Archive for May, 2010
Online Marketing Leaders Prepare for National Conference
The Grand Hall at Olympia in west London will play host to the UK’s largest gathering of online marketing experts and professionals at the end of next month.
From 29 June, the Online Marketing Show will be showcasing the best and brightest of the sector, and giving participants a taste of some of the most innovative developments in the field.
Organised by Marketing Week, in association with New Media Age, the Online Marketing Show takes place over two days. There will be two main arenas at the conference – one dedicated to Digital Marketing and the other to Search and Online Advertising.
Both arenas will see leading industry figures giving presentations on anything from metrics to the best ways to achieve search engine optimisation (SEO), talking the audience through case studies of the most successful online marketing campaigns and tactics that have yielded impressive results.
Others will set out the challenges for the online marketing industry in the future and lead open discussions on the best ways to face up to these challenges – particularly the rapidly growing area of social networking, via such phenomena as Twitter and Facebook.
And of course, the Online Marketing Show will be the perfect opportunity for anyone involved in the industry to check out their competitors and indulge in a spot of networking, all the while brushing up their own marketing techniques and strategies. There will be a special focus on opt-in techniques and subscriber strategies – with other areas including key words, RSS, video and banner ads, social media and SMS.
Mortgage Firms Urged to Grasp Online Marketing
The head of the Mortgage Alliance has called on lenders to take up the challenge of online marketing in order to grow their businesses.
Writing for Mortgage Strategy magazine, Phil Whitehouse argued that the massive growth of online marketing, particularly SEO marketing, makes it impossible for even the most hidebound home loans company to ignore.
Mr Whitehouse cited figures from information technology experts Greenlight, which indicated that customers’ online searches for financial products soared in January this year – and “mortgages” was the term that most people were looking for on Google and other search engines.
Greenlight’s report used industry data to classify 540 of the most popular search terms used by consumers to find providers of savings, credit and debit cards, mortgages and loans online. Of these, 58 per cent of the terms related to mortgages – equivalent to 3.2 million searches overall.
“There’s no doubting the increasing popularity of online activity and it’s important that brokers recognise this and embrace changes in the national psyche when marketing themselves,” Mr Whitehouse wrote.
He urged mortgage companies to harness the power of online marketing rather than trying to resist the rise of the internet – and pointed out that companies did not need to be tech-savvy themselves, as there were many support services and IT companies able to do an excellent job on their behalf.
“Brokers also need to invest in publicising their online presence as customers will not find them without some kind of marketing. And websites needs constant attention, with the addition of relevant content to keep clients wanting to revisit,” he cautioned.
Mr Whitehouse stressed that if properly planned, online technology can help mortgage brokers offer more support to their clients and business partners, as well as increasing efficiency and identifying new sources of income.
E Commerce our SEO CMS Guide
Over the previous 10 years we have used and tested several different Content management systems for e commerce. I am going to go through some of the different options available for a complete novice to save an awful lot of time and energy.
The first stage is to decide upon a content management system this is the key to the long term success of your online shop. The systems available all have there advantages and disadvantages where I look is the (SEO) Search engine optimisation features available and also the code used and its suitability and friendliness towards google.
The first system I am going to mention is oscommerce this system has been around for a longtime and as it is a open sourced system it has a massive amount of add ons available we use oscommerce and have found it to be a great system to use. The oscommerce sites also have a SEO pack that allows you to include a variety of titles and descriptions to each page. This is a must if all you items are going to be listed on google for the search results.
The next system is Joomla this is a system that is used by a lot of online shops but I have experienced problems upgrading from old versions of Joomla to new versions without losing important content. It does have seo plug ins available but I have found the entire structure of the Joomla system with the articles system not very user friendly it will take some time before you get used to the system but I am sure once you get to grips with it the system will work fine. But I do feel there are easier more user friendly systems out there.
Ekm Powershop is a fantastic system that we would recommend using available at around £30 per month you hire the shop from the company and log in online and add your content. The system is very easy to use what I would say is if you are serious about making the shop work well invest an extra £800 to £1000 in getting a custom designed template by there Photo shop experts. It really is so very easy to set everything up and you get the peace of mind of having a support team on the phone if required.
Another option is a custom designed CMS content management system by a smaller Web design company that is specifically coded and updated to your requirements. This will probably be more expensive but you will have one big advantage over the other systems that is total control which is one thing lacking in the other systems.
So to round things up if you are looking for a online shop we would recommend the following 3 systems -
1. Your own purpose built ecommerce CMS from your own Webmaster
2. Ekm powershop is a very cost effective proven system
3. Oscommerce a proven old system not to be over looked
Facebook a Great Start For Online Marketing
If you are a new business or have no experience in marketing your established business online then Facebook is a great place to start. Facebook now allows companies the option of opening there very own fan pages. If you have a Facebook page for personal use then great you can use your current account to setup the Fan page.
If you are totally new to Facebook then that is no problem you can start a fresh specific business page. Where having an existing stock of friends on a personal page comes in useful is you can suggest these people become a fan of your business. Once your friends are fans of the page they will be provided with regular updates from your page if and when updated.
One of the most common things we have experienced with our clients is as soon as the facebook page is setup that is it and no further content or information is added. The key is the constant interaction and being able to engage the audience if your Social networking campaigns are going to be a success online. Lets face it why on earth would anyone be interested in a page on facebook called “RJD Joinery” for instance but lets say that same page provided regular updates with help and advice or even diy tips then people will engage with the page and perhaps share that information with there friends and thus the snowball effect of social networking begins.
Its the same old tale you only get back what you put in and this is very much the case with social networking. How on earth am I going to find the time to update the facebook page on top of my website? you may ask. Well the key is to get this fully integrated to a source of news and this is where the social marketing experts come in handy. Existing experience in making these campaigns work is a must before you consider getting any help in this area.
So to round things up -
1. Open up a fan page for your business,
2. Suggest friends
3. Provide regular updates with free help and advice
Remember it is free and if you offer a product or service there are millions of people on facebook who may be interested.
The Wonders of the Google Wonder Wheel
Over the past year, Google has been quietly redefining the way in which its users identify and expand their online searches with a number of new features – and few have been as game-changing as the Google Wonder Wheel.
The tool is intended to make search results simpler and easier to understand, while at the same time showing the user all the search terms related to their original query.
Google says that the Wonder Wheel has been steadily gaining in popularity over the past 12 months and is now regularly used by more than a million people.
Mind mapping software is already an established way of finding related search terms by creating diagrams showing the connections between different pieces of information, and the Google tool is a handy predefined version of this. When “Show options…” is selected from the Google search results, the option of viewing the Google Wonder Wheel appears in a toolbar on the left of the screen. Selecting this makes the original search term appear as the “hub” of a wheel-shaped display, with all the relevant related terms shown as “spokes” radiating from the centre.
But that is not all – selecting one of the related search terms opens up another wheel, with all the terms related to that radiating out from the centre. In this way, a user can gain as much information as possible about all the possible ramifications of their original search.
The implications of this powerful new tool for anyone involved in online marketing or retail are immense – the Google Wonder Wheel helps to build a website focused more sharply on relevant keywords, based upon the array of search terms which the tool flags up.
Online retailers can easily seek out keywords related to their core business and beef up their SEO, while never losing sight of those niche terms, online advertisers can quickly discover what is “hot or not” on Google, while managers can carry out mind mapping exercises to maximise business efficiency more easily than ever before.
The Google Wonder Wheel has gathered rave reviews from internet geeks, level-headed businessmen and online marketing experts alike. It is far too valuable a tool for anyone involved in e-commerce to ignore.
Online Firms Hail ‘Essential’ SEO Strategies
Recent studies have shown that online marketing is coming to dominate the field – especially the vital area of search engine optimisation (SEO).
A poll by Internet Retailer in the US found that over a quarter of America’s online companies – 27 per cent – believed that half or more of their sales via the internet were thanks to SEO marketing. The survey also found that over half of online firms – 51.5 per cent – were convinced that a quarter or more of their web traffic had been attracted to their sites by natural searches via the likes of Google. Furthermore, 53.5 per cent of respondents said that this number had grown over the past 12 months.
Companies said that their primary means of optimising SEO strategies was the writing of new keyword descriptions on their homepages and the web pages advertising their products or services. A secondary, but still highly important strategy, consisted of ensuring that the most commonly-searched terms were included on their product pages and that product images were prevalent.
These findings were echoed in another recent survey by Practical eCommerce, which found that an overwhelming 95 per cent of US online retailers regarded SEO as an “essential” centrepiece of online marketing.
Despite this, however, only 40 per cent of respondents would agree that they had a solid understanding of what SEO involved. One even told pollsters that “organic search is a priority, but it is a moving target, so you can’t spend all your time trying to watch or improve your results.”
“It is becoming less important (or at least a harder target to hit) as more social media, search personalization and the various ways of viewing search results evolves.”
Google’s New look shows internet’s evolution
Over the past 2 weeks google has evolved before our very eyes I would like to give you our experts view on the changes and the effects they may have on any future searches. First things first is the new smoother look logo and square search boxes this brings the homepage up to date and looks great in my opinion. It still keeps the minimalist look and feel of the original google we all know and love.
The next change and the most interesting change from our point of view looking at it from an online marketing point of view are the new collection of search options now visible on the left hand side of the search page. The introduction of quick buttons to the news and blog results along with the more prominent live search results that include the increasingly popular twitter updates.
As we see it we are seeing a evolution from the standard production of html pages on websites and there inclusion in the natural listings as being the main source of results to a move towards live feeds. The integration of RSS feeds, blogs and twitter and most importantly there popularity has seen google quite rightly move towards there integration to keep google up to date in 2010.
The popularity of Facebook and the live feed ability has I am sure not gone unnoticed and its great to see google keeping up to date with the times and not being stubborn and embracing this new exciting side of the Internet. One more large change we have seen has been the larger number of related searches being displayed on search results.
The concept being if you were to search for a generic term such as “football” for instance you will receive a collection of the top 8 other related searches. This is becoming more and more prominent on all searches and is giving more strength to the longer tailed search phrases adding another string to companies SEO strategies and helping spread the traffic to a more specific result.
So how is this going to effect your business ? Well if you are not blogging on a regular basis it is seriously worth considering it is not too late to get on the blogging wagon and begin your companies social networking campaigns no matter what industry or whether you provide a product or service.
