Category: Search, SEO & SEM

SOCIAL NETWORKING MAKES “FRIENDING” A FASTER PATH TO ANSWERS THAN “FINDING”. IT’S TIME TO START THINKING ABOUT YOUR FEO* STRATEGY (*FRIEND ENGINE OPTIMIZATION).

Searching for the right words used to be a task predominantly associated with writing and explaining yourself for getting home late while still in high school. In today’s world, it’s one of the key skills in finding the information, services and products you need or want – it’s the secret to being a good web searcher.

But a prolific vocabulary and expert skills in crafting Boolean search strings may soon return to their more classic associations – even while search engines of today continue to catalog all we know and say down to the last tweet. And interestingly, the change agent this go around isn’t a new algorithm or a breakthrough in artificial intelligence – it’s the ancient and favored information source we’ve enjoyed for millennia. It’s socialization.

Metadata meets social smarts

The convergence of social power and search is already well underway. Google has just launched “Google +”, which integrates socialization at multiple points – most notably through “Sparks”, allowing you and your networks of friends to share and recommend sites and information to drive up relevance to individual search results.

Bing has integrated similar functionality by harnessing the “Likes” and social circles that already exist in Facebook. They claim intuitive search results based on associations with your network, quicker insight into who thinks the results are good, and a number of other integrated crowdsourced tips and insights from groups you trust.

A new player, Blekko, touts “spam-free” search, completely curated by users. They are quickly gaining credibility as a reliable, fast and easy way to get to useful results.

Leaving the “who’s gonna win this war” debate aside, it’s clear these players recognize the power of people to create greater relevance. They know what we’ve been seeing in retail research – easily 75% of shoppers today look for a review or recommendation from a friend or influencer to help them make a decision. The search engines are tapping that power as a next generation in search.

People power beats processing power

There’s already a trend in play that holds even more potential to reshape search – socialization itself.

How many of us have been pinged by our Facebook friends for a restaurant or movie recommendation? Perhaps you’re not an active Facebooker, but a growing majority of people across the globe are, and they don’t have to think much about search terms at all. Simply float a question to your network – “Hey, anyone know what might be wrong with my old 94 Yamaha? It keeps dying on me!” – and answers are volunteered. It’s fast, easy, and is proving to be reliable.

This kind of search is arguably the preference for Millennials and Gen We, who have grown up with these tools and have friend networks that average at or above 500. They are growing up with social intelligence as a norm and readily use this form of “Life-Lining” for information.

Time to get socializing

Search engine marketing has earned a well deserved place as a critical component of virtually any marketing plan. In today’s world, search usually plays an essential part in a customer finding you.

But that role is bound for redefinition – perhaps quickly. Engaging socially – listening, providing relevance and connecting to networks will be market making activities (if they’re not already). It’s time to ask yourself: What’s your FEO (Friend Engine Optimization) strategy?

If you have a small business and want to make sure that your site is easy to find, this article is for you.  After reading this, you should have a good idea about what you should focus on for your local business. Businesses of all sizes have a myriad of options across an ever growing number of channels to promote their product or service. Options range from traditional print ads to the ever popular deal-of-the-day programs such as Groupon and Living Social (or any other number of similar deal services for that matter). This increasing number of channels is slowly but surely changing the landscape of SEO tactics.

Most small business owners don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to the tedious and nuanced craft of SEO. If you’re a small business owner looking to start optimizing your site, but aren’t sure how, here’s a list of some quick wins that can help get you started.

1.    Register/claim your business on all the major business directories and review sites. Registering and/or claiming your business on Google Places, Yelp for Business Owners, etc. means that you have officially recognized your business’ listing in that online directory. There are so many directories that you could spend hours, or even days, registering and maintaining them all, so you may want to use an online directory aggregator (Localeze and UBL are the favorites) to help streamline the process for a nominal fee.

2.    Keep your Name, Address, Phone (NAP) up-to-date and consistent.  Although it sounds basic, there are plenty of small business owners whose NAP is not consistent and up-to-date across their site and online directories. It doesn’t hurt to add it on every page as long it makes sense, but consistency is really the key, and that includes formatting too!

3.    Focus on the quality not the quantity of content on your site. Create or offer insightful and relevant content and remember that content isn’t just the text on your site, it’s images, videos, downloadable materials, etc… As many thought leaders in content strategy will tell you, less is more. Remember, if your target audience makes it to your site, but it finds confusing or pointless once there, you will have failed your business objective.

4.    Focus on the quality of your customer service. If all works as planned and your business starts to gain some traction don’t forget to keep an emphasis on customer service. This may sound like an obvious one, but just remember that with sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, etc. that “little extra” you provide can translate into good karma via rave reviews and top ratings faster than you might expect. This leads to the next point…

5.    Incentivize your customers or users to post reviews. Chances are you’ll have some customers posting reviews on their own, but many small businesses have started offering discounts for posting reviews. If you have a physical location that can accommodate it, have a terminal or iPad setup for users to write their reviews on the premises. If that is not possible, make cards asking users to write reviews on your preferred review site and a discount on their next purchase (e.g. Like us? Write a review on Yelp and get 15% off one item with your next purchase). Be sure to encourage your users to be brief, clear, and to the point when writing their reviews. It’s the most likely way for your reviews to be read.

6.    Build a presence in Social and Professional networks. Much like registering your business on an online directory, you can sign up your business on networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is of course the default social network so that should be your priority, but building a presence on networks such as LinkedIn, if pertinent to your industry of course, will help as well.

7.    Enable “check-ins” (aka mobile-social-local convergence). Part of registering your business in online directories is getting your venue on the map (literally). With the smartphone market booming so are location based check-in services. Take the time to register your venue on any one of the major check-in services: Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Google Latitude (if you’ve registered your business on Google Places you’re all set). You don’t need to have a comprehensive mobile strategy…yet, but just think about what audience could come across your business due to a friend or connection’s check-in.  This requires little to no maintenance, which is why it can be considered one of the easiest viral marketing strategies to implement. Since certain industries are more likely to get check-ins than others (gyms and restaurants versus legal or medical practices) check-in deals (e.g. “10% off your consultation”) have become a popular way to boost check-in rates.

8.    Offer deals and discounts! Once registered in online directories some small businesses offer discounts for first time customers coming from those sites to try to edge out the competition. As seen in points #5 and #7 discounts can serve as a means to encourage viral promotion. Other successful examples include discounts for following your business’ Twitter account, “Like“-ing your Facebook page (previously known as “Becoming a Fan”), or “digg“-ing your site. Foursquare’s “mayor” system turns loyalty into a fun and addicting competition among your most frequent customers and works very well for restaurants, bars, and cafes or anywhere repeat service is frequent.

9.    Do your SEO keyword basics. The basics of keyword use are quite simple but it is important you follow them. When naming your meta description tags and image ALT tags use keywords, only if relevant. Also, be judicious when you include your top keywords in your content, you definitely want to avoid “keyword stuffing.”

10.    Last but definitely not least, links!  Chances are if you have ever expressed any interest in SEO you’ve heard that inbound links are a crucial component to your site’s visibility. That said, not all links are created equal. A good way to start establishing quality inbound links for your site is to research the top directories and networks for your industry and add your business. Some examples for law would include lawyers.com, martindale.com, and lawfirmdirectory.org; for the fitness industry you could use gymticket.com. It’s not easy to game the system and get quality inbound links which would explain why it is such an important factor. Focus on having content that makes for quality pages to link to and you’ll see your pages’ link equity go up overtime.

Whether you’ve just opened your small business or you’re looking to expand your share of the local market, following these local search marketing tips will help you reach your business objectives more effectively. To learn more about how SolutionSet can help with your local search marketing needs, please contact us.

We all know about the sales funnel. In digital marketing, it starts with an ad impression, has one maybe two or three clicks in the middle, and ends with a sale on your website.

Enter Retargeting…have you heard of retargeting?

Retargeting is not a new concept by any means in marketing. Based on some sort of data of customer interest, you will market to them again. Pretty simple.

In the digital world, retargeting is being used more and more as the data becomes more useful and meaningful. Here are two types of retargeting meant to stop the leaks in your digital marketing:

1. Search Retargeting – we all know that search engine marketing is an effective way to market. Search retargeting finds those customers who searched on a keyword related to your product/business, but never clicked on your search ad! We will serve them a banner ad from remnant banner inventory.

2. Site Retargeting – For those potential customers who clicked on an ad or visited your site directly but didn’t convert, Site retargeting finds them and serves banner ads to them. It is a cost effective way to digitally ‘touch’ potential customers again.

We all want to get more out of our marketing dollars. Search and Site Retargeting are two cost effective ways to improve your ROI and put a finger in the leaks of your sales funnel.

Let’s address the elephant in the conference room. Everyone’s talking about apps, social and email, especially brick and mortar businesses looking to get ahead in the online world. You’d be crazy not to. But here’s a little secret: Direct channels can be just as powerful for the “traditional” online-only business. Yes, even today.

According to last year’s Channel Preference Study by ExactTarget, direct mail influenced 76% of Internet users to buy a product or service online. As our own Jeremy Gustafson recently pointed out, research suggests that online shoppers who receive a catalog in the mail spend 163% more (on average) than those who don’t.

We’ve seen it time and again with many of our own clients, most recently Tiny Prints. Here are a few of the tactics that truly pan out:

Multiple formats. Keep things fresh. People tune out when they see the same old thing. This holiday season, we’ll be delighting Tiny Prints’ customers with multiple formats including a mailer and a catalog.

Short and sweet vanity URLs. Take customers to a destination landing pages with an easy-to-type URL. It’ll give you a great way to track traffic while providing customers with the exact content they came to find. Imagine trying to direct people to various mile-long links for Christmas cards, party invitations and photo books. Yikes.

Personalization. Take the opportunity to talk to customers, but do it in a way that reinforces your brand. For our catalog’s front cover, we added the customer’s name to an actual card design. It was an attention-grabbing way to introduce the offer, and it showed how a real product could be customized.

Sweet offers—that expire. Give your customers something they want. For our first touch, Tiny Prints created a steep offer for early bird shoppers that had a limited window to create a sense of urgency. Initial positive experiences are crucial to getting the word out over social channels throughout the holiday season.

A word to the wise: Once a prospect or returning customer arrives at your website, be ready to deliver. The Tiny Prints brand promise is strong, combining the thickest, most luxurious cardstock in the industry with unique designs, premium printing and exceptional service—and they deliver on it. Can you say the same?