TopRank Digital Marketing News

As discussed in a recent long term SEO case study, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a silver bullet that will help a website skyrocket to the top of search rankings overnight.

Proper SEO lives most comfortably in the home of a long term online marketing program. It is a discipline that understands benefits reaped on the climb up the mountain can be just as impactful as those achieved once the summit is reached.  It also understands how difficult it is to replace the king of any mountain, especially one strengthened by a strategic climb to the top.

Nearly every day:

• 14,000,000 gather on Twitter
• 60,000,000 connect via LinkedIn
• 346,000,000 engage through blogs
• 400,000,000 network via Facebook

The sheer numbers point towards an unparalleled opportunity to connect with your prospects and customers in social channels online, many of whom are eager to engage.

So what is the one social activity that your customers and prospects are eagerly awaiting for you to launch?  Why not ask them?

This July 29^th, Lee Odden, TopRank® Online Marketing CEO, and Chelsea Bucoy, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Zoomerang by MarketTools, Inc., present Engage Your Audience With Social Media & Surveys.

Imagine you were the enlightened caveman (or woman) who invented the wheel.  How would you drum up demand for your new product – by promoting your newly coined phrase ‘wheel’ or by promoting a solution for traveling and dragging?

Today’s start-ups would be wise to heed to this analogy.

Until the product or service you create has its name ingrained in the minds of your target, there is very little chance they will find you regardless of how badly they need you.  It doesn’t matter that everyone needs a ‘pilotguide’ (a fictional and foolproof autopilot for your car) if no one knows to ask for a pilotguide by name.

For many businesses, search engine rankings and traffic are simply KPIs supporting larger online marketing goals – inquiries and sales. While these businesses may have tracking systems in regards to online sales, and may be tracking web stats via analytics, it can be difficult to bridge the gap between the two.

Analytics goals and funnels help to bridge this gap, showing how visitors convert into a sale based on factors including:

• Keyword
• Referring source
• Landing page

So why is it important to track this data?

Whether you’re launching a new product or a new blog, reaching early adopters is essential.

Early adopters may be small in number – for example, only 11% of web users know how to use RSS. But this small group packs a big punch. Using the RSS example, those 11% of RSS subscribers are by and large active web publishers.

By attracting the attention of this early adopter crowd, you can achieve:

• Search Benefits: Early adopters make up the “Linkerati,” a group of web influencers who regularly link to worthwhile content from their highly trafficked websites and blogs. In most cases, the more quality links to your website or blog, the better the search visibility.

TopRank CEO To Help Award These To Top Search Engine Marketers

“Are you the next generation search engine marketing expert”

Do you contribute “excellence, as well as inspire innovation and encourage new ideas in search marketing?”

Have you helped develop “the world’s best direct marketing campaigns – campaigns that have raised the bar in terms of strategy, creativity and results?”

Perhaps the most important question of all is, how do you know?

That would be where the Marketing Pilgrim SEM Scholarship, Search Engine Watch Awards and Echo Awards come in.

Since being founded by Joe Pulizzi in mid-2007, Junta42 has existed as a premier destination helping marketers and publishers better understand content marketing.  Pulizzi himself posts on the subject of content marketing consistently, via his blog, The Content Marketing Revolution.

In a listing of the top 42 content marketing blogs released by Junta42 just last week, Online Marketing Blog was ranked #4 overall.

Online Marketing Blog, by TopRank, has been providing Internet marketing insights, resources and commentary since 2003.  Just a sampling of topics covered by Online Marketing Blog includes:

Achieve A Competitive Advantage With An Introduction To SEO This June

Inbound Marketing University
June 15-19 & June 22, Your Desk

Critical to the success of marketing professionals seeking a competitive edge in today’s workforce is a rich understanding of how online marketing tactics blend into a cohesive marketing mix.  Disciplines, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media marketing, must be both learned and balanced along with traditional styles of outreach.

Can your marketing message be disseminated in 140 characters or less?

Such is the question answered by Charlotte Woolard’s recent article in B2B Magazine, Twitter Nets Interaction, featuring a contribution by TopRank® Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden – who can be found on Twitter @leeodden.

In the article, Woolard introduces “Twitter Marketing” as a subset of event marketing to readers accustomed to discovering game-changing strategies and tactics in their monthly read.

When viewed strategically, social media is at its heart “opportunistic marketing”.

At last month’s SXSW Interactive conference, a component of the legendary music, film and interactive festival dedicated to the coolest new media technologies, Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank® Online Marketing, detailed the benefits of strategic social medial in a podcast with Susan Bratton, CEO of Personal Life Media.  You can listen to or read full transcribed interview with Susan here.

In the interview, Odden coupled his strategic social media recommendation to Bratton’s listeners with a warning to avoid jumping directly into social media tactics.