It never fails to amaze me how companies refuse to let go of their precious meta-keywords tags from web pages. Somewhere down the line years ago….someone told them to add meta-keywords to every page on their site to rank well.
Continue reading Why Companies Should Delete all Meta-keywords from Web Pages?
This question has a tendency to get thrown around in various ways. On one hand we have the articles that profess “not” to show ROI since it’s hard to put a value on the strength of 1 visitor (potential client, visitor, competitor or other) and YOUR VALUE that of creating a healthy site. Other articles get into the complications of if” Social media counts and if your SEO efforts have impact on Referrals should they also be included?”…and so on……….
Ok, if you haven’t checked out my previous article “Direct Marketing – What is it?“, then you might want to start with that as an introduction. The following is a list I compiled to aid marketers with embracing their “Direct marketing” efforts
WHAT DO YOU ADVISE?
1- Timing is everything!
You want to roll out your “winter wear” campaigns during the snow season, not before, not when it’s not needed. This way by the time it “is” season, they are not worn down with a smattering of ads from the summer months
2- Higher quality leads are key to having a better ROI!
Again, the key term here is “quality leads”. Spamming will cost you time and annoy…better yet, let’s make sure who your sending to “has” an interest in what your selling.
3- Keep your list fresh!
Always make plans to update your list, delete dead accounts and keep it current, so that your efforts are going out to fresh prospects, not hand me down email addresses. It has been written that 40% of your returns relies on the “correct” list being used, whether it’s by direct mail or email.
4- Target those who are more “likely” to take an interest in your product
This comes from efficient profiling and a trusted database
5- Educate your customers!
Don’t just sell, sell, sell (or rather market market market ;)…..give them some intelligent info as to why they “should” choose what you are selling. Raise the awareness of your brand!
6- Build your customers profiles!
Learn and fine tune who is best suited for what. A good example of this can be seen on the Amazon.com web site. Have you ever noticed the recommendations seem to match what your interested in? HMM….it’s like they read minds or something! Make sure you have means to capture this data and analyze it. Continue reading 10 Steps to Competent Direct Marketing
Direct Marketing! What’s it all about?
You may have heard this term thrown around over the years, or you might have already actually incorporated the style into your own marketing efforts. Those who use it, tend to stand behind it, as it’s a form a marketing that really works if you let yourself wrap your head around it. It has been called by many as one of the most “efficient” forms of marketing. now, the emphasis of this site is of course “Inbound Marketing”, however many principles began with various forms of marketing such as DM (and in many ways cross-over)
Though for the purpose of this article, my aim is to list out the key points of what it is and why it’s important. It has been a form of marketing that many have already utilized and continue to utilize to provide the best “experience” and “need” for your customers.
First a few key directives:
Spam = annoying, old school, bothersome, could and “will” put off” potential customers
Wait! what do you mean….my mailing list may be in the 1000’s, but I “do” get “some response?
Yep, well a mailing list is part of it, but not the old school spammy way. The “send it and they will come” days are a thing of the past, and it’s definitely not the way of Direct Marketing.
Remember this simple 3 step directive:
DATA–> TO INSIGHT —>TO ACTION
So what is it?
Essentially it’s the practice of taking a product and trying to sell it to those who have an “interest” in what your selling. Say for instance a friend, or an associate. Better yet, those who trust you and appreciate your efforts in marketing them things that they have a need for. It’s educating your customer, so that they can make the right decisions. It’s educating them on why “what” you have, is what they are looking for”. In short it is a form of “customer relationship management“. Continue reading Direct Marketing – What is it?
I’ve been testing out different “traffic exchange” systems to monitor the results thru Google analytics. Now for those who are new to these things, “Crowd Ignite” is not the only player in town, but in my opinion, one of the better. I don’t run them on “this” site, but am running it on another.
How they work is that you include their widget on your site and it displays the type of content that you specify (thru settings etc…such movies, sports, politics, etc).
The thumbnails link to other sites that pass thru “Crowd Ignite” first. As you send traffic (people clicking on the thumbnail links), “Crowd Ignite” sends back a %150 to 700% referral return rate of click backs (it registers your pages and promotes them on other sites the same way).
This can also be monitored thru your account with them.
It can also be verified thru your Google analytics referrals
It’s worth nothing that it takes about 3-4 days before the return rate has ramped up. This is due to them flagging you in the system and including some of your pages .
Now the traffic that they send back can vary but you should expect tier 1 or tier 2 style traffic. Since its actual readers clicking on article links, its not shady like a “auto-surfing” site may be (also “auto surfing” referrals will get your Adsense account banned (no really…it will!)
I’ve done some testing with and without the widget activated to see how it would effect things. I did notice that quite a bit of referrals noted in Google Analytics were coming from “Crowd Ignite”. This is a good thing. (it was actually 2nd to Google itself) Continue reading Does Crowd Ignite Work? Do Traffic Exchanges Work?
SEO continues to get more specific and a bit harder the case of SERPs and gaining leverage. In many respects its becoming the Web that we wished for, for so many years. Though as SEO’s that means we need to wear our hats a little differently and be willing to nut-up to the changes.
The titles continue to roll in:
OVER OPTIMIZATION TO BE PENALIZED IN FAVOR OF GREAT CONTENT
What does this mean, and what are the solutions? Well if you’ve been keeping to the MO that has been preached for years, this means that if you are a great content creator…and fill your pages with valuable, semantic, relative content….you should be just fine.
If you’ve been using shortcuts to implore clever SEO tactics in the effort to overshadow lousy or small inadequate content, then this article is for you. Let’s take a look at whats being said:
Google has announced that they will be cracking down harder on sites that use SEO to the extreme without really offering value. This change includes “penalty” targeting sites that over optimize. The stated purpose is to “level the playing field” Continue reading SEO Over Optimization Warnings – Steps to Take in 2012
Sure you know the scoop by now. Pick out your keywords, grab a handfull or more of keyword URL domains and plant your seed sites into ground. The MO for this was, by doing this you claim important keyword traffic with a site URL that is also called your target keyword. Makes Sense?
I believe the technical term for this approach is called “One-Page Doorway Domains”
So here’s the skinny. That worked for awhile and on few instances still works to some level. Though this, like any SEO tactic stars to become oversaturated, predictable and less effective.
Why? Because the SERPS also make adjustments to demand more from their sites.
Matt Cutts of Google delivers what appears to be bad news for mini-sites
According to the post, Google is once again changing their algorithm to penalize sites that “don’t have much content “above-the-fold”.
“In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result.” Continue reading The Death of 1 Page SEO Sites