensure that your site’s long-term SEO plans are effective and well founded? An article at Search Engine Land effectively addresses this important question. You will want to ensure that you have reliable web analytics software. This software will ideally track SEO referrals, or simply put, reporting what search engines your site’s traffic is coming from and the keywords used to find your site. Make sure the analytics software that you choose can segment paid and non-paid search engine traffic. Google Analytics is the best value on the market, considering it’s free! There are other more robust, paid analytics packages that can shed granular insight (such as Omniture and WebTrends).
By analyzing analytics reports, you will be able to use these findings to determine the best areas to invest time, money and resources. When tracking performance, remember to make note of site re-launches, shifts in the market and other events when measuring at long-term results, as these will cause a change in your SEO metrics. By comparing these metrics, you can then prioritize efforts for optimizing your site based on market opportunities, ranking gaps and potential ROI.
More women than ever before are spending their time online, rather than reading the newspaper, magazines, listening to the radio and engaging in other traditional media activities. The 2009 Women in Social Media Study by BlogHer, IVillage and Compass Partners, show that over fifty percent of women online today are between the ages of 27-62.So what is causing the sudden shift?
Social media is now attracting over 42 million women, 75% of which participate in social networks such as Facebook or MySpace.When it comes to advice and recommendations, 55% of these women are turning to blogs to seek out information.The survey showed that 45% of respondents purchased an item after reading about it in a blog post. Whether it be women on the lookout for the best deal on shoes or moms posting tips on raising children, women have become the most actively engaged participants in the realm of social media networks.The trust in like-minded consumers and peer groups supports the trend reported by MarketingVox in 2007 that “91% of moms prefer brands that other moms have recommended.”
Blogs are becoming the new medium of communication for women when it comes to finding the best places for deals, getting coupons, giving recommendations for products, or even receiving guidance for the daily struggles in a woman’s life.Through blogs, search engines, and other social media marketing vehicles, businesses can focus on reaching out to and engaging these key, household decision makers.
There continues to be a groundswell of attention towards Social Media in mainstream media and other circles, but let’s examine Social Media’s relevance to SEO.The majority of industry experts, including those in-house here at TDM, would argue that a well crafted, well executed social media marketing strategy WILL have positive benefit on a brand’s natural search rankings.An in-depth discussion is currently taking place at the popular UK-based site eConsultancy on just how much social media influences rank order (positively, neutrally, and negatively).
Below are a couple of key reasons why we at Triangle Direct Media believe social media can and will continue to impact the organic rankings of a website:
Search engines, like Google, examine thequality & diversity of backlinks along with the “buzz” of a brand through Trust & Authority variables.Social Media is becoming mainstream so a brand’s participation in these channels helps it become an even stronger “subject matter expert” and informational resource.
Social Media reaches a very large and diverse audience of content creators, discussion participants and sideline observers.Social Media“content creators” serve as a very likely source for natural link building should a brand’s content or network participation move these content creators to post on their own sites or blogs about the brand.
While most major social networks allow for back links, such links almost always include thenofollow attribute which do not count in most search engine algorithms. In contrast, a number of social media outlets do provide brands the ability to secure and create “follow” links as part of the content creation life cycle.These pages get indexed and cached, serving as a credible link building channel.It’s important that brands actively participate to boost in-network visibility or the strength of a given set of social profiles or social content pages.
Blogs have proven to be a very strong platform for ranking well in major search engines through the practice of developing solid, unique content on a consistent basis while participating in a ecosystem of industry-related and/or peer blog publishers.Not only do blog posts rank well, they also serve as a strong source for link building particularly when posts go viral and secure active comment discussions.
Universal search has opened new ranking opportunities for online brands that effectively create content through video, images, news, blogs and other Social Media oriented vehicles.Many community sites provide great opportunities for instructional or informational content creation that incorporates text, video, images and discussions — these typically rank pretty well and can be a good source for ‘followed’ back links.
For anyone that has been an active member of SEO community for the past 5-10 years, determining the most productive and cost-effective ways to help clients rank on the first page is how we’re measured. Leveraging social media is a positive and the next evolutionary step in organic search.The above reasons are what standout as an argument to brand advertisers to engage social media from a natural search ranking perspective.There are obviously many other benefits social media marketing can deliver brands such as consumer-engagement, product testing, brand discussions, contests, etc.
Do you have any other primary reasons why companies interested in organic rankings in Google, Yahoo & MSN/Live should leverage Social Media Marketing?
Forrester Research has released a forecast on US Internet Marketing Spending for the next five (5) years. Great outlook for those companies investing and specializing in social media, mobile marketing and search marketing. Considering the sheer size of the “Search Marketing” category, why do these independent research firms keep grouping PPC and SEO together? It is widely accepted that SEO garners at least 12% of Search spend (and this percentage is quickly growing!!). Doing simple math for Internet spending in 2009, SEO spend would be greater than mobile, social or email marketing, respectively. So why are SEO & PPC not yet standalone categories? We already know that organic search rankings are the #1 focus of Internet Retailers.
Attention business owners, CMO’s, VP’s & Directors of Web Marketing —- what are you doing to allocate marketing budgets and put your business at the forefront of these growth markets? Don’t miss the new media marketing bus!
For the past few months, there have been strong signals that a company’s “brand” is becoming an indicator to Google’s algorithms in determining organic rankings. There was a great deal of chatter back in late-February about this topic within the SEO industry. If this concept is news to you and your company, then you need to take some time to consider how your website is impacted. There is a solid article over at SEW about this very topic and how businesses (small & large) are successfully “branding” themselves online and gaining benefit in higher search engine rankings.
Many of you have already seen this alert from Facebook, but we wanted to be 100% certain that all clients working with or considering to work with 
Due to the downturn in the economy, budgets for PPC advertising are shrinking with more attention and budgets shifting towards 
More women than ever before are spending their time online, rather than reading the newspaper, magazines, listening to the radio and engaging in other traditional media activities. The 
For anyone that has been an active member of SEO community for the past 5-10 years, determining the most productive and cost-effective ways to help clients rank on the first page is how we’re measured. Leveraging social media is a positive and the next evolutionary step in organic search.
