TopRank Internet Marketing News

Part adage, part cliché – ‘if a tree falls in the forest with no one there to hear it, will it make a sound?’ The answer is – ‘of course.’  But because no one is there to hear the sound, the sound doesn’t matter.

In much the same way, if content is published to your website with no one able to find it, your online content doesn’t matter.  This applies to everything from an exhaustively researched white paper to an opinion heavy blog post.

In the world of online marketing, search and social media are evolving at an incredible pace.

Consider:

• Twitter queries approaching 20 billion each month
• Google queries approaching nearly 90 billion each month
• Facebook topped over 200 million users this year and beats Google in weekly web traffic*
  *Hitwise

With online marketing evolving by the minute, it stands to reason that the most valuable insight will be that which can be shared in under one minute.

B2B technology companies exist in a world marked by lengthy sales cycles and niche marketplaces.  Maintaining awareness, while personally engaging with each customer and prospect, can combine to become a strong competitive differentiator in this environment.

Best practice online marketing programs, integrating elements of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media marketing, can be customized to meet the challenges posed by the need for visibility and engagement. By renewing programs with TopRank® Online Marketing, the two B2B technology companies below will continue to meet and ultimately overcome these challenges:

Many small business owners have had their websites up and running for a long time.  More recently though, small business owners are starting to revisit their websites and ask, “What has my website done for my business lately?”  For many the answer is “not much” and that’s because they really haven’t done much to keep it up over the years.

Times have changed and if small business owners aren’t tending to their website garden, weeds will take over and it won’t be much use to their business and driving new customers.  Below are a few ideas I picked up at the MIMA Summit which, if implemented, can help small business owners start to see a solid ROI on their web marketing efforts.

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.