Patience is a virtue. My dad always lectured me on this as I have none. I preach this to my children as, like me, they have little. My husband has a lot of patience (he does have to live with me). Are we turning into a nation with no patience? Is this good or is this bad? The overwhelming evidence of our lack of patience is the need to view the Super Bowl commercials BEFORE the Super Bowl. Just check the views on YouTube to see how much we watch these. While I used to love gathering with a group of friends to watch the big game just to judge the new commercials, I find that I can’t wait this year. I give into temptation of viewing them on YouTube as soon as I see them pop up in my reader.
As a marketer, I guess the pre-show buzz of tracking the commercials through social media is a good thing. But at the same time, if the big game is disappointing, and I already saw the commercials, will there be a reason to stay tuned in?
Are you a spoiler or do you wait for the reveal during the game? What does it say that we are just as excited about commercials as the launch of a new movie or book?
And just for fun, this one is my very favorite in several years:
Ever think that you’re too technical to be creative? You prefer math problems over illustrations and your greatest portrait consisted of 4 lines and a circle?
Well you don’t need to restrict yourself to stick figures any longer. After reading “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future” by Daniel H. Pink, you’ll be drawing like Picasso and thinking like Steve Jobs. The great thing about creativity is it can be learned. It is a muscle just like anything else. You exercise to get your body in shape, so why wouldn’t you exercise to get your brain in shape?
“A Whole New Mind” will teach you about creative problem solving and applying those to virtually any field; whether you’re an accountant, production manager or a gopher, you can learn how to analyze information, create solutions and solve complex problems in a more versatile and creative fashion.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in expanding their creativity as well as expanding their tools for maintaining a position at the top. Happy reading! Check it out, and let us know what you think.
There are some SEO practices that have become common when developing a new site (ability to edit title and meta tags, image alt properties, etc.) and there are others that can sometimes get overlooked. These are things that need to be discussed during the planning stages of your website. I compiled a list of important items you should be aware of when you create a new site.
1. 301 Redirects
I cannot stress enough how important it is to use 301 redirects and not a blanket redirect. This is the best way to lose your existing search engine ranking. When migrating from an old site, be sure all your old pages are individually redirected to a new page. These 301 redirects provide users with a consistent experience and match old content to your new website. Verify your new site with Google Webmaster Tools, this way you can monitor any crawl errors or erroneous inbound links that require a redirect. If your site has a content management system (CMS), your developer can enable it to automatically create 301s if you remove or change the URL of any page.
2. Analytics
If 301 redirects are properly implemented, this part should be easy. Simply add Google Analytics code, or your preferred analytics service, to all newly created pages. Your CMS can be designed to automatically add this code to every new page you create. Now sit back and watch the data accumulate.
3. Canonicalization
When the same web content has multiple URLs this is called canonicalization. These URLs cause problems for search engines, and they confuse what content should be shown in the search results. Pick one URL and stick with it. If your website uses a CMS, be sure it doesn’t generate multiple URLs for each page you create. Another option is to implement a canonical tag, which tells Google what the definitive URL should be.
4. Semantic URLs
A semantic URL is URL that is human-readable and conveys useful information to the user. This URL should be SEO friendly using appropriate keywords. These URLs are important part of on-page optimization. Your new semantic URL should read www.globalhma.com/about-us and NOT www.globalhma.com/index.cfm?pag=1284. All those numbers, question marks and irrelevant data are enough to make a person’s head spin.
5. XML Sitemaps
A sitemap help users navigate a site or serves as a planning tool in the early stages of a website’s creation. An XML sitemap aids your SEO and helps Google crawl your website. There are automatic XML sitemap generators that can be utilized and this can also be integrated into your website’s CMS. Trust me. Sitemaps are your friend.
6. Control Indexation
Are there pages on your site that you don’t want Google to include in its search results? Well, you can actually tell Google which pages not to index. There are a variety of ways to go about this, such as a robots.txt or meta tag. When we submit robots.txt for our clients’ websites, I cannot help but imagine a room of tiny robots willing to do my SEO bidding.
7. Site Speed
Site speed is now part of Google’s ranking algorithm and is becoming increasingly important to your website’s success. Be sure to have your developer keep an eye on it or utilize tools to check your site’s speed. As Drew would say, we’re living among the at-a-glance generation. If your site doesn’t load fast enough, don’t expect people to stick around to wait for it.
While this is not an all-inclusive list, it’s a great start when creating a new website or even items to keep in mind when optimizing a current site. Do you have important SEO items to add to this list?
In working with several large, global companies, we see an interesting new trend that swings the pendulum of “the world is flat” globalization back towards protectionism. In creating social networks, many of these clients are setting up separate channels for each major region of the world (Europe, Asia and the Americas). While the social networks-of-choice vary from country to country as well as the language of preference, many of our greatest innovations come from being cognizant of our cultural differences and trying to view things from a different perspective.
How should major companies handle this? For now, we recommend embracing the individual languages and network choices. We also recommend working to syndicate content across different networks in native languages (translated, of course, by native speakers). This helps force everyone to reflect on the content and gain an essential, outside viewpoint.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday as many Americans fought Black Friday crowds, I sat quietly reflecting over the pile of books I accumulated. I cleared dusty bookshelves, cluttered nightstands and overflowing coffee tables. Like a mother hen gathering all her chicks, I searched my car trunk, beach totes and closets until all the books were gathered. Piles of old textbooks were slated for the trash. Novels and how-to books were ready to be donated to the library. The pile over which I agonized included treasured favorites, like “Sophie’s Choice.” Several would be dusted and returned to the shelf, but others would have to go. Why the house cleaning? An ultimatum made by my husband as a prerequisite to acquiring an e-reader.
I agonized over this purchase for several years thinking nothing could replace the feel of the printed page in hand. While packing for a recent vacation and noting half of my suitcase was taken over by my neglected reading list, I realized the time to purchase an e-reader had come.
Today’s generation of e-readers are lightweight and easily transported. They hold hundreds of books and have the convenience of allowing the reader to download books instantly from any Wi-Fi location. Readers choosing classics with expired copyrights will find free downloads. Many services offer inexpensive deals and specials making an e-reader an economical alternative to the printed versions.
Several of the early released e-readers, such as Kindle, Nook and Sony Reader, originated for the sole purpose of storing reading selections, but over time e-readers evolved into an integrated source of media applications including not only books, but also magazines, newspapers, movies, TV shows and internet access. Other popular tablets, such as the iPad, are versatile in their offerings, and apps, such as Stanza, will convert your iPod or iPhone into an e-reader. All these variables make e-reader options overwhelming.
Begin by deciding what features you are looking for. Consider the memory available, battery life, grayscale levels and options like text to speech features. What service is the e-reader associated with? Kindle users can access many free selections from Amazon’s library and its newly introduced lending library, while Nook reads e-pub files from public libraries and is associated with Barnes & Noble. Will you be accessing your e-reader for books only or do your want the versatile features provided by tablets like the iPad? And certainly not least, what are you comfortable spending? Now that you have identified your e-reader requirements, make your choice, take the plunge and add it to your Christmas list. With the portability of e-readers, you will never find yourself without book in hand again.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising seeks to drive a high volume of traffic to a specific site. While some campaigns have different goals once visitors click through and reach the site, one thing that does not change is that each campaign must be maintained to effectively reach its goal. The basics of maintaining a PPC campaign include daily or at least weekly sweeps of keywords, prioritizing of budgets, A/B testing on ads including testing of different calls to action and measuring, measuring, measuring.
From the start it’s important to understand the goal of the campaign and set it up right. Each campaign should be organized with related ad groups having two versions of a carefully targeted and tested ad. Campaign setting and budgets should be checked.
Keywords Management
Keyword management takes a long time. Capturing long tail keywords is critical in increasing leads. Long tail keywords acquire more relevant leads and higher conversion rates while paying a lower cost-per-click. Chasing the long tail is a labor of love to say the very least.
Has a competitor picked up and outbid any of our coveted keywords? Is the ad text relevant to the keywords? This leads us to adding new negative keywords and adjusting phrase, broad and exact keywords. In industrial keyword management and international campaigns, this becomes an even trickier process. Names of chemicals and their applications can easily be related to many irrelevant results. The key here is to be well versed in the terminology. At HMA we work together as a team to adjust the keywords weekly and monthly. This allows the account staff to compare terminology and trends month to month that are then incorporated into our monthly reports.
A/B Testing
One ad will always outperform another in a PPC campaign. We work to make ads more relevant by changing ad text, altering capitalization or finding the call to action that generates the most conversions. Sometimes the simplest changes change in a call to action, such as changing click for more information to click to see the MSDS, will generate a huge change in clicks. At the same time, we work hard to maintain a balance between changing ads just enough times and changing the ads too many times. The right amount of change is rewarded with lower cost-per-click, more relevant traffic and higher conversion rates.
Measure, Measure, Measure
How many people fell into the funnel? The number of people that click on the ad is used to measure this metric. How many people clicked further? Downloaded a brochure? Clicked on a link for contact info? Most industrial campaigns only reach this point. However, in some local campaigns with products and services, we actually observe them reaching the buy phase. This is where real results are quantified.
If this process is followed properly, after about a year you should be able to measure exactly how many leads are necessary for the funnel before they reach the buy stage. In addition, you can quantify the cost per lead and the cost it takes for them to reach the buying phase.
Search Engine Rankings
If keywords are measured upon the start of a campaign with a search engine results page, you can them measure again after a year to see where you rank organically. If SEO was done for the PPC campaign’s landing page, your rankings should improve over time. This is also known as a never-ending marathon as there are constantly new sites and new queries being added to the race. In addition, search engines are constantly changing their search algorithm to more accurately serve its searchers.
The constant changes in the Internet and how people search points to our continuous need to be diligent readers, following blogs and other industry sites where trends and changes are noted. We incorporate our new knowledge into maintaining each campaign every month, while keeping in mind that what was a factor today may change tomorrow.
Whether investing in an agency or using an internal person to manage your PPC accounts, do not underestimate the time it takes to do it right. Anything short of that is a waste of your money.
Did you know people are four times more likely to make a purchase online with information in their own language? While the English language Internet is continuing to grow more and more crowded, foreign language marketing on the Internet is in its infancy.
Expanding your web presence globally can be tricky, especially without local resources. Over the years, our agency has built up a strong foundation of local resources all around the world. Here are six key considerations we think are important when growing your web presence internationally through search marketing and global SEO.
Research the target market and any cultural differences, i.e. specific advertising laws, whether local hosting is necessary
Understand the search engine landscape in the targeted countries
Utilize top performing keywords for products and services in all foreign languages found in the targeted region
Take advantage of available domain names using translated keywords
Build anchor text-rich links from local sites in the targeted country or region
Provide unique and optimized content for all languages, i.e. don’t auto translate
These statistics all point to the growing opportunity of using translated AdWords campaigns, link building in foreign languages, and translated domains and microsites in your global marketing efforts. The relevance, quality and success of your efforts, however, are all dependent on an understanding of the region’s culture and nuances.
Adobe has finally given up on Flash and announced it is moving to HTML5. While this is news, it is part of the overall trend perplexing advertisers, graphic designers and affecting all Internet users. Alas, I am old enough to remember when typography was actually “cut and pasted.” I recall the pain and expense of moving from manual labor to computers. First, we used PageMaker. Then came Quark. Now we love InDesign. We moved from storing files on floppy drives to SyQuest drives to Jaz drives to CDs to DVDs then to huge servers and now the cloud.
On the programming side, first we used straight HTML and Access databases. Next, we moved to ColdFusion. Then our agency tried its hand at SQL servers and ASP.NET. Later, we threw in some PHP programming with dashes of JavaScript and jQuery. Next came mobile app development with its many new challenges, languages and platforms. Now we are beginning to embrace HTML5 in place of Flash. We are adding video at enormous rates and discovering new platforms for social marketing.
All of this change transpired within the last 12 years. What does this mean? In my father’s era as the original Howard Miller, he put money into people that cut and pasted and designed layouts. I allocate the same amount of money to fewer, computer-literate graphic designers and allot additional funds to cover their hardware, software and on-going education. A second fleet of specially trained employees then works in a collaborative, creative cycle to ensure search engines discover the content we generate. After the search engines fetch the data, this team works to analyze the results. In addition, they study major search engines from Google to Bing and Yandex to Baidu to spot trends and address algorithm changes.
While it’s fun to be at the start of a revolution, it does cost more. The good news is we know our investments are working to engage our clients and their customers.
Yes. They had a theme song before they even arrived — played over the intercom and sung frequently albeit off-key. Zach Satko and Dianne Eveler, the two newest HMA-ers, survived their baptism by fire, speed dating/training through their first two weeks, learning how to engage in the team and being fruitful for our clients. Their training encompassed everything from complete client reviews to technical lessons on our SEO “secret sauce.” Zach is already applying his keen research abilities and what he learned to our clients’ online campaigns. Meanwhile, Dianne’s technical skills and new understanding of HMA technologies is helping establish new, accurate and responsive production systems when creating materials for our global vendors.
As both our virtual team and home-base team grow, we embrace the changing work force. Gone are the days when employees specialized in one skill and worked alone in their cubicles. Welcome to the global digital work world of challenges and constantly evolving technical requirements. Our latest hires and our current team, regardless of age, have embraced the digital realm, the necessity to learn new things and the need to operate as a team both in-person and virtually.
With apologies to Howard who encouraged me to never be a braggadocio, the results are sweet. I am proud of our team; they bend over backward to earn their clients’ respect by never compromising the quality of their work — even when the budget doesn’t match.
With all the recent changes to Facebook’s platform, B2B companies and marketers are facing challenges in communicating with users on the social network. While the territory is still rather uncharted, creativity, engagement and a more effective use of Facebook can help your company respond to the changes.
Be creative. With the proposed implementation of Facebook’s Timeline profile layout (not yet released), your company’s creativity will have a much bigger canvas to make a first impression. Use this space wisely to best represent your brand and message.
Get engaged. If your company uses Facebook as a distribution outlet for articles and blog posts, but doesn’t focus on engagement, this means your content will now spread to less people than organizations that are engaged. Now that News Feed distribution to all of your fans is no longer guaranteed, here are some ways to optimize your posts for the new News Feed:
Ask your fans questions.
Don’t just publish your content. Add a comment with additional information.
Recognize your fans when they participate on your page.
Be interesting. Good content usually makes engagement easier.
Encourage employees and customers to occasionally comment and like items to spark dialogue.
Stop Facebook auto-posting. According to Applum, developer of Page tool EdgeRank Checker, Facebook Pages that show posts via third party apps like HootSuite compared to manually linking posts, receive 70% fewer likes and comments. While it’s more time consuming, the imagery is much more appealing when you post manually. In addition, many of the third party app postings tend to get lost in users’ News Feed, because they are clumped together.
What are some ways you’re promoting engagement on your Facebook Page?
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