Posted on Wed, Sep 01, 2010 @ 09:07 AM
When marketing on behalf of regulated industries (such as the healthcare companies, financial services and law firms we often work with), working within strict guidelines is a large part of the process - externally and often internally, as well. While you may be more limited in your blogging tone or breadth of discussion topics, there are numerous benefits to corporate blogging that should not be ignored. In highly regulated industries, in particular, there is much to be gained by integrating a blogging strategy as part of your company’s public outreach efforts. The following are the key benefits to incorporating a blog into your current marketing mix:
- Puts a human voice to your company’s name
There’s little doubt that society increasingly thrives on interaction – it’s no wonder then in the age of 24-hour news access and Twitter accounts of celebrities leaves your 1.0 website sounding cold and devoid of personality. Blogs have become a crucial component of incorporating a more personable, human approach that people have come to expect from industry-leaders. If executed properly, a blog can help your company forgo positioning itself as rigid and unapproachable.
If you were to imagine for a moment that your company is a building, a corporate blog would serve as its windows. A good blog allows current and potential customers to peer inside and gain a greater understanding of what is going on internally. While blogs are an excellent tool for building trust and customer loyalty, the most widely read blogs are those that position themselves as news outlets for the industry, rather than a PR tool dedicated to solely promote one company. People hold blogs in higher esteem when they deliver unbiased reporting – particularly in a company blog.
- Starts a conversation with your industry, clients and potential customers
Maintaining a corporate blog will be useless if it’s used only as a channel for promoting a monologue; blogging is a two-way street. If you have no desire to engage readers in a conversation, have no doubt that your readers won’t stay readers for long. This can create reservations for some, but rather than fearing the blogosphere, instead embrace the unique freedom it offers you. A major benefit of running a blog is that you have the opportunity to answer questions or concerns related to your company in an avenue that didn’t exist before. A good blog platform will also allow you to moderate comments so that slanderous or inappropriate language doesn’t appear on your site, but be careful not to confuse constructive feedback with derogatory language. Your blog articles should serve as a starting point, but be sure to keep track of the comments and feedback you receive from your readers. The conversation about your products or services will take place regardless; it is much better to know what is being said and be able to respond to it in a timely manner than to let it simmer on the Internet and build momentum. Participating in that conversation is a proactive approach that will help your company address potential issues and problems when they arise.
- Results are easily measurable
Online measurement tools are increasingly important – like any other avenue of business, the blog food chain derives from results. One of the main criticisms of the social media phenomenon has been how to measure its success without a clear ROI? Blogging, on the other hand, allows you to measure results for various metrics with countless tools available online. For example, Google Analytics, one of Google’s free tools, is a customizable site analysis resource that can provide you with just about any breakdown of information you need. Goals, goal conversion, and return on investment – it’s all available, and better still, it’s all free.
Just like banner ads and spam, it will be the users who ultimately determine how effective a business blog is for them. It is understandable why certain industries remain hesitant about embracing blogging, but those who don’t catch on soon risk being left behind their competition and in the unenviable position of having to play catch-up.
Written by Ilona Lemeshov, Internet Marketing Associate
Posted on Wed, Jul 28, 2010 @ 01:47 PM
Site Speed
Many website operators may not know or have just become aware that Google now takes into account how fast your web pages render. This will affect your overall Google Page Rank and for good reason. Google realized that web pages that take longer to load have a higher bounce rate than faster loading pages. Through additional data collection Google found that increasing site speed also reduces operating costs. Although there are numerous ways to improve overall Google Page Rank, website operators should pay attention to how quickly your sites open. Check out Hubspot's Website Grader to find Google Page Rankings.
Tend To Your Website Often
- Handle existing content with a close eye on where your niche market stands
- Create new content constantly with new links
- Carefully analyze web analytics to see where your website stands
- Promote your website through various social media outlets
- Build upon your existing relationships
Duplicate Content Myth
There’s an ongoing rumor that Google penalizes a website for duplicating web pages, but it’s not so clear cut as one would think. In a perfect world the most original content is what Google would prefer, but it’s not to say that they wouldn’t rank a page on top because it wasn’t unique. What’s more important is improving the text links to change the overall web page rather than the content itself. Google might not index a webpage if it is exactly duplicated, but it will index a page if you provide quality links and the best links will rank at the top. If you’re constantly worried about duplicating a page, use a 40% mark for making the website content unique.
Establishing Calls to Action
If you’re a website owner and cannot answer the question, “What are your calls to action?” then you have a problem. Creating a Contact Us Form, Subscribe by email, Subscribe to our blog, are all desired objectives for users to your website. Creating these forms is important because their conversion rate will become a great measuring tool for the success of your website. Also, it helps users achieve their overall needs which can be gauged through an experimentation process, distinguishing which forms are most helpful.
By Cameron Moulton, Internet Marketing Associate
Posted on Wed, Apr 07, 2010 @ 02:17 PM
In 2004, Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson wrote an article exploring the booming success of online retail sites like Amazon, NetFlix and eBay. It focused on these companies’ ability to cater to the smallest niches of fans looking for the most obscure titles and items that traditional retail stores could not carry. If you liked the best-selling and widely known Freakeconomics, you just might be interested in the 1986 paperback Fatal Equalibrium. That recommendation is something you would never experience at your local book store (the man or woman at the register probably can't name more than a pair of economic books from the past 30 years) but it happens every day on Amazon. In all probability, those traditional stores probably don't even carry Fatal Equilibrium.
Anderson opened the eyes of many and kick started the reshaping of business models. He shed light on a new movement that consumers are currently consuming in the 21st century. Subsequently after the piece, Wired went so far as to purchase the LongTail.com URL and brand it as Anderson’s blog. How ingenious.
"The Long Tail" is a marketing term that refers to the population or demographic that seeks the lesser known, more obscure products, but when aggregated together can often generate more revenue than a few of the most popular products.
On the graph to the right, the long tail is the low-sloping green tail moving left to right. More specifically, it shows how long tail marketing can be applied to Internet marketing and SEO. If you’re a small to mid-sized shoe company looking to attract buyers via organic search traffic, “shoes” is a search term that’s going to make you look like that tennis player in the fantastic Ladders.com TV advertisment. You’re competing with hundreds– maybe even thousands– of companies of all sizes. You’ll be rendered irrelevant from the start. But, small-to-mid-sized shoe company, if you can focus on optimizing your content to focus on those fresh, new small-size high-heel open-toe suede shoes you just put on your shelves, you have a much better chance to corner that market and generate sales.
Because it’s a collection of the less popular, or less relevant search terms, the long tail is a cheaper and lower-risk investment. It also, as the graph notes, has proven to show a much higher rate of conversion. Someone perusing the web for small-size high-heel open-toe suede shoes clearly has a motive to buy just that. And you should be out there waiting for her... or him buying for her. Or just him.
Identifying and capturing the long tail should be a primary focus for any Internet marketing company and any company looking to effectively market and get found on the Internet. There's always an opportunity to distinguish yourself from from the competition. Understand your audience and spend some time to rank high on specific search queries related to your business.
By Nick Fasulo, Internet Marketing Manager
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Posted on Tue, Mar 02, 2010 @ 09:54 AM
Written by SJ Petteruti, Director
It happened. The first shot across the bow of Google's content sovereignty. You may have seen it briefly in the papers, a blip of a headline, but there it was... "Three Google Executives were convicted in an Italian court of violating privacy laws." Mind you, it was an Italian court, which even as one who hails from the Ancient Empire, I don't find threatening. But these were criminal charges, and that can mean jail time. Odds are the decision will be overturned in a higher court, and even if it's upheld, the U.S. won't be extraditing Americans for what ultimately amounts to a nebulous crime at best. But the very fact that a decision was rendered means that the debate has taken a turn toward serious reality.
So what was the crime? In a nutshell, the three Google Executives were charged by Vivi Down, an Italian group representing people with Down syndrome, for not acting fast enough to remove from the site a widely viewed video posted in 2006 showing a group of teenage boys harassing an autistic boy. (Google says that it removed the site within two hours of receiving the formal complaint- apparently not quickly enough).
What does this mean? And why should we be talking about it? On a domestic level, this move is seen by some to unhinge an already fragile Internet presence in Italy, one of the few media outlets that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi doesn't own. (He's sort of like Bill Clinton and Rupert Murdoch rolled into one.) But the issue we're more concerned with is what it could mean for the nature of internet content.
Think of Google as the Switzerland of the Internet: they make no claim of responsibility for content, they are simple the means of delivery, and are thus always neutral. So whatever ends up highly ranked on the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERP), photos of the First Lady as a chimp, a site slamming Dell Computers- anything, Google shrugs and says it is the result of the democratic nature of the internet that is "sometimes beyond their control".
This Italian decision has the potential to change all of that. If the precedent is set that Search Engines are responsible for what comes up in search results, than it could mean a serious jarring of the Google Algorithm. Suddenly the Democratic nature of the internet will no longer be universal. Google will, for the first time in their history, be having a direct impact in manipulating results on their site. Sure, for 99% of us who are working to help websites rank higher, we won't have anything to worry about. This decision is being directed at content and organizations whose postings are so obscene, they gain attention for their infamy. But once that line is drawn in the sand it is very easy to move, and the definition of "appropriate content" can be a very fluid one. After all, at one point these books were all considered "too offensive" for the public.
Personally I have to say that I fall on the side of Google. The Internet may still be operating by the rules of the Wild West. But Google has been one of the greatest advancements to come out of the Internet. It has legitimized the Internet as a place to get reputable information, and it has done it by remaining objective and letting the democratic process remain the rule. To attack Google, when there are so many other uncontrolled expanses of the Internet (consider how easy it is to access Adult content through any browser), is to undermine a process that is giving this American economy new life.