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26th
MAR

5 Tips for Better B2B Branding

Posted by BlogPostman under Pay-Per-Click

Think branding only falls in the B2C court? Think again. In fact, three of the top 10 brands in 2009, as ranked by Interbrand, generate a sizable amount of revenue from their B2B customers: IBM, Microsoft and GE. As a B2B marketer your brand is your most valuable asset. B2B branding is less about cool, hip monikers (the Apples and Starbucks of the world) – and more about thought leadership. Particularly in down economies, B2B prospects and customers conduct significant research leading up to purchases. That means you as a marketer have to educate them early on, and establish your brand as a trusted resource that gets their problems and has the solution. To help your organization be seen as the thought leader it is, we’ve identified five B2B branding tips: 1. Consistently produce useful, innovative content These days, every company is essentially a media company. So it’s easier than ever to provide relevant, informative content for customers and prospects. From a company blog to Twitter to YouTube, there is no end to the content channels available. Provide the latest industry news and insight on trends through: Offering a white paper through an email marketing campaign Creating videos and promoting through YouTube and on your web site Conducting interviews with industry influentials and turning into blog posts Whatever channels you choose to promote, and whatever types of content you create, these consistent signals prove to customers and prospects that you are a thought leader. 2. Network digitally and in person Nothing communicates a brand more than direct involvement with customers and prospect. In that regard, online social networking has opened a new door. According to a recent eMarketer study , six in 10 B2B marketers planned to up spending on social in 2010. Whether your organization integrates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or another social network into its B2B branding efforts, the same rules apply: Social media is about engaging in conversations, not just pushing products It’s not about the masses; it’s about your target audience It’s listening and hearing before selling and talking That’s not to say that in-person networking is irrelevant. On the contrary, perfect B2B branding combination. Take advantage of opportunities to give keynote speeches, participate in panel discussions or lead breakout sessions at industry events. 3. Get personal and be real B2C marketers seem to have this concept nailed. But humanizing your company for customers and prospects is just as important in B2B branding. For one TopRank® Online Marketing client, an industrial part distributor for the bulk powder processing industry, humanizing its image was a top concern. The TopRank team created the Powder Doctor, a unique character, to relate to customers and prospects through email marketing campaigns. This humorous cartoon character offers advice – Dear Abby style – for common industry problems. Powder Doctor campaigns have increased sales for Powder-Solutions by 83%. 4. Position yourself differently than others in the space No doubt about it, it’s tough to build personal B2B brand if you’re just like everyone else. You simply can’t be known for what everyone else is. Standing out from the crowd is easy when your products or services are truly one-of-a-kind. When products or services are similar to those offered by the competition, it’s more of a challenge to uniquely position yourself. For one TopRank client – a staffing software company – that challenge was known all too well. To help the client stand from a large pool of competitors, TopRank developed a copywriting strategy where website copy was written in first person, from the viewpoint of the staffing software (i.e., “why you should hire me to fill your staffing software needs”). This strategy has not only helped the company develop a truly distinct B2B brand; the strategy has also achieved increased search traffic, high rankings for terms such as “staffing software” and a trend up in inquiries. 5. Leverage proof points It’s perfectly appropriate – and necessary – to toot your own horn from time to time as part of your B2B branding efforts. Whether it’s an impressive media placement or a web traffic milestone, implement proof points illustrating why your organization is a thought leader into marketing communications. Keep in mind that proof points are both analytical and subjective. For example: Analytical: website traffic increases, number of retweets of blog posts, number of blog subscribers Subjective: media placements, media interviews, mentions on blogs Are Your Ready to Take B2B Branding to the Next Level? B2B branding through thought leadership is not as easily quantifiable as other marketing efforts. And investments in reputation building might not pay off as immediately as pay-per-click or email marketing. But building a recognizable B2B brand pays off in the form of long-term increased referrals, positive brand conversations on both digital and in-person channels, web traffic and sales. What methods have you used to build a B2B brand?

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25th
MAR

How To Develop Great Content – SESNY

Posted by BlogPostman under Pay-Per-Click

At Online Marketing Blog, content marketing is frequently a hot topic.  And with good reason:  it’s a vital skill for marketers. Not only do we at TopRank Online Marketing see great results implementing content marketing for clients, but the industry as a whole sees it as a clear trend.  Consider the following stats: 6 in 10 marketers plan to spend more on content marketing in 2010. 71% of bloggers who maintain blogs for a business – their own or one they work for – report that they have increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs (as just one example of content marketing in action). Content marketing plays an integral role in many of the top digital marketing tactics marketers implemented in 2009. In this fast-paced panel, 3 content marketers each shared some quick tips, trends and strategies for content marketing. Byron White, Chief Idea Officer, ideaLaunch Byron ran through an overview of 10 tips to follow when fleshing out a content marketing plan: 1.  Develop a content marketing plan – many digital marketers just dive in without any type of plan.  This is always a mistake, before going any further, you need to get organized and understand next steps 2.  Use free and paid research tools to research terms – there are a slew of both free and paid research tools which can help you define keywords necessary to create a keyword glossary.  Use tools in conjunction with your own creativity to create an inclusive list of terms. 3.  Find the hot topics and keywords – by understanding the industry and leveraging tools, you can discover hot/trending topics and keywords to be a part of your mix in addition to the mainstay terms. 4.  Develop customer profiles for testing/research the competition – building customer profiles and competitive research allows you to draw upon a knowledge base when creating content to both stand out from competitors and connect with your audience. 5.  Develop an SEO plan with “keyword silos” – made up of long tail and short tail keywords – in addition to building a keyword list, group it into like terms in order for your content team to leverage it in an effective manner during content creation. 6.  Score content for SEO strength – either via an automated tool or manually, score existing content for SEO strength in order to gauge what to optimize first. 7.  Infuse your brand with great content – on the web, your content is your brand (and your brand is your content). 8.  Create stories – people connect with stories more than just product pages and lists of features.  Tell stories and connect with prospects at a much deeper level. 9.  Define great content – know what great content looks like before you develop it.  You can’t create something remarkable unless you have a vision in mind. 10.  Document content publishing date – this is a frequently forgotten, but important tip.  Only by documenting new content publishing date can you track/trend success of that content over time. Of course, metrics are key – track interaction and engagement with content.  Get to a point you understand how your content, whether a blog post or a product page, is converting and working for your brand. Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO, SuccessWorks Heather spoke on developing great content in the B2C and B2B space. Why care about content?  The best SEO is good content, according to Seth Godin.  If you want people to convert, link to you or even visit your site you need quality content. Main advantage of good content?  Control.  Great content allows you to gain control of your site. Tip # 1:  Think about your target audience Start by creating a customer persona.  The questions you need to answer to do this include: Who is your target audience?  (hint: it’s not everyone) Do you have multiple audiences? How old is your typical buyer/reader? What education level do they have? What are their average levels of income? What benefits are important? Tip #2: Expand your keyphrase universe Look for opportunities to build out new, unique content.  Reach both hit and long tail phrases, and create content that speaks to a broad mix of terms.  One way to do this is build out a resource section to answer both broad and ultra-specific, detailed questions. Tip #3:  Free your content from “fake SEO rules” “Party like its 1999…but don’t optimize your site that way.”  I.E. – there’s no need to follow a specific keyword density to rank.  Instead focus on quality first, keywords second. General SEO content rules: Keyphrases in headlines/subheadlines Keyphrases in hyperlinks Keyphrases throughout the content (but not forcing it) Keyphrase-rich title Focus around 2-3 keyphrases per page Tip #4:  Help your titles sizzle off the surface of SERPs When you’re on a SERP, there are 10 results and users need to pick one. Try to keep your titles to around 70 characters Include your main keyphrases Clearly explain what the landing page is about Include benefit statements (such as “free”) whenever possible Tip #5 There is always something you can do Beware the “website mullet.”  Check for outdated copy.  Some of the worst offenders can be press pages, conference/events pages, old articles, etc.  Where possible, update copy or add additional content if you have older areas of a website gathering cobwebs. Also, if you want to build out a new section of the site to make your content friendlier but can’t change the template:  start a blog or create a new section of the site.  Don’t let technical issues get in your way. Jonathan Allen, Director, Search Engine Watch Jonathan spoke on the idea of using other people’s websites/social sites to gain rankings and an audience.  The theme  was on mash-ups – aka remixes of content. Define your goal – is the goal of this content to persuade or sell people to take action or is it more long-term, to develop links to improve your search engine rankings/brand awareness.  Develop personas – I.E. connectors, those hyper-connected individuals who will help your content spread.  By reaching them, you achieve the highest propensity for your content to spread. Create content – it must be relevant and must be compelling. Connect – once content starts to spread, connect with others and encourage them to share so it spreads further. Rinse and repeat – when you find a formula that works, continue to leverage that to create additional content. 

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24th
MAR

10 Steps to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

SES New York kicked off with an excellent keynote presentation by David Meerman Scott (interview) followed by a panel on Digital Asset Optimization including Mark Knowles, Chris Boggs and myself. Richard Zwicky moderated. The rising importance of optimizing one’s digital assets came out of Google and other search engines’ decision to start including information and file types from other sources that their main search index. Some queries trigger search results that go beyond web pages, MS Office docs and PDF files to include images, blog posts, news, video thumbnails, books and others. While many SEOs were responding to the changed landscape of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and optimizing for other file types, many others were already optimizing holistically under the premise of, “ What can be searched on can be optimized “. Most companies are not wired to create the variety of content that can achieve top visibility on search engines. In most cases, search engine optimization efforts are focused on content and digital assets that are currently in place.  Being able to get more marketing impact out of existing content is as much a driver of digital asset optimization as it is a part of a holistic strategy that matches up with the opportunities presented by an ever changing search results page. In the DAO session I presented a historical perspective on DAO based on when we started writing about it in 2007 and the changed search landscape we face with personal, real-time, social and mobile search. I also discussed TopRank’s 10 Steps DAO Content Strategy: Search & Social Media Keyword Research Anticipating demand via search is traditionally handled by keyword research tools such Google’s tools, Bing or services like Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. As advertising and media placements can drive search, so can social conversations. Social media monitoring tools can help marketers conduct social keyword research as a compliment to search based keyword research. Find out what key language and key topics are being discussed on the social web and you’ll have invaluable insight into content idea that provide value for social media marketing and search engine optimization. Analyze Search Results Landscape The output of Universal and real-time search results are not persistent. For example, a search for a particular phrase one day might yield news and image results and on another day display only web pages. It’s useful to monitor the search results landscape for keyword phrases that you’re after. Understanding the mix of data sources besides the main search engine index can help with the allocation of optimization resources. If News and real-time results are most common, it may make more sense to focus on content promotion there vs images or video. Define Buyer Personas & Buying Cycle Understanding the needs of your customer is marketing 101. Search marketers are becoming more sophisticated in their understanding of customer profiles and developing personas to represent who you’re trying to attract via search is an important step in a content strategy. Knowing what kind of content and what type of digital asset your customers will best respond to can improve effectivness at driving traffic from the search visibilyt you’ve achieved through SEO. The buying cycle is another dimension that warrants attention to make sure you’re creating, promoting and optimizing content that is relevant to where your customers are in their search/research process. Broad concepts usually represent early stages of research versus more specific phrases which often indicate a buyer is closer to purchase. Inventory Existing Content & Assets With a more holistic SEO effort, especially one that will incorporate digital assets, it’s important to have a baseline understanding of what you have to work with. Taking inventory of your content and digital assets is something we’ve been recommending for over 3 years and it’s an essential first step. Having an understanding of current content and digital assets can also uncover content that is ripe for re-purposing. A common example is video that can be deconstructed into multiple, short form videos, single images, transcribed into text or splitting the audio off into a podcast. Develop editorial plan for new content Understanding your search and social media keywords, buyer personas and the assets you have to work with will help identify what new content you’ll need to create. Adopting the perspective of a publisher, not just a marketer, will help resource allocation, planning and goals/measurement for content creation. For example, rather than just sending out a press release and publishing a blog post with a new product announcement, a company might, based on search/social keyword research and an understanding of their buyer personas, decide to create a resource page for journalists that includes links to relevant resources, standard press release, images, PowerPoint, video, past media coverage, executive interviews, audio snippets, demo and appropriate media relations contact info. It would be made easy to bookmark or share this resource page as well. The assets being linked to from the resource page would be hosted either on the corporate site, optimized of course, or hosted on 3rd party media sharing sites such as Flicrk, YouTube, SlideShare, DocStoc, PRWeb and others. This provides a richer experience as well as numerous options for interaction. It also offers multiple, potential entry points into the resource page via search, since the optimized digital assets can rank in search results on their own and link to the destination content on the corporate web site. Map Keywords to Content & Digital Assets The functional process of implementing search/social keyword research is to map those concepts to the content and assets you have. This helps manage the initial keyword optimization process. Mapping keywords to the editorial plan is also a useful guide for the future creation and optimization of content. Not only are web pages, images, video and other assets optimized for search, but optimized for customers. Operationalize Content & Digital Media Creation with SEO SEO and digital asset optimization are not one-time events. Keyword demand will change and of course, new content and media will be published. To ensure keyword optimization of new content, it’s important to incorporate SEO with established content creation and promotion processes. That might be updating the corporate styleguide with SEO and keyword usage rules or it might mean making programming changes to the web site’s content management system to prompt content creators with keyword cues when adding text or other media. Develop Off Page DAO Assets The beauty of social content is of course, that it’s social! Sharing should be easy and encouraged. Hosting some digital assets on social media sharing sites such as those mentioned above (Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare, DocStoc) can introduce your optimized content to new audiences and attract both traffic and links. More relevant links mean better search engine visibility and web site visitors. Promote/Syndicate via Distribution Channels How will anyone know you have excellent content and digital assets if you don’t promote? Dedicate a fixed and persistent effort to developing social networks where your customers and influentials spend their time on the social web. Do the same with social media sharing web sites so that when you post a new video on YouTube for example, your network there can be notified. Developing distribution channels for content will significantly improve reach and the likelihood of your content being passed on, shared and made socially popular. Email newsletters, RSS, Ping.fm and TwitterFeed services are good examples of content distribution services that help promote content efficiently. Ongoing Measurement with Web, Social and Search Analytics Search marketing professionals are well aware of the value from web and search analytics that measure search visibility performance as well as web site interactions and conversions. The importance of social media monitoring and analytics is also essential for a DAO Content strategy. On the front end, social media monitoring tools can help you identify conversations and influentials that are meaningful to the topics and customers your marketing efforts are trying to reach. Social keyword research can in part, be accomplished by some social media monitoring tools. Those same tools are essential for measuring the social impact of your digital asset and social media optimization efforts. A simple cycle would be one where you’ve identified new keyword topics beginning to buzz on the social web and taking that cue to create content. Promote that content through your social networks and use social media monitoring to track the effects of your content contributions to the larger conversation on the topic. Use web analytics to measure any increase in search based traffic based on the growing popularity and awareness of the topic based in part, on your contributions and social interactions. With an Optimized Content Strategy, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that by following these 10 steps, a significant impact can be achieved in overall authority for the topics and keyword concepts focused on as well as the ability to attract new business, media coverage and employees. The bad news is that it’s not easy. Making the commitment to serving customers with content and media on an ongoing basis, indefinitely without the initial ability to forecast ROI will make many companies say, “Great idea and it makes sense, but not for us.” However, those companies that make the effort to really understand and implement these fundamental concepts are making an investment with a payoff that is very long term and with momentum, very signifcant. Some companies will be able to “come out of nowhere” and dominate their category by following these 10 guidelines for an optimized content marketing strategy. Live blogging coverage of the Digital Asset Optimization session at SES New York was provided by: SEM Geek Outspoken Media Search Engine Roundtable AimClear And this article on Holistic SEO with Digital Asset Optimization was recently posted on ClickZ

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24th

5 Tips To Optimize Press Releases For Search From PRWeb – SESNY

Posted by BlogPostman under Pay-Per-Click

TopRank Online Marketing has been working with PRWeb providing SEO consulting services for nearly one year. PRWeb was founded in 1997 to help small businesses and communications professionals leverage the web to share their news directly with the public. As part of this process PRWeb lead the way for the “direct-to-consumer” press release, enabling companies to communicate their news directly to customers, prospects, analysts and the media. During the past decade, PRWeb has reshaped the traditional press release and changed how companies large and small distribute news. Innovations of PRWeb over the years include: Search engine optimization (SEO) for press releases to increase the visibility of news in search engines like Google and Yahoo! Social bookmarking tools like trackbacks and bookmark links to take advantage of the explosion in social networking Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to increase the distribution potential of news and built the industry’s largest RSS network Allowing customers to include podcasts along with their news to increase the impact of their news release The “Feature Video” allowing customers to leverage the video content from popular sites like YouTube to bring their news to life Meg Walker, Director of Online Marketing for PRWeb lead a session discussing how to optimize press releases to gain the strongest visibility in both search engines and media. 1.  Meet audience demand Prior to drafting a release, you need to understand what your audience is demanding.  Meeting audience demand is integral to accomplishing your press release visibility objectives. There are many times you don’t realize there may be a hook in to reach your target, and understanding audience demand allows you to tap into it. The steps to meet audience demand include: Knowing your audience – what is it potential prospects and media are interested in?  In what tone should they be spoken to?  Do they appreciate a certain angle over another?  Understanding is key and should drive the strategy behind the release. Be relevant – more than just understanding your audience, give them content that is both relevant and timely.  By doing this, you’ll create the highest propensity your news gets picked up, shared and passed on. Satisfy customer demand – to know what the demand is, first research popular trends in search engines and stay on the pulse of your industry.  By creating content that is related to hot topics you can create far more visibility for your releases.  Staying up to date, informed and on the pulse of your customers is vital to connect with them through press releases. 2.  Stay focused By keeping your keywords and topics focused, your release can rank better in search engines and resonate more with media.  As you are writing releases, remember you are writing about one topic per release .  By segmenting the message or trying to say too much at once, you dilute your key points and take a risk prospects and media will walk away without taking next steps or remembering the point.  Keep it simple, focused and impactful. 3.  Use images for search Images can increase the click through rate on releases in both regular and news search by 15 – 25%.  It’s a simple step, but can’t be stressed enough.    Additionally, using images creates more traction in media – journalists and bloggers both love images as it helps them tell their story. At PRWeb, we have seen releases that used 3 images generate more than 50 articles.  We also find that many people are discovering images via image search, which then draws them back not only to the release, but to the customer web sites.  Because PRWeb hosts press releases forever, your images can continue to receive both organic and image search traffic indefinitely. 4.  Use videos to engage visitors By using video in news releases, we have seen up to a 500% increase in time on pages.  As the web shifts to a rich media experience, bloggers, media and end users are becoming more accustomed to video.  In the future, it may be common that video is included with releases.  But since today it is not as frequently used, it’s a chance to make your news stand out. 5.  Optimize your release Anchor text links – use 3 One to homepage – direct visitors directly to your company website. One to product page – send media and consumers directly to the product they are reading about. One to blog post – this presents an opportunity to speak to readers in a less formal fashion.  With social web users and digital influencers continually expecting social content, a press release presents a great opportunity to spark interest in your social content. Alt-tag – an alt tag helps your images get discovered in search engines – all release images should be tagged appropriately. URL Keyword – top keywords can be used as part of the URL string, so be sure and include those during the release selection process.  PRWeb allows you to customize this. Description Tag – add a keyword rich and compelling description tag (on PRWeb, that will become the meta tag). Title of release – the title of the release will become the title tag of the page, which is a vital element of your on-page optimization.  If you have a target phrase, ensure your phrase leads the title of release.  You can learn more about PRWeb at their website or follow them on Twitter .

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19th
MAR

Google: The Social Media Company

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

Over the last few years, the popularity of social channels – for professionals, teens, grandmas and everyone in between – has skyrocketed. Consider the recent numbers: Twitter experienced an annual growth in 2009 of 1,382% Facebook now boasts 400 million active users Every minute, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube Between blog posts, Facebook status updates, tweets, videos and every other piece of social content published, there’s a whole lot of information floating around out there. Enter the latest social media player, Google. Google’s latest activities, acquisitions and features all point to the fact that the search giant no longer has a close eye on web 2.0; it’s already there. Here are 5 ways Google is now becoming a dominant social media player: 1. Google Social Search Google Social Search results Until now all of the social content in channels like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, hasn’t been easy to find in a central place – including through Google search.  Until now, that is. That’s where Google Social Search comes in. It’s still in the experimental stages, but this new feature combines users’ social connections with organic searches. For example, if you were to search for “New Zealand,” social search results would appear beneath the organic search results. The tool scans your social connections’ content (based on the social accounts included in your Google profile) to create these results. 2. Google Buzz Google Buzz These days, it seems the social world is abuzz with talk of Google Buzz . This new product is built into Gmail and essentially turns users’ inboxes into social networks. A mobile version of Google Buzz is also available. Here’s how it works: Google Buzz leverages current email contacts and connects you with their social profiles. Through Gmail, you can share status updates and photos, and start conversations, all through from your email. What does this mean for your brand? You may want to consider adding Gmail to your social media marketing mix. 3. Twitter and Facebook Feeds in Search Results Imagine the tweets highlighting your latest blog post or a new product launch getting found in organic searches. These days, that’s a reality. At the end of February, Google happily announced on Twitter that public status updates from Facebook fan pages would now be included in real-time search . Facebook joins a long list of other social content appearing in search results including: Twitter tweets FriendFeed updates Google Buzz posts MySpace updates Twitter and Facebook marketing efforts, then, take on new importance and new meaning. It’s now essential that all social content be optimized just as other online content is optimized. 4. Google’s Social Acquisitions Still not convinced that Google’s sights are set on social? Just check out the list of its acquisitions over the last nine years, and count the social platforms. In terms of sites owned by Google, the search giant has the gamut covered: Video Sharing: YouTube Blogging Tool: Blogger.com Wiki: Knol Social Networking: Orkut Image Sharing: Picasa Social Search: Aardvark 5. Google Wave Google Wave Essentially, Google Wave is 21 st century email. The tool enables real-time communication and collaboration – i.e., share images, post videos, discuss ideas. Within Google Wave, you can create a message, invite other users to take part in the discussion, and add files, images, videos, you name it. The coolest part about the tool is conversations are live, but you can rewind the wave at any time to see a previous comment. It’s only available in limited preview right now, and you need an invitation from Google to join. Unfortunately, I’m not one of the lucky ones. Google, if you’re out there, can you hear me? There’s no doubt about it: Google’s gone social. What’s up in the air is where it will go next. What do you think will be the next Google social media tools or applications?

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