Fun Friday Infographic breaking down, “The 7 Types Of Digital Marketers” and how each compare to each-other.
Which one are you?
[click image to enlarge]
image via optify
You could say I'm a chatter box with an eye for design. I'm what you’d call a digital strategist. Helping companies and individuals focus on making their businesses money while managing their social media platforms, content and audit their overall design/brand.
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Anyone who uses SEO techniques to increase their organic search engine visibility and traffic should be measuring their results. However, HOW you measure and WHAT you measure should depend on your specific business goals.
SEO is tricky stuff, especially with Google and their insane amount of algorithm updates and data refreshes. SEO techniques that used to work a few years ago are practically obsolete now. You really need to perfect your marketing strategies if you expect to make money online. It’s no longer about mass quantity. Everything is about quality…. especially when it comes to traffic and leads. It’s too time consuming and costly to simply target anything and everything relevant to your business. It’s better to research and test very specific topics so you can better understand your user behaviors and market to your future prospects more precisely.
I mean, who cares how much traffic you get to your site if none of it converts!
It’s easy to get caught up in your website rankings and traffic, but the real number you should care about is your bottom line!
If your marketing campaigns are resulting in conversions, it shouldn’t matter where you rank specially for any one particular keyword phrase on any given day. Besides, rankings LIE!
Let me break it down for you:
Your location matters.
Go to Google right now and type in something general, like “SEO”. I’m in Mesa Arizona. Guess what I see? Arizona SEO firms. Not because they are the top SEO sites in the world, but because I am searching from an IP in Arizona! The search engines aren’t stupid. They know where you are and they are giving you results based off of your current physical location. This is especially apparent when you search for something local, like a restaurant or a daycare. Google and Bing want to give you local results as much as possible, and you will see varied organics depending on where you are when you search.
Note: This is why having a Google + Local Map and a Bing Map is so important for any business that wants local, geo-targeted traffic!
Your web browsing history matters.
You’ve heard it before, websites and search engines store cookies in your browsers and use this data to determine what they should serve you. When you visit a website frequently, Google will start to assume you want to see that site in your search results, and the site will start to appear higher when you search organically.
If you want “real” organic results, you can clear your web history and cookies or try using a Proxy server to search instead.
Personalized results are influenced by social signals.
Bing is integrated with Facebook, so when you are logged in to both, guess what you see when you search? If you search for a topic related to something your Facebook friends have liked, shared, or otherwise recommended, you will see it in your organic Bing results.
The same thing goes for Google. Google wants you to be logged in at all times, encouraging you to use their free services for almost everything you do. When you are logged in to your Google + account, anyone with you in their circles will see your +1 recommendations in their organic results.
Sure, you can log out and your results will change, but many people don’t even realize they are logged in and therefore social indicators are heavily influencing search.
Technical aspects play a huge role.
Google has hundreds of data centers, when you query Google (or Bing) you are pulling data from one of hundreds of data centers that houses information. You could be searching for the same thing I am from across the room or across the country and see different results.
Also, websites can re-index day to day; many variables can change the way Google decides to index and display a site at any given moment. A site can add content, change content, remove pages, add pages, update their on-page SEO, gain new links, loose links, etc etc. All of these factors play a role in how Google will choose to rank a site and it can vary day by day.
Bottom Line:
If you Google yourself (your business, your keywords, your brand) too much, you are asking for an anxiety attack! Of course you want to know IF you are ranking, but you will know how well you are doing when you look at your organic and referral traffic. If your analytics show traffic is coming from the engines, you know you are ranking. You don’t need a rankings report to tell you that!
Remember, you need to track traffic (where it’s coming from – source and keyword) and how that correlates with conversions. If you are investing marketing dollars, you need to know how that money translates into sales.
Don’t drive yourself insane measuring results that don’t matter. Focus on traffic and sales and let your marketing team worry about the rest.
CEO EminentSEO.com. SEO and SEM Strategist, social media girl, blogger, music lover, soul searcher. Collects: books, pictures, quotes, music, art, dreams...
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Once a health care provider is accredited by The Joint Commission
one of the benefits is the provider will be able to proudly display the Joint Commission badge on their website. Not just any business can get a Joint Commission badge it has to be earned. There are several criteria that have to be met to earn the Joint Commission distinction.
The value of being accredited by a third party like The Joint Commission is that there are experts who provide impartial evaluations on the quality of care, treatment and services that the treatment center is providing. Because the patient or the patient’s family don’t purchase this type of healthcare like they do food or clothes it helps having experts do the evaluation on the center so the families don’t have to.
In providing badges or trust icons it immediately tells the user that they are not just on any old website they are on a professional services authority website. The people behind the business have put in their training and expertise to earn the badges. At the end of the day we know that the trust icons help convert visit to call ratios.
In the addiction treatment field having several supporting trust icons especially from places like The Joint Commission and HON Code it will only help boost your position of authority to the website visitor. Being a direct marketing professional I can tell you that the single biggest converting factors for any business online or offline is TRUST.
Think about it for a minute, if you are searching for a drug rehab for a family member and had to review a bunch of websites, would you rather read some marketing copy from the treatment center’s marketing team or would you rather know that they have 3rd party validation from places like The Joint Commission or testimonials from past clients/patients singing their praises?
Bottom line: If you are in the Health Care space you should become accredited by The Joint Commission and proudly display the badge on your site for improved trust which leads to better website conversions.
As an internet marketer, I can sometimes forget that not website owner understands the basic things they need to have a successful business online.
I have created a MUST HAVE list of 6 basic things all business websites need to be successful online (in no particular order):
1) Quality Content and Calls to Action
Content can take many forms: written information, images, infographics, videos, games, widgets, etc. When creating your content you should think about your users first. Who are they? Why are they here? Give them something to relate to, something that sparks their interest and a reason to act now.
Content is also important for search engine value. Google and the other search engines want to serve up the most relevant information being searched for. If your content is “thin”, outdated or not optimized properly for the keywords you want to rank for – you really need to invest into some updated content – NOW!
2) A Blog – Updated Often
Of course a blog is more content, but the beauty in having a blog ON your business website is it is generally an easy way for you (or your marketer) to keep your content fresh and up to date. In order to see the true value of a blog, it must be on your company website (www.yourwebsite.com/blog) and it must be updated at least a few times a month. If you aren’t keeping it up to date it really adds no value. The key is to write about interesting information relevant to your audience and keep it current.
A blog is also a great way to link to important areas of your website, giving the users a reason to click through to the landing pages that you use to push your products (*note, this is also good for SEO value). We also always suggest you install social sharing icons on your blog to make it super easy for your readers to share your content.
3) Social Media
Social indicators actually enhance your website visibility, so even from just an SEO standpoint, social is important. Also, many sites, like Pinterest for example, have high domain authority and when you create profile your verified website profile link creates a nice authority link to your website.
Of course there are several other key benefits to having business social profiles. For example: brand visibility, new and current client engagement, direct clicks to your website, social shares that contain your website, brand or products and even brand reputation management.
Just like your website blog, your social profiles should be kept up to date if you want them to really benefit your website and business. You should be sharing often, posting interesting content, images, videos and links to important information on your site. You should also link to your important profiles from your website, making it easier for your clients to find you on their favorite social platforms.
4) Website Marketing
In order to drive targeted traffic to your website, you are going to have to do some form of website promotion and marketing. Internet marketing can mean a number of things from Google Pay Per Click Campaigns to High Profile Banner Ads.
Here at Eminent SEO we believe in a custom marketing solution for each client. This generally starts with a website audit, competitive analysis and a market research project to help us better understand your needs specifically. A new marketing campaign is always a test, but if you analyze and strategize on the front end, you are at least giving your marketing dollars a better chance of converting into sales.
Because the web is such a competitive space, we really recommend you hire a professional marketer to handle your website marketing. This is key to the success of your online business and is a MUST have for anyone trying to make money online. It takes money to make money. Marketing isn’t an expense though, it’s an investment!
5) Website SEO
Your website needs to be structurally sound, technically optimized and include your marketing keyword strategy if you expect any of the above to result in increased search engine traffic. SEO is really an umbrella term that covers a wide range of on and off page variables that impact the way the search engines view and rank your website.
Just like any good marketing strategy starts with research and analysis, so does SEO. We really need to fully audit your website from a technical aspect in order to assess your website SEO needs specifically. Many website owners don’t realize they have major issues with their website that are preventing them from becoming an authority on the web.
Proper SEO will ensure your website can be crawled properly as well as help tell the search engines what your website is an authority for. When the search engines can easily tell what you are all about, you have a much better chance of getting visibility in the search engine results for the keywords you are targeting. Better SEO = better website traffic.
6) Conversion Tracking
Okay, so you have a beautiful website with optimized content, proper calls to action and a solid marketing strategy in place – good for you! But, how do you know if you are getting traffic and how do you know if it’s converting?
Most websites use some form of analytics, such as Google Analytics, to track their website traffic. Knowing where your traffic is coming from is important, but if you can’t tie your traffic sources to conversions, how do you know if you are spending your marketing dollars properly?
If you are a call centric business, you should have some form of call tracking metrics built into your site. This allows you to tie your calls into traffic source so you have a real idea of where your calls are coming from. You can also rate your calls and input conversions – so each month you can see exactly where your conversions are coming from. This is powerful information that you can take back to your marketing team so they can focus on marketing to the areas that convert!
Need Help?
Many of the things I listed above seem may seem basic or simple to some, but you’d be surprised how many website owners I talk to who are not leveraging all of these techniques. If you need help with your website and marketing, just call us at 800-871-4130. We can come up with a custom solution that works for your specific website needs.
CEO EminentSEO.com. SEO and SEM Strategist, social media girl, blogger, music lover, soul searcher. Collects: books, pictures, quotes, music, art, dreams...
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If you are considering a new marketing campaign for your business website, there are several important elements you should look at. I typically suggest using a website checklist to help you narrow down the most important elements for your needs specifically. Custom marketing strategies are essential to a successful campaign, and a custom solution can only be delivered by auditing the proper areas first.
Although it’s important to look at the bigger picture, if your budget is limited and you want to focus on the most important things first, here is a list of 5 things you should absolutely include in your website analytics audit:
1) Where your traffic is coming from (source)
Once you understand where your traffic is coming from, you can better understand where you should be spending your marketing dollars. Sometimes that means following each conversion back to the source it came from and then generating a list of top sources to invest into because they convert the best. Google Analytics will allow you to see what percentage of your overall traffic is coming from organic search engines, referral sites, direct hits and paid search.
2) What keywords people are using to find you
Although Google blocks a fair amount of your keyword traffic, it’s good to take a look at what keywords are driving traffic to your site. Just as you should follow your conversions back to your traffic source, you should also track your conversions back to the keyword used to find you. If you know what people are searching for, you can use those keywords more in your website optimization and off site marketing. It’s also good to know what isn’t converting so you don’t waste your budget on keywords and techniques that don’t covert.
3) What page your traffic is landing on
When you know what keywords are leading traffic to specific pages to your site, you can focus on making those pages more optimized for conversions. By incorporating those keywords into the on-page SEO, content and calls to action, you can increase your conversions by really improving the user experience by giving them exactly what they are looking for.
4) Top socially shared content
If you are blogging and you don’t already have social sharing built in to your posts INSTALL NOW! Your blog should be ON your website and you should track what content is getting the best visibility and social shares. If you are blogging regularly, you should be covering a number of target keywords in your content and individual post optimization. Once you see a particular type of blog getting a lot of traffic and shares, you know where you should focus more of your efforts.
5) Conversion channel – how well your website is converting
If you have implemented a solid keyword strategy, your website is ranking but your traffic isn’t converting, there might be a problem with your website. A lot of people blame marketing but the truth is marketing can drive traffic to your site, but if your website is outdated, not clear on what to do or hard to navigate, your visitors will try another site instead. If your website sucks, people know there are 1000’s of others to check out instead. Keep your users there by evaluating your conversion channel and developing a strategy to give the traffic exactly what they need to convert.
BONUS: Know your goals, short and long term
You’d be surprised how many SEO clients look for rankings and traffic, but they have no idea how that translates into sales and profit!
You need to understand what you can realistically expect from your marketing dollars so that your goals make sense for your budget. You should start with what you can afford and then once you reach your initial goals, reinvest so you can go after bigger ones! If you are not meeting your short term goals in the expected time frame, you might want to reevaluate what you are doing and adjust your strategies.
Final thoughts:
SEO and online marketing is all about testing. You need to develop a strategy based off of your initial research, but when you implement a strategy you have to watch it and adjust. It can take several months to get your strategy just right depending on a number of variables. Before you make major adjustments, look at how much traffic is coming in – you should ensure you have collected enough data to analyze your marketing efforts properly.
Analyze, test, analyze again, adjust – that is the KEY to a successful marketing campaign.
If you want help with a website audit, we have a range of custom audits we can perform for you…
Just call us at 800-871-4130 or set up a discovery call by emailing hello@eminentseo.com
Thanks and happy analyzing!
CEO EminentSEO.com. SEO and SEM Strategist, social media girl, blogger, music lover, soul searcher. Collects: books, pictures, quotes, music, art, dreams...
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So you’re starting a business and you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything? (If you say you aren’t, you’re a liar) . You don’t need to be a millionaire to build your brand- everyone has to start somewhere. Social Media is a free and great place to start – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Tumblr are all solid places to get a kickstart your first impression in a digital sense. Below you will find some ways I think you can start to build your brand on a budget and when you’re ready for a little assistance you can reach out to our Eminent team.
1. Customer Service is Key
Have you ever heard the saying, “First Impressions are everything”? Well those words couldn’t be any more true. Customer service is key when it comes to building your brand with your potential audience and/or demographic. Slip up and give some a sour taste right off the bat; people will treat you like the Bubonic Plague and steer clear.
Going above and beyond to make a customer feel appreciated, not only creates a solid foundation for a returning customers but develops brand affinity. Brand affinity builds word-of mouth, and in turn you’ve got a social buzz going. And so the domino effect continues.
2. Think Outside the Box and Get Creative
Dollar Shave Club is by far, one of my favorite companies who reflects the “Think Outside the Box” mentality and created a low budget video- that gained them more than 8+ Million views and one of the most viral campaigns for a start-up.
3. Make Friends & Collaborate
Whether you’re looking to work in a collaborative work environment like Co+Hoots or GangPlank or looking to collaborate two brands, like what Monster Cable and Dr. Dre did to create Beats by Dre to build awareness of both brands – Each side could bring a little something unique to the table. Each company has their own USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that they can leverage, and in these collaborative opportunities you give the opportunity to bring what makes you shine to the for-front and that too for your collaborative partner. Win-win all around.
4. Market Your Resources and Be Resourceful
Don’t take your team for granted and recognize the assets you have at hand. Each individual you have hired has a skill set that gravitated you to hire them and each of those individuals have interests beyond their day-to-day work load. Maybe you need video- and you can’t afford to hire a big production team to execute what you thought was going to be a pricey penny- why not keep it low-budget and entertain the thought of using your own team of real employees and ditch the idea of actors. Have you ever taken a peek at Google’s Videos, featuring one of our favorites, Matt Cutts. Now they are a HUGE company, but recognize they can cut costs and create just as great videos on a small budget.
So remember, you don’t need a huge budget to start to build a brand. Money helps to nurture and build support but if you’re just starting out, I hope these four initial steps will help in conjuring up those creative juices .
You could say I'm a chatter box with an eye for design. I'm what you’d call a digital strategist. Helping companies and individuals focus on making their businesses money while managing their social media platforms, content and audit their overall design/brand.
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You want an info-graphic but you’re not exactly savvy when it comes to graphic design. Not a problem! There are options, and they aren’t going to cost you an arm and a leg.
Now who cares about info-graphics? Everyone! We’re over reading tired text to only skim for the numbers that count. We like a visual a lot like the one above. A nicely designed info-graphic with all the information laid out and easy to read.
We found 3 pretty powerful Tools for creating awesome info-graphics and even better, they’re free! Hope you find some use in these and have fun poking around!
1. Visual.ly
Visual.ly is the largest data visualization showcase, providing a datatbase of infographics created by other users, while allowing you to create your own, no design skills required.
2. Easel.ly
Create an infographic from a blank slate or with one of their easy to use templates. It’s still in beta, so for now their service is free, but don’t be surprised if this eventually changes.
3. Infogr.am
Clean and crisp interface, and an easy registration with Facebook. They have five free templates – You can upload your data to the site which then you can have translated into a static chart or interactive infographic.
Have you used, or are you currently using any of these tools? Have another tool, that we may have completely missed? Share below in the comments!
You could say I'm a chatter box with an eye for design. I'm what you’d call a digital strategist. Helping companies and individuals focus on making their businesses money while managing their social media platforms, content and audit their overall design/brand.
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If you own a business, online presence should be a high priority. With over 75% of the U.S. population currently online, businesses of all types and sizes are utilizing internet real estate to cash in on this seemingly infinite cash resource. But for those new to the internet game, getting started can be an intimidating and stressful process.
Enter Google:
A high Google search ranking is able to provide businesses with an abundance of leads that may have been lost otherwise. Simply put, if you are not visible within the Google result pages, to many people, you might as well not exist.
Google’s reputation for shifting the online market place is widely known… and feared. When the search giant sees fit to alter their search algorithms, the changes work to improve the search user experience, while in turn punishing sites deemed “low quality.”
How do these algorithm changes impact you and your website? Basically, it implies that if you are committed to a high search ranking, then you must put forth the time and effort to maintain it.
What Works?
Over the years, numerous tricks and tips have been conveyed in an effort to help pages achieve and maintain a high search ranking. As Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, it can be difficult to keep up-to-date on which tactics actually work. Let’s begin with some basic information that will never change:
Content as the User Sees it:
As the premier search engine, Google is committed to delivering relevant, high-quality content to their user base. As such, Google’s algorithms are in place to reward sites utilizing quality content that is in line with the products, services, and information their users are searching for.
What changes here, is exactly how Google defines which content is relevant, and which is clutter or “fluff”.
How Your Site Content Looks To Google:
The world’s first glimpse into Google’s marketplace dominance came about when some of the more prominent sites began achieving lower search rankings.
As it turns out, these sites were found to house either low quality or duplicate content. Because Google is committed to high-quality results and (i.e. high-quality content), these sites lost top search engine rankings.
So, how do you avoid low rankings? Relevant, original and fresh content is the key! Though it may take more time and effort to produce, the rewards you receive rank-wise will more than make up for the time or marketing budget used.
Additional Factors:
In addition to the content, Google is interested in the user experience as a whole. Sites that are deemed confusing or frustrating to visit will typically find themselves with lower search rankings than those committed to a fluid user experience.
Take a moment to consider your personal web search behaviors. When you come across a site that takes forever to load, and makes you search for what you were looking for, you are likely to take your business elsewhere.
Of course Google also needs to find your site and content in the first place, so you will need off site marketing (links, Facebook ad campaigns, PPC, etc). But if you are driving traffic to a site now which poor content, lack of proper optimization and confusing navigation – you will likely never achieve the goals you are looking for.
Summary:
Make sure your website is clean, your content is relevant and fresh and you’ve thought about the user experience. If you don’t have a quality website, Google has no reason to serve you to their users – they have a million other sites they can rank instead. At the end of the day, quality wins.
You could say I'm a chatter box with an eye for design. I'm what you’d call a digital strategist. Helping companies and individuals focus on making their businesses money while managing their social media platforms, content and audit their overall design/brand.
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Advertising Direct Response – Brave New World for Agencies and Advertsiers Alike
Moving products and services using advertising direct response methods can deliver ROI that will allow for a sustainable revenue flow if what we spend on advertising is less than the revenue we generate from the direct advertising spend.
Having spent the first 15 years of my career working with some of the top direct response advertising agencies in New York City most of our direct response advertising was only direct mail. During this time the DRTV Infomercials were taking off and direct response direct mail agencies were taking off. In my experience it seemed that the direct mail and direct response TV agencies were completely separate disciplines and cultures and a typical direct mail agency tended not to be in DRTV production and vice versa.
The DRTV direct response agencies seemed not to delve into the direct mail world. I think that this was a cultural issue more than anything else. For example, the direct response advertising agencies that specialized in direct mail had suppliers who were midsized and large direct mail printers and list companies. So too for the direct response agencies that specialized in television, infomercial and video production along with media buying these outside suppliers were of a completely different culture than the direct mail print people. It was like oil and water they did not mix well.
Depending on the genesis of the direct response advertising agency founders background the agency seemed to lead towards DRTV or direct mail but not both. Also during the 1980’s and 1990’s and even today there was and is mass consolidation in the advertising world. There are a handful of holding companies that control most of the large advertising agencies. When a client required advertising direct response media the holding companies could easily acquire a smaller boutique shop that specialized in direct mail or infomercial production and keeping them operating as a separate business so not to create disharmony in the culture.
Fast forward into 2012 and direct advertising response methods have had some tectonic shifts. The television and newspaper industry have taken the biggest hit in their advertising revenue. Why, because it is clearly much harder to measure their advertising effectiveness and their impressions and circulation have declined. We can measure the response rates in terms of phone calls and website visits and different offers in different markets in television and newspaper advertising. However, from a testing standpoint it can become expensive to test so direct response advertisers have moved primarily towards the Internet just because it is so easy and cost effective to test on a smaller scale.
Companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Bing have become the biggest direct response ad agency facilitators helping them advertise using direct response. Google is so tuned into direct response advertising that they are not only running auctions on PPC advertising they have expanded into other media including television. Where Google is seeing huge success is in speed to market, scale, ease of use and tracking efficiency for the advertisers.
Google in effect has become the biggest advertising direct response agency or facilitator in the world but Facebook is nipping at their heels. It will be interesting to see where this all evolves because it appears that Facebook defiantly has the upper hand in consumer engagement, eyeballs and time on site however they really aren’t there in buying mode as if the consumer is on a search engine looking for a pair of blue suede shoes.
The direct response advertising business is a moving target experienced professionals can help set expectations and guide you through the process. If you want some ideas or want to learn more about what is direct response marketing call Jim Peake at SpeechRep Media, Inc. at 781-990-8844 or click on the button below.
A company’s audience – these days – is more apt to respond to visual stimuli than ever. We want eye-candy; we want it quickly and simply.
Because the majority of internet content is now a mix of both written content and appetizing images and video, companies are gearing their marketing strategies toward sating the visual thirst.
With a growing number of companies needing video services that can be created within their budget, many video-creation services are adjusting their packages to allow any company – big or small – to add stunning videos to their web properties.
At Eminent SEO, not only are we an SEO firm, a Phoenix web design agency, and developer, but we can also produce high-quality videos that showcase your brand/company and give you a new reach of clients. Whether your video budget is $100 or $100,000, we can produce videos that tantalize your client-base and leave them wanting to know more about you.
Contact us today to get started on your new video.
Here are some samples of our favorite corporate videos that have spread across the web, promoting the companies’ brand name to millions of viewers.
Dodge
Jack in the Box
Heineken
After attaining my Associates Degree in Visual communications in 2000, I set off on a long career as a freelance writer and graphic designer. I have designed and headed many marketing campaigns for companies big and small all around the country. It is my belief that graphic design and writing go hand-in-hand, as they are both forms of communication. My non-fiction works have been published in dozens of magazines and publications. I have written for – and worked with – organizations such as: Banner Hospitals, The Jerome Historical Society, The Arizona Historical Society, City of Tempe, City of Bakersfield, Town of Gilbert, Wildhorse Ranch Rescue, Cynic Magazine, e|Fiction Magazine, and many more. Writing and designing is my passion and I look forward to continuing on with it for many years to come.
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Resellers