 June 30, 2011 More Ways to Stay Updated:  How do you track phone sales from search?by Mike MoranDo you have a shopping cart on your Web site? For most of us, the answer is no. For the average company, phone sales are the biggest way that new customers cross over from the Web to an actual sale. The question is whether you track those sales back to the Web or not. The big guys have been doing this for a long time. They track every phone sale back to SEO, PPC, or whatever marketing tactic led to the sale. Why do they do this? Because without knowing which tactics are leading to sales, you have no idea how much to invest in each type of marketing.
This is not a post about Google+by Mike MoranGoogle+ is the big news. It is what everyone is talking about. Just Google it, if you don't believe me. Check out the reviews. Hear what the pundits have to say. Try to wangle an invitation. Decide if it is a Facebook killer. You have fun with that. This is not a post about Google+, because I don't care about any of that. This is a post about Google, because what you really need to know is staring you in the face. Everything else is just horse race reporting....  Dealing With Getting Ripped Off By SEO Clientsby Miriam EllisNo matter how good you are at your job, sooner or later, you are likely to have a client who refuses to pay you. How can you handle this while staying sane?... Do searchers like your content?by Mike MoranPerhaps you don't care whether searchers like your content. I mean, what you really care about is whether the search engines like your content, right? Or whether a searcher will choose your search result because it is relevant. Or whether they will buy from you. Your content doesn't really need to be likable, does it? If you can somehow get yourself into the rankings and sell it, it doesn't matter how you do it. At least that is what we always thought. But the game is changing.Suddenly, your content needs to be voted Miss Congeniality....  PPC News - Advertisers Can No Longer Hide Behind the Clickby Mike FlemingUntil now, the only information a user had on a search results page to decide where to click was the 135 characters in the ads. This led to many advertisers getting away with bad post-click marketing as long as they wrote great ads. Not any more. Advertisers can no longer hide behind the click. Now, users can hover over an ad and see a preview of the landing page with snippets of real text to see how closely it relates to what they're looking for....  Optimizing Your Online PR Strategy for Search & Social, Part 1: Print Vs. Webby Stoney deGeyterThere is a big difference between reading things online versus offline. We often want to think that reading is reading is reading. But reading here isn't the same as reading there. The mindset between on- and offline is vast. Optimizing Your Online PR Strategy for Search & Social, Part 2: Goals of Online PRby Stoney deGeyterContent just for the sake of being read is nothing more than a bunch of words on the page. Every piece of content should speak to your potential customers, encourage them to engage, and ultimately lead them to that conversion point. Optimizing Your Online PR Strategy for Search & Social, Part 3: Background Researchby Stoney deGeyterThe one thing PR professionals need to remember is that, when putting out online content, your target audience is not just journalists. Your online audience should be much bigger than a small group of people who may or may not be interested in writing about your PR.
Good SEO Starts with Smart Purchasing Decisionsby Stoney deGeyterWhen it comes to purchasing an SEO or SEM strategy for your online business, there are two things to consider: How many hours does it take to meet your expectations, and how much are you willing to pay for each hour that goes into meeting those expectations? Hurry Up and Wait: SEO is About Quick Action and Patient Resultsby Stoney deGeyterThe process of search engine marketing can be defined as a strategic game of quickly implementing strategies that will increase your site's exposure and conversion rates, while also patiently waiting for the fruits of your efforts to bear out. Sometimes you're doing one or the other, but most often you're doing both at the same time. What's Changed? - Your Door to Website Performance Insightsby Mike FlemingEither reporting or looking at reports of your top X whatever rarely leads to insights. Why? They rarely change. OK, once in a while they do, but for the most part, your top keywords, landing pages, referrers, etc. are going to be basically the same. This is because (for most, not all) what you're offering doesn't change. The problem is that when you look at a report like this, you are looking at static numbers. The key to getting insights from your website is looking at trends, or what's changed. This opens up the doors to asking why things went... Search results drop? Blame it on Panda.by Mike MoranI'm noticing a disturbing pattern among some SEO marketers. Anytime their search rankings fluctuate, they blame it on "the Panda update" that Google made to its search ranking algorithm. Now, lots of pixels have been spilled on Panda, with most angles addressing the crackdown on content farming and other low-quality content that has been increasing populating the top results. And a lot of the changes in search results can be directly attributable this algorithm change. But not everything.... Delegating Your SEO Tasks Into a Successful SEO Campaignby Stoney deGeyterVery few people are an island unto themselves, and even fewer have succeeded solely on their own. I admire many of the sole practitioners in the SEO industry, but frankly, I don't understand how they do it. It is a very difficult role to be an expert in SEO, link building, copywriting, analytics, PPC, social media, conversion analysis and coding all at once. Not to mention the time spent blogging, reporting, reading, analyzing, testing, and keeping up with the latest industry changes. Where SEO Stops, Persuasion Beginsby Stoney deGeyterSEO can only take you so far in achieving new business. In fact, it can really only get people in the door and help with the online persuasion process. But, you still have to do the heavy lifting, making sure your site meets visitor expectations, gives them the information they are looking for and walks them to the conversion goals. Return to the Top of this Page
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