MasterLink Seminar

Interactive Marketing

Presented by:

Jeff DavisKimber CookKevin AdamsStuart Frazier

Interactive Marketing SpecialistsThe MasterLink Group, Inc.

CHANGE

In a world of Bailouts, Bonuses, and Trillion Dollar Budget Busters… Everything has Changed ! ! !Everything has Changed ! ! !

Business has ChangedBusiness has ChangedYour attendance today tells me “You Get It “ … Self Applause !

Let’s get this party started Let’s get this party started

• Guaranteed Search Engine Positions (see Google)

• Magic Fix Emails

• Permanent Search Engine Positions

• Instant Link Popularity

• You Don't Have to Change Your Web Site

• Create New Microsites

SEO Myths

Statistics

• 150 million American adults use the Internet as part of their daily lives

• 72% of those that use the internet daily spend at least an hour online a day

• 80% consult the web before making any offline purchase

• Cyber Monday online sales were up by 15% in 2008 from 2007

The Daily Internet user…

Demographics

• has at least some college education

• makes $50k or more per year

• has a home wired for a fast connection

• is 55% male and 45% female

The Average Internet user…

Daily Internet Activities

• Organic Search Marketing

• Pay-per-Click Advertising

• Reputation Tracking & Management

• Social Media Marketing

• Email Marketing

• And so much more that we just don’t have time to explain…

Marketing Options

Organic vs. PPC

Wikipedia says:

Organic search results refers to those listings in search engine results pages that appear by dint of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being adverts.

Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites, such as blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an advertisement to visit the advertisers' website.

Organic vs. PPCGoogle SERP

Organic vs. PPCYahoo SERP

Organic vs. PPCMSN SERP

Search Engines

Percentage of U.S.searches among leading search engine providers

DomainDecember

2007December

2008January

2009Year-over year percent change

google.com 65.98% 72.07% 72.09% 9%

yahoo.com 20.88% 17.79% 17.81% -15%

msn.com 7.04% 5.56% 5.44% -21%

ask.com 4.14% 3.15% 3.31% -21%

Source: Hitwise, an Experian company

Organic SEO

Organic Listings - Advantages:

• Low cost: no money to search engines

• Sites can have multiple pages ranking for search terms

• Perceived as a quality endorsement

• High positions can last long into future

Organic SEO Strategy

• Keyword research

• Content

• Page titles and descriptions

• Navigation

• Cleaning up errors

• Sitemaps

• Links

• Tracking Results

Keyword Research

• Make a list of primary words to start with. Use free trial at WordTracker or Google’s Keyword Tool to find more examples.

• Find terms people are actually searching for

• Determine relevancy and competition

• Weed out possible unrelated searches

• Set reasonable expectations

Keyword Research

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Keyword Research

Keyword Research

Percentage of U.S. clicks by number of keywords

Subject Jan-08 Dec-08 Jan-09 Year-over-year percent change

1 word 20.96% 20.70% 20.29% -3%

2 words 24.91% 24.13% 23.65% -5%

3 words 22.03% 21.94% 21.92% 0%

4 words 14.54% 14.67% 14.89% 2%

5 words 8.20% 8.37% 8.68% 6%

6 words 4.32% 4.47% 4.65% 8%

7 words 2.23% 2.40% 2.49% 12%

8+ words 2.81% 3.31% 3.43% 22%

Source: Hitwise, an Experian company

“Long Tail” Keyword Searches

Content

• Content must include the keywords you’re targeting in plain html text

• Copy & paste test

• http://www.briandillardarchitecture.com/• Create valuable content that will attract search engines and visitors

• Create “link-worthy”, authoritative content

• Add fresh content on a regular basis - “Blog”

Content

Titles & Descriptions• Optimize page titles – unique to each page, containing relevant keywords. Titles are an important ranking factor. (70 characters displayed max.)

•

• Optimize description meta tags – unique to each page, acts as an ad in the SERPs to encourage click-through. (156 characters displayed max.)

Navigation

• HTML text navigation – use CSS for styling

• Javascript & Flash navigation prevent search engines from crawling all pages

• Use text links within content (anchor text) to direct users and search engines to important pages

Navigation

Cleaning Up Errors

• Duplicate content

• Javascript and Flash navigation

• Slow load times

• High code to content ratio

• Tricking the search engines

Sitemaps

• HTML text sitemap on your website for search engines and users. Use keywords to link to every page on the site.

• http://www.masterlink.com/siteMap.asp

• XML sitemap submitted to search engines. Google Webmaster Tools will show errors, warnings, etc.

• http://www.masterlink.com/sitemap.xml

Links

• Links are an endorsement from one site to another

• Press releases, directories, related sites in your niche • Quality over quantity

• Anchor text provides value:• “Click here” vs. “Dallas SEO”

Tracking Results

• Analytics: Google Analytics, Yahoo’s Index Tools

• Shows how people find your site, which search engine, what keywords, etc.

• Watch visitors, where they go on your site, how much time they spend on a page.

• Rankings do help, but they’re not the end-all-be-all. The end goal should be increased traffic to the website resulting in increased leads or sales.

Tracking Results

PPC

Pay-per-Click - Advantages:

• Listing is guaranteed and instant

• Flexible, allows for trial-and-error

• Search Engine provides reporting

• Geo-targeted

• Unlimited Keyword Targeting

• Users that click are 50% more likely to convert

PPC Strategy

• Keyword Research

• Bidding (costs)

• Relevance (Quality Score)

• Writing/Testing Ads

• Landing Pages

• Tracking Results

• ROI

Keyword Research

• Make a list of primary words to start with. Use free trial at WordTracker or Google’s Keyword Tool to find more examples.

• Find terms that could overlap with other intended searches and look for negative terms to exclude.

• Look at competitors terms by doing searches from your keyword list and using free tools such as Spyfu.com.

• Include negatives to weed out possible unrelated searches.

Keyword Research

Bidding (Costs)

• Highest bid doesn't mean top position

• Top position is not always best

• Monitoring bids is important

Bidding (Costs)

Writing/Testing Ads

• Benefits, not features

• The text ads matching the search query

• Call to action

• Stand out from competitors

• Be compelling

• Create two or more to test for success

• Write to your audience

Writing/Testing Ads

Relevance (QS)

• Keywords matching what was searched

• The text ads matching the search query

• The landing pages discussing clearly the keywords that were searched.

Landing Pages

• You have at most 10 seconds to capture a user’s attention. Internet sales are often “impulse buys”.

• Call to action

• Don’t make the user search to find your form and don’t ask for too much information without indicating why you need it.

• Make each step clear to the user

• Landing page must act a salesman, so ask only the questions a sales rep would need to know to start a conversation with the user

What is a Landing Page?

Landing Pages

Tracking Results

• Analytics: Google Analytics, Yahoo’s Index Tools

• Conversion Tracking

• Watching Visitors, their habits, where they go on your site

Return on Investment

• Set Your Goals and Metrics

• Traffic, Clicks, Visitors

• Conversions, Leads, Sales

• Close Rate and Value of Sales

• Amount Spent

Email Marketing

• 1st time website visitors don’t buy or take action. Most require at least 8 contacts with a company on the web.

• PPC & SEO are the cost of getting a new customer. Email is the cost of retaining a customer and getting repeat business

• Relationship building: Developing Trust

• Value adding: Not sales pushing

• What should you be sending your list?

• How often should you send them?

1) Poor sender e-mail [email protected] = [email protected] = Good

2) Ugly Template• Cluttered• Sloppy

3) Including Bad Links• Broken or Wrong

4) No Call to Action• Now what?

Email MarketingMistakes

5) Bad Headlines• Spammy - “100% FREE VIAGRA WITH NEW DATA

SYSTEM PURCHASE”• Boring or Non-descriptive Title - “Our Services That We

Offer”• Good – “Are You Making These 7 Deadly Email Marketing

Mistakes?”

6) No text or web version

7) Not Testing• How does it look in multiple mail clients?

Email MarketingMistakes

Email Marketing

Why do you need it?

• Customers and Competitors can get online and write anything they want, whenever they want.

• These rants and articles get indexed in the Search Engines and can taint your Image and Reputation– Yelp– Epinions– Blog Writing– YouTube Video Rant– YourCompanySucks.com

Reputation Management


• Protecting the Brand

• Tracking the Brand

• Handling comments (good/bad)

What does it Involve?

Protecting the Brand

Protect and Promote Positive Rankings

• Social Media Profile Creation

• Press Release Strategy

• Using Organic SEO to protect your brand

Protecting the Brand

Tracking the Brand

Tracking & Monitoring

• Using tools and alerts to find any mention of your company, industry, products, services, terms, buzz words, etc.

•http://www.google.com/alerts

• See what people are saying

• Great Customer Service Tool

• Immediate Feedback of What is Being Said

Handling Comments

Handling Comments (good/bad)

• Strategize and Consult with on how to best handle situations

• Making sure to handle situation properly with regards to SEO

• In a way not to promote Negative reputation in Search Engines

Social Media Marketing

Interaction & Conversation Between

• Your Company• Your Brand• Your Customers/Prospects• Your Community

User Generated Content

People are talking about you. It’s time to join the conversation.

Why do you need to be using Social Media?

• Brand Awareness

• Building Trust & Credibility

• We live in a TiVO nation

• People don’t want to be shouted out.

• They like “discovering” information and having things recommended to them.

• Word of Mouth

• Like to see the “Real” People and Philosophy behind the company


Blogging

Why Blog?

• Interact with your customers and prospects directly

• Keep Clients up to Date

• You Control the Content

• Great Public Relations Tool

• Lead Generation• People do business with who they Trust & Like

Blogging

• Meet your peers. – Facebook is not just for college kids anymore. Members are

typically older and more mature than on other sites, and there are more affluent and more educated white collar users.

• Find business contacts. – With about 175million active users, and predicted to be 500 million

by 2011, not only are your friends on Facebook, so are your prospects, your customers, your JV partners… and, of course, your competitors. You need to be on too.

• Instant gate opener. – Facebook members are open to connecting. You can easily begin a

dialog with highly successful—even famous—people who were previously otherwise unreachable.


• Build relationships. – By engaging in conversations with your prospects and

customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.

• Raise visibility. – By consistently and congruently showing up, posting relevant

information, and being a thought leader, you can increase visibility and credibility as the expert in your area.


• Develop your personal brand. – The lines between business and personal have become blurred.

You can reveal as much or as little about yourself as you wish, allowing you to personalize your brand.

• Target your niche. – Users volunteer vast amounts of information about themselves that

you can readily access. These kinds of demographics, psychographics, and technographics would previously have cost fortunes to access.


• Get rapid top Google placement. – Create a “Fan Page” for your business and share information with

your “fans”. Pages (for business) and Profiles (for personal) are indexed for optimal search engine positioning.

• Place Targeted Ads. – With Facebook Social Ads , you can test out extremely targeted

advertising for minimal cost.

• No cost marketing. – Aside from paid ads, Facebook is totally free to use and with

regular activity you'll end up with more traffic, more subscribers, and more paying clients.


• Control your Professional brand

Your LinkedIn profile is discoverable through the millions of searches on search engines and on LinkedIn. You're in control over what others see on your profile, so leverage this to showcase your skills and talents so the right opportunities and people find you.

• Network and reconnect

With more than 30 million members, LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network. In addition to reconnecting with past colleagues, business partners, and classmates, you can tap into the knowledge, experience, and connections of your network.


• Share your Knowledge and Expertise

LinkedIn is the best place to share and exchange business information online. Ask a question and get fast, accurate answers from your network and experts worldwide. You can also build your professional credibility by showcasing your knowledge, expertise, and interests by answering questions.

• Receive Opportunities

Whether it's for a consulting gig or job offer, having a presence on LinkedIn means that those who are looking for someone with your experience, knowledge and skills will be able to find you. Likewise, when you're looking for that special hard-to-find talent, LinkedIn will help you locate and contact them.


• Fastest growing Social Network

• 1200+% growth rate (Feb ‘08-Feb ‘09)

• Brief & to the Point– 140 characters

• Interactive– Find out what people are talking about related to your

industry– Build Relationships

• Warning: Addictive



• Twitter Frenzy – The Daily Show

• http://twitter.com/home

• Notable Twitter Users:

• Channel 8 Weather-Pete Delkus• Twitter.com/wfaaweather

• Woot!– Twitter.com/woot

• CNN Breaking News – Twitter.com/cnnbrk

• ESPN – Twitter.com/espn

• Southwest Airlines – Twitter.com/espn

• **Comcast– Twitter.com/comcastcares

• The Real Shaq– twitter.com/the_real_shaq

Why Use Twitter?

• Would you like a way to connect with others in your industry or others who share your views?

• Would you like a way to get instant access to what’s being said, this minute, about your organization, people, products, or brand?

• Would you like a steady stream of ideas, content, links, resources, and tips focused on your area of expertise or interest?

• Would you like to extend the reach of your thought leadership, blog posts, and other content?

• Would you like to promote your products and services directly to a target audience?


How We Can Help

• Organic Search

• Pay-per-Click

• Reputation

• Social Media

• Email Marketing

• Web Design

• Ecommerce

• Web Hosting

• Copywriting

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