Put on Your Marketing Hat: Strategic SEO Link Building That Works

You can spend hundreds of hours hunting down ways to build links. How does that help your company at the end of the day? Link building can turn into a wild online goose chase AND you waste a lot of time and energy in the process.

It’s time to put on your marketing hat and think about SEO link building from a strategic point of view. Go beyond just the basic elements of SEO and think about the bigger picture with your marketing goals.

It’s All About Unique Content
Strategic SEO link building centers around CONTENT - not just any content - but unique, quality content that provides valuable information to your readers.
Why is this important? Unique content is one of the easiest ways to build credibility within your niche. It makes you a viable resource to readers. As a result, they will link to your site because they trust you and look to you as an expert.

Focus on Marketing Tactics
Strategic SEO link building focuses on a marketing and public relations perspective: HOW will you get users to link to your site? Think about your audience, branding and remember to keep messaging consistent.
You can use all the fancy “mechanical” SEO tricks but you can’t solely rely on that to increase search engine ranking. For SEO link building to be successful, your strategy needs the best of both worlds. Here are a few tricks that can help you along the way with link building.

Marketing:
• Think about ALL the “off-line” promotional opportunities your company encounters. Special events are a great way to build links. Do you sponsor the annual celebrity chef food event each year? Ask the charitable organization to link your site as part of your sponsorship/advertisement to their website. Charitable organizations will cross-promote links on their sites as “thank yous” to their sponsors.
• Utilize your local resources, colleagues, clients and contacts. Do you belong to trade associations, the Chamber of Commerce, or service organizations? These organizations usually have websites and online newsletters. Ask for a direct link.
• Include links in your online press releases and promotional materials such as annual reports and case studies. Use job listing and event sites. Optimize keywords in these listings. Always ask for a DIRECT link to your site so users can find out more information about the event and your company.

Public Relations/Media Relations:
• Whenever you email journalists or bloggers media pitches, always include a link. If you find out that you will be featured in an online story (especially if you are interviewed directly), ask the writer to include a link to your company’s website and/or blog.
• Train company representatives (presidents, marketing directors, etc.) in SEO-specific media relations. Use consistent keyword phrasing in media messaging. If your story is published online, keywords will be picked up in search engines and linked back to your site.
• Because your link is tied with credible online media sources, your search rankings increase and your company receives MORE publicity! A win-win marketing success!

This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.

SEO Outperforms Print Media

In times of recession, one of the first things that corporate bean counters tend to reduce is their spend on advertising and marketing. Of course we know that this should be one of the last things to go! In some instances, though, it appears that a new trend is emerging. Companies appear to be shifting away from traditional media and increasing their focus on Internet marketing and search engine optimization. Many companies appear to be voting with their checkbooks that SEO will outperform print media, especially during a downturn.

The current decline of traditional media outlets, such as print and radio, can be seen in the mid-2009 Clients – Agency Economic Outlook Report by Reardon Smith Whitaker. 32% of clients surveyed said they had increased spending on SEO this year, some quite significantly. Agencies seem to be accelerating the trend with 50% saying that their SEO spend was considerably higher than last year. Other studies seem to agree that a majority of companies are maintaining or increasing their spending on search engine marketing.

SEO has some significant advantages over traditional media. For example, a newspaper ad can have a very short shelf life – a day or less, whereas a correctly constructed website can be visible for months or years. The traditional yellow page ad, for example, could cost tens of thousands of dollars per year and yet studies now show that a majority of consumers tune in to Internet search engines for information as opposed to thumbing through the telephone book.

Online marketing is definitely the cheapest way to tell the world about your business and people who find your site through SEO tend to be much more educated and more motivated to buy from you.

Most advertising in traditional media is traditionally not very focused, whereas advertising online, such as through the use of pay-per-click marketing, can be very highly focused indeed. In short, if you run your PPC campaign well, you’re only paying for qualified leads who visit your primary portal to – hopefully – purchase your product or service. With traditional media, such as a newspaper ad, you are paying no matter who sees your ad and a very considerable proportion of these people will have no interest in your wares, whatsoever.

As the draw of the Internet continues to grow at a pace, the effects of the recession will only help to increase the focus of company marketing executives. The proportion of funds spent on SEO and Internet marketing versus traditional media is likely to continue to grow.

Is there still a place for print media in modern marketing?

Adam Toren

Double Your Sales: Boost Your Conversion Rate with Google Website Optimizer

Have you recently seen a decline in your online sales orders and don’t know why? If you are looking for a website optimizing tool that improves lagging conversion rates, it’s time to take that next step with Google Website Optimizer.

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to sites who take a “desired action.” Your “desired action” really depends on your online marketing goals: i.e. are you trying to sell products, boost membership, or increase newsletter registrations?

Google Website Optimizer works in the following ways:

Creates dynamic, high-converting pages
• Tests and optimizes both design and content for websites and landing pages
• Uses Google Analytics for its tracking

Utilizes both split testing and multivariate testing
• A/B split testing – If you can’t decide which headline to use on the home page, Google Website Optimizer can run an A/B split test. For example, one group of visitors view “Headline A” and the other group views “Headline B.” You then tally the numbers of orders you received with “Headline A” versus “Headline B.”

• Multivariate testing – You don’t have to wait to run one test at a time. While you test your headlines, simultaneously test out web page elements such as content, images and sales pricing. Site visitors are shown different combinations of pages. Google Website Optimizer calculates your average of what combination of elements that works the best when viewed.

Why should you use split and multivariate testing?
The answer comes down to test marketing. You wouldn’t throw a product on the market if you hadn’t tested it out first. How will you know if customers like or dislike your product? This same theory applies to Google Website Optimizer. By testing out what visitors like or dislike, you will be able to improve upon your site and maximize conversion rate.

How can Google Website Optimizer increase your bottom line?
If you can figure out what works and doesn’t work on your site, then you are one step ahead of your online competitor. Increased conversion rates equal higher sales, new members and increased newsletter sign-ups.

Remember that a beautiful-looking website doesn’t necessarily mean you will draw traffic or instantly sell products and services. There are more factors involved than just design and that’s where Google Website Optimizer comes in handy.

Easy Fix-It Tricks
If you don’t get it right the first time with testing, these easy fix-it tricks will point you in the right direction. You may have to try multiple split and multivariate test runs. Remember that even small, subtle improvements to your site will hit the mark with testing. Your ultimate goal: fix the problems and increase your conversion rates!
• Don’t make test runs complicated - Limit changes 2-3 per page. You don’t want to run hundreds of test variations which can be confusing and counter-productive.
• Headlines - Change the color of main headlines.
• Fonts - Increase or decrease size. Change font style.
• Content and Images – Add more bullet points. Re-arrange sub-headers and paragraphs. Test content with or without images.

This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.

SEO companies are still in great demand

It seems that the recession is not having a negative effect everywhere. The field of SEO appears to be hardly hit at all. Recent studies carried out within the field of search engine optimization in the UK show that demand has continued to accelerate right through the worst of the current downturn.

Demand for search engine optimization companies, as measured by the amount of keyword – orientated Internet searches, has almost doubled within the space of only two short years. This reliable indicator shows an 83% jump in the number of people searching for the services offered by these companies.

Whilst marketing expenditure in general has fallen significantly during the recession as companies feel a necessity to cut costs, they are increasingly turning to more prudent forms of marketing, involving the ability to track a return on investment. As most savvy Internet marketers know, a well-planned SEO campaign can generate significant dividends and its results can be clearly seen within specified time frames.

The level of demand has been met with a certain increase in supply, but it appears that there is considerable potential here for Internet marketing organizations and competent technicians to bring their solutions to the marketplace. As it appears that companies will wish to streamline their efficiency for the foreseeable future, it is likely that more and more will turn to productive forms of marketing like optimization. These services can be highly personalized, according to specific requirements, with strategic goals set according to the business aspirations of the client. There can be few initiatives more effective in time of recession than a results-orientated service such as SEO.

In particular, it appears that organic SEO is being seen as highly relevant. As more and more people come to understand the importance of search-based, targeted results, so the need for optimization increases. The modification of site architecture, combined with good Internet marketing initiatives, can propel an organization’s website and help to achieve the benchmarks set by senior management.

Does spending on SEO offer good value for money?

Matthew Toren

Yahoo might be losing sleep over drop in earnings

We are always talking about Google, as clearly, this is the place where everyone wants a front page listing - but today I wanted to highlight something I read in the news recently about one of the Google rivals - Yahoo (founded by a couple of Young Entrepreneurs!).

Yahoo executives are most likely losing sleep over its 2009 first quarter report, which shows net earnings declined to $117.6 million, a 78% drop compared to the $536.8 million for first quarter 2008.

Gross revenues for the first quarter of 2009 dropped 13% to $1.580 million from the same time last year. Net revenue came in at $1.16 billion, a 15% decline from $1.36 billion in 2008.

Because of the drop in revenue and profit, Yahoo plans to cut its 13,500 workforce by 5%, or 700 workers. You might recall that last year Yahoo laid off 2,400 employees during two separate rounds of cuts in its workforce.

Yahoo, which was hoping to at least break even this quarter, actually saw dismal revenue from its online advertising business. Yahoo experienced a 13% drop in display advertising revenue, a 10% decline in revenue from marketing services of owned and operated websites, and a 3% drop in search advertising.

Granted, things could turn around for Yahoo under its new President and CEO Carol A. Bartz, who was appointed to lead the search engine company in January. During the first three months of this year, it appears that Bartz is trying to right the ship by focusing on Yahoo’s core areas: its search engine, innovative display advertising systems and underpinning technology. So look for Yahoo to start selling those online services, such as HotJobs, that don’t fit into these core areas.

But investors are more focused on the progress of the much talked about advertising partnership with Microsoft, which they see as a way out of their troubles. Bartz, on the other hand, while continuing talks with Microsoft, is intent on positioning Yahoo’s online brand advertising to enhance company growth.

While Yahoo is seeing negative earning results, its main competitor Google reports a 10% net revenue growth for first quarter 2009. Yahoo has been taking a back seat to Google since it came onto the scene. People who “yahooed” in the past quickly turned Google and all its bells and whistles into the leader in search engine providers. Google’s popularity will be tough to overcome, especially since the term “google” is now being commonly used in the English language.

Adding to Yahoo’s internal problems are the poor economic conditions, which could lead to even more layoffs at Yahoo in the near future. Or perhaps we could see an all out sale or acquisition of Yahoo. All in all, these definitely continue to be turmoil times for Yahoo, causing unrest for all who work there.

What is your opinion on Yahoo - could the Google effect completely force the competition out of sight? Or do you see a potential comeback for Yahoo?

Matthew Toren

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