December 2008

Climbing the SEO Pyramid

There’s little doubt that SEO campaigns have become more prevalent and more dynamic in the recent past. And while nothing can guarantee the success of your business, there are certainly steps you can take to increase your chances of exposure.

With that in mind, there has been the creation of the SEO pyramid. Offering the necessary steps for SEO success in a level by level form, the rendering of this kind of campaign can be basic or it can be more detailed. But either way, the basic principle remains the same.

For any company that is looking into utilizing an organized SEO campaign, there are several required elements: commitment, keyword research, content, link building, and management.
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Motrin Causes More Pain than it Cures

It kind of seems like a no-brainer, but viral marketing needs to be just as researched, focus grouped, and thought out as print advertising. While most people would respond to this with a hearty, “duh,” this is apparently a lesson that still needs to be learned by the ad agency that worked on the most recent viral campaign for the pain reliever Motrin.

Their latest marketing efforts created the following:

While Motrin wanted to convey the idea that they felt mother’s pain, the overly slick video only seemed to anger mothers and non-mothers alike. It’s painfully obvious now to Motrin (and most people who saw the ad) that this viral marketing effort was not created by or run by any real life mothers.
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Who Needs Guns When You’ve Got Keyboards?

Internet shopping may well reach records highs this holiday season. This influx of business is welcomed by online retailers and criminals alike. Criminals believe that online shoppers are vulnerable to their scams – and they’re right. These aren’t the crooks of yesteryear, today’s thieves don’t need guns – they’ve got technology.

In the last year internet fraud and identity theft have become more widespread than ever. Despite the risks many shoppers choose to do the bulk of their holiday buying online. Who can blame them? There’s nothing worse than standing for hours in line at a department store, battling raging drivers in traffic, or having to travel to several stores just to find one item (wasting gas and money in the process).

When it comes to shopping online the best advice is “buyer beware.” A 2007 survey reported the number of consumers taken in by bogus offers increased by 40 percent between the 2006 and 2007 holiday seasons. Three percent of the adults surveyed said that they lost money from phishing scam. Last year the overall costs to consumers of online fraud surpassed $3 billion, compared with $2 billion the year before.
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Search News Special: Web 2.0

Search engines and Web 2.0 have an unusual marriage. Here in the social media corner of the metaphorical room, we’ve long held the belief that a successful social media and Web 2.0 marketing campaign would contribute positively to organic search engine rankings. We’ve come to this conclusion not just from hopeful thinking, but from solid statistical analysis. Do one well, and the other will follow. Search Engine Land just ran an article about this very phenomenom, citing specific examples of links from social media sites that improved ranking. But all too often these kind of results are treated as an abnormality rather than the norm. The fact of the matter is that it’s extremely difficult to get online, let alone run a marketing campaign, without incorporating a least some aspect of web 2.0 or social media. Think about your daily web activities, and I bet most if not all of them involve some component of the read/write web, whether it’s social networking, blogs, or a simple interaction beyond the passive user. Bottom line, we can’t escape social media and Web 2.0, and the same goes for the search engines and their algorithms.
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Italian Plumbers Rejoice, Nintendo Dominates the Internet

Everyone below the age of thirty-five who is even remotely interested in videogames holds strong to one steadfast truth—Nintendo rules. There’s really no way of avoiding that simple reality. Looming large in the development of many 80s-bred children, Nintendo has been able to seamlessly take their business online while others have fell short. What allows Nintendo to translate its awesome into the world of online business so well? Here are just a few of the possible contributing factors.

-Nintendo was the game of choice throughout the 80s. The children that grew up addicted to Tetris and 2-D Mario are the same kids that are currently addicted to MySpace. In short, their client base constitutes the “internet generation,” and it’s only natural they’d continue their love of Nintendo through online venues.

-While many companies hoard and protect every aspect of their intellectual creations, Nintendo has had a (relatively) open attitude. The iconic games and characters have been translated into just about every new technology, and they are often discussed, altered, and lampooned across the internet.
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Staying Home This Year? Get Some Gear

For many Americans it’s about that time to start planning spring and summer getaways. A couple of years ago that may have meant a visit to the Eiffel Tower, a week-long road trip to the Grand Canyon, or a few days soaking up the sun on a beach in Mazatlan. But, those days of excess have come to a grinding halt as the economy has worsened, and layoffs have proliferated.

This year has been coined the year of the ‘staycation.’ People are spending less, and staying home more. A recent Allstate poll found that nearly half of all Americans plan to cut back on travel in 2009. An International SOS survey found that 4 out of 10 Americans are reducing their international trips, and, according to a Zagat study 20 percent less people will travel in 2009 than 2008.

That doesn’t mean that people won’t be using their two weeks of paid vacation. In fact, more and more people are taking their vacations – at home. And, there’s good reason why they’ve decided to stay home. Even when gas prices are falling, airline fees are stagnant. In October, for example, airfares were up 10 percent. People could barely afford to fly a year ago, and this year it’s no better.
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Comedy Central Presents…Jokes.com

For everyone that thrives on a daily fix of humor, there’s good news in the world of online funniness. Comedy Central has officially announced the reopening of Jokes.com, a website dedicated to all things stand-up.

The site currently offers upwards of 5,000 clips of stand-up comedians, and this archive includes many of the popular comedians that have been previously featured on Comedy Central.

Other site features will include a database of 12,000 text-based jokes as well as a search feature so that users can easily find any of the comedians within Jokes.com. The site currently has over one thousand stand-up comedians and only looks to grow in the coming months.
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Search News Recap 12.12

As we approach the holidays, search engines are getting more attention than usual. I think this time of year sparks more interest in the topic because of the prevalence of online shopping, and the significant power and sway search engines hold over the economic fate of many e-commerce based businesses. With these business owners relying on organic, paid and social media avenues to drive conversions to their websites, everyone wants to know how to get the most out of their search engine exposure, and how to do this for a nice profit margin. This week I’m going to be talking about the interesting organic vs. paid listings debate, updates to Google’s SearchWiki, and the emergence of Google’s beta-less browser, Chrome.
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You Better Not Pout…SEO is Comin’ to Town

With economic troubles the focus of news reports across the nation, there appears to be a correlated trend in the world of search engine optimization (SEO). And that trend involves an increased interest in the practice.

While no simple list can explain this phenomenon, here are some possible reasons that SEO has found itself in the limelight in light of economic troubles.

Sales: The internet offers companies an amazing potential for income. For that reason, the urge to drive traffic to your site increases exponentially when the economy—and consequently sales—are down.
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Modern Old-fashioned Networking

There are very few situations where a social media profile will not be of use to your professional or private life. These days more and more people are jumping on the social media networking bandwagon. In fact, many teenagers who have grown up in the advent of social media don’t know any other form of networking. If you own a small business that’s kicking off a social media marketing campaign you shouldn’t underestimate the importance incorporating some old-fashioned, face-to-face networking. There are dozens of ways to connect that are just as good as “Social Media” on the web.

Here are some suggestions:
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