Atlanta's Marketing Center

Article Marketing

Search engine optimization (that is, getting your website ranked highly for certain search terms) is an inexact science.  The software engineers at Google, Yahoo and the others use technology that takes into account many different things to index you accurately.  And their criteria changes so that unscrupulous website managers don't take advantage of the rules.

Some criteria they use to index includes keywords, heading tags, age of your domain, and many others.  The general idea behind these different criteria is to say, 'ok, this website is robust, dynamic, offers a lot of good information on this particular subject, the doman has been around for a while, and they are diligent in providing information and setting their website up the right way.  They've taken the effort and they're a leader.  So let's rank them highly'.  In order to come to that conclusion, there are several criteria that needs to be met.

Article marketing has quickly risen to the top as one of the most effective criteria in getting your site ranked highly.  But many business owners are still unfamiliar with the strategy.

Article marketing involves choosing a topic related to your business then writing a 400-1200 word article about it.  The article is not a sales pitch.  The idea is that you're truly passing valuable information on about what you supposedly love...your profession.  An example for an interior designer might be an article called "Interior designing for the budget conscious" or "Designing the office of your dreams".

Then submit your article(s) to an article distribution service.  One popular one is called Articlemarketer.com where, after you've revised as they suggest, they send out to article groups and directories around the web.  Since your article is linked back to our website, the search engines recognize the links and rank you higher for certain search terms.  It's that easy.

Have you submitted articles before?  How has it effected your rankings?

The Importance of Blogging

Unless your head's been planted firmly in the sand, you've heard about blogging.  Still, I find that most people aren't familiar with this valuable marketing tool (excuse me if you're not one of those people).  Blogging isn't an irish jig...a "blog" is short for weblog, also known as an online journal.  Instead of a website that is typically static, a blog is a website that changes frequently by the owner who lists "posts", which are like entries into a journal.  As you can see below, there are a number of entries from previous days.

You may have found this blog through my own advertising efforts or through a search directory.  Or you may be familiar with blogs and might have found me through one of the myriad of blog directories.

Most of the people that I work with still aren't convinced that blogs are valuable or that they'll even be around past the fad stage.  I'm convinced that they're here to stay because of their dynamic and flexible capabilities.

If you're pretty new to the concept, then there's an easy (and valuable) way to become acclimated.  In addition to having a blog, subscribing to other peoples'/organizations' blogs is a great way to stay informed with your profession, industry, personal interests, etc.  It's a much better way of staying informed than say, leafing through the local metro newspaper with its myriad of unrelated stories.

I suggest that you go to a popular blog directory called Bloglines.  Set up an account there (it's easy) and search for some feeds of interest.  For example, if you're interested in tax litigation, search for related feeds and subscribe.  If you're interested in a particular college football team, again, search for related feeds.  After awhile, you'll collect a number of feeds around your particular set of interests...your own personal, customized information center!

How Fast Can your Website Work for You?

I really wish I could give you a simple answer to that question. Unfortunately there are just too many variables that would need to be answered first. One thing I can share with you though is that virtually anything can be sold over the internet (products and services) or at the very least facilitate what you're selling.

If you have a website and it's been rather dormant lately (that is, you don't know if it's doing anything for you), then I suspect that there is potential there. By tweaking the site, and making it "search engine friendly", you can rise in the free listing area of all the search engines.  Then you will have effectively "dropped your lines in the water" to bring qualified prospects to you.

If you're just starting out and don't yet have a web presence, then this will take a little while.  The search directories put new websites in something called a "Sandbox", a term that essentially means that they won't rank you highly at first until they see that you're serious and stable.  No matter what search engine friendly tasks are done, your new website will generally take 2 months to be indexed, then 2 or 3 more to be ranked. 

That being said, there are a couple things you can do to accelerate that process.  And an end-around option is "pay-per-click".  This is where ads are placed on the top and right hand sides of the search directory pages and, when clicked, sends the prospect to your website.  It's quick and can be set up within a few days.  The pay-per-click option, when done correctly, is a great option on gaining quick visibility... and is a generally lower-cost way of acquiring leads.

I would be negligent if I didn't tell you of a way to make all this simple for your business...be sure to download a copy of the "Ten Strategies for Local Internet Marketing Success" here- internet packages. They're designed to remove the internet "headache" off your plate...and fire up your web presence to bring qualified prospects to you.  Imagine that.

Local Internet Marketing - Lighting Your Way to Success

Over the past few years, there's been a fundamental shift in the way people buy goods and services. This shift has a lot to do with the internet. Convenience and ease of use have allowed consumers to research, compare, and shop like never before. Every available statistic shows that people are turning to the internet more and more. And this year will usher in even more online time through the increased availability of "super phones", tablets (competitors to the iPad), and internet television.

As consumers turn to online resources in search of local products and services, it becomes critically important that your local business be visible for prospects to find. If you're not easily visible, then we suggest that you learn more about using this medium as a key marketing tool. Local internet marketing can be a complex undertaking, particularly when you already have a lot to do within the business. In order to make it a little easier, Blaze Marketing has put together an eBook called "Ten Strategies for Local Online Marketing". This free report offers statistics on the direction of the marketplace along with strategies for becoming highly visible. I think it's a good first step in understanding this important medium and moving your business in the right direction. To download a copy, just click here.

Another Social Media Event

Here are some questions that have become more pressing in the small/mid business arena lately. Perhaps you've already asked yourself these-

- MySpace and Facebook …why have they become so important to so many people?

- Word of Mouth Marketing: Are people chatting about MY brand? What are they saying? And can I actually influence what they think about my product?

- How should we harness social media, viral and word of mouth (WOM) to impact consumers and build our brand?

In case you can't make the Trevelino Keller Social Media event tomorrow, you still have hope. The AMA (American Marketing Association) Atlanta is going to have a special event on this hot social marketing topic on Thursday, November 20th from 11:15a – 2p @ The Mansion on Peachtree.

The event is simply called "Social Media and Viral/Word of Mouth Marketing" and they're bringing out all the 'big guns' for it. Included on the panel will be-
1) Mike Haines, Director of Advertising, Facebook
2) Julie Saxon, Director of Advertising, MySpace
3) Joe Gallagher, Vice President/Multi Media Sales, The Wall Street Journal/ WSJ.com
4) Tracy Frank, Director of Advertising, BzzAgent
5) Ashley Quincey, Director of Business Development, Mzinga

 The objective is to learn about the best practices for deploying effective marketing programs from top properties in this field so that you can achieve your brand’s goals and objectives. I encourage you to sign up for it. Below is the meeting information and link-

What: AMA – Atlanta Chapter Next Generation Marketing luncheon

Topic: Best Practices for Marketing through Social Media Communities and Viral/Word of Moutt

When: Thursday, November 20, 2009, 11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Where: The Mansion on Peachtree… 3376 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, GA 30326

Click here to sign up

Getting Found on the Internet

It used to be (just a few years ago) that you could put a website, add the name to Yahoo and be able to be found pretty easily. 

Not any more.  Now you have to know how to be found using search engine optimization techniques.  "Search Engine Optimization" and the folks who now make a pretty nice living off of just that are skilled at being able to make your site visible to those you want to see you (your target market). 

I've found costs range anywhere from about $1000 for 'setup' and $100/mo to tens of thousands for upfront and $5000/mo for larger corporations.  If you don't have the time to do it on your own, I suggest that you find a good search engine partner to help you bring prospects to your site.

The bottom line is that search engine optimization is getting to be a more and more important for small businesses.  After the work is completed, it still takes a little while for the directories to accept the changes.  Even then, there's no guarantee that you'll see the traffic you desire.  (Although at this moment, there is a good opportunity at the local level to be seen and be found.)

For those that have more time or have an internal resource, there are a couple of great books on the subject.  One is by Dan Thies called the Search Engine Marketing Kit for $197.  Another is Aaron Wall's SEO Book for $79.  Additionally, there are online training courses that are a little more pricey such as Robin Nobles and John Alexander's Search Engine Workshops that range from $995-$1295 and Kalena Jordan's Search Engine College.

Whatever you choose, I encourage you to invest in this because just having a site up without driving traffic to it minimizes your reach greatly.   There's no way around optimizing your site.

Website Marketing Alert!

Let me be as clear as I can about your future lead generation possibilities-- if your website designer plans on using a "Flash" site, then you can pretty much kiss serious lead generation using the organic (free) search directories good-bye.  For those who are unfamiliar, Flash is a technology that allows for quick movies, objects that move and fade in and out. 

You might notice this when you go to a site and there's some graphic movement before you're allowed to get the information you're looking for.  This flash, or movie, looks pretty cool, but believe me, it's deadly in terms of drawing your target audience to your site.  Why?  Because the search directories such as Google, Yahoo, MSN do not recognize and are unable to index these movies, so there's little chance of you being ranked highly. 

At this point, your site might be "cool", but you're essentially a pretty store in a strip center that no one can find.  The worst part of all is that most website designers (who are also typically graphic artists) are oblivious to this search engine dynamic.  While they think they're helping you, they're actually hurting you.

What type of site do you have...a static, a flash, or something in between?

2007: The Year in Search Engine Review

It's been quite an interesting year in search engine optimization.  And another fast one as things continue to evolve quickly.  The year saw changes in three distinct areas-

The first was "blended" search.  Instead of just providing the top ten links to HTML home pages for any search, the search engines started to provide links to news stories, blog posts, local business, directories and other things all in an effort to provide the most important information for the term typed in.  The response from searchers has been positive.  All of the "big four" (Google, Yahoo, MSN's Live and Ask) now show blended results.

Pay-per-click (search advertising) incorporated a measure of quality into their ad ranking algorithms.  It's not all about bidding for the better rank anymore.  By improving one's ads and aligning with the target page, an advertiser can be ranked higher than a potentially inferior ad.

Social media also took great strides with the emergence of Facebook, Digg, Duct Tape Marketing's Workbench, and others.  While the popularity continues to rise based on the relationship structure, there's no telling how robust these networks will eventually become.

All in all, it's was a quickly changing seo world this year.  I'll sum up how 2008 will shape up on an upcoming post.

Training

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing is offering some highly valuable and timely training via teleseminars on internet marketing in a couple of weeks.  He has broken the training into one hour intervals on three separate Wednesday from 1-2pm.

John passes on all the fluff and drama that a lot of highly-recognized marketing figures use.  His training is very straightforward, informal and practical...much like the Duct Tape name.  The techniques and tips he shares is geared toward long-term growth for your business...in this case it will be in the context of the internet.  The title of the telesummit is called "How to Harness the Internet to Market Your Small Business More Effectively". 

The three live sessions will be on Feb 21st and 28th, then March 7th.  Each participant will receive a workbook, complete with lessons, forms and examples along with an audio recording of each live session.  The cost of the telesummit is just $149.  I highly suggest you enroll in this opportunity.  My guess is that after you apply what John suggests, traffic to your website will increase substantially in about 3 months.  Only folks who are interested in growing need apply...apply here.