TopRank Digital Marketing News

How do you feel about social media, particularly as it relates to your brand?

Better put, how would you feel about social media marketing if you knew search engines took your company’s social activity into account when determining your search ranking?

Hallie Mummert of Target Marketing recently wrote an excellent piece titled Search: Get Real About Real Time SEO.  The article, featuring quotes from TopRank Online Marketing® CEO Lee Odden, opens with an example of a real time search conducted in the light of recent riots in Oakland, CA:

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.

Whether you work in B2B or B2C, your prospects and customers are turning to online channels to learn more about you and your industry.  At last count, 346 million of them were turning to blogs.

Business blogging represents an unprecedented way to connect with prospects and customers more powerfully than ever.  What could be cooler than that? How about watching the CEO of TopRank® Online Marketing jump out of a flying plane?

Later this month, TopRank CEO Lee Odden will present ‘Boosting SEO For Social Blogs‘ at Open Ca.mp in Dallas, Texas. During his presentation, Odden will detail how a sound blog marketing strategy can help boost online exposure while increasing search and social traffic.

SEO helps a search engine to do its job more effectively and Public Relations can increase the reach and influence of the brands they promote by optimizing news. Recently the good folks at Vocus interviewed TopRank  Online Marketing’s CEO on the basics of search engine optimization for public relations. The following post comes from the interview with Lee Odden of TopRank by Chris Pilbeam of Vocus.

Search engines aren’t perfect – that’s why people in SEO (Editor: like TopRank Online Marketing) are flourishing. People who write web copy often only consider one audience: customers, or analysts; maybe journalists. You should consider the extra audience of search engines.

In an introduction to a post at Online Marketing Blog, TopRank® Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden writes: “…one-size Search Engine Optimization (SEO) does not fit all programs.”

The post was titled 5 Must-Read Tips for B2B Search Marketing and stressed the importance of content and developing websites that support longer sales cycles – a touchstone of B2B client programs at TopRank Marketing.

More essential B2B search marketing insight will be shared in detail by Odden this month during the latest entry in the Markeo Revenue Masters Webinar Series.

Between 2009 and 2014, the money spent by B2B companies on interactive marketing will double, per a recent report by Michael Greene at Forrester Research.  With this increased spend, how can marketers transform lists of tactics into holistic strategies that achieve results? And perhaps just as importantly, how will these same marketers demonstrate results, especially during conversations with the C-suite?

Solutions to multi-layered opportunities that exist within the interactive marketing space will be revealed this month during one of the largest search marketing conferences of the year.

As posted by SEO Designer Thomas McMahon to Online Marketing Blog:

“63% of consumers and small business owners use the Internet to find information about local companies and 82% use search engines (Webvisible & Nielsen).  That means there’s a lot of opportunity for local Search Engine Optimization, or local SEO.”

Essentially, local SEO focuses on optimizing content in order to position it in the ‘Local Business Results’ displayed by search engines such as Google and Bing.  Most times, ‘Local Business Results’ appear above traditional search results.

At its core, social media is the art of real-time engagement.  Less a business practice, more a throwback to traditional public relations, it is a tactic that when leveraged correctly can help any company achieve its PR and marketing goals.

But while the social media and traditional PR game may have the same goals, they simply cannot be played successfully with the same set of rules.

This July, the new set of rules that can help PR and marketing professionals succeed in social media will be unveiled during Retweet: Engagement Means Business, a free online conference hosted by Vocus.  Joining this conference as a presenter will be TopRank® Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an online marketing tactic that helps search engines find, index and rank content on the web.   Proper SEO is not a silver bullet or a magic pill that will help a website skyrocket to the top of search rankings in 5 days or less.  When managed effectively, SEO is a tactic designed to produce results that are ongoing and cumulative – rather than dramatic and temporary. In the Search Engine Optimization case study below, flat panel and projector mount manufacturer Chief Manufacturing illustrates the ongoing success that can be achieved with a long term SEO program.

As software companies inherently work with digitally based products, it can be argued that software companies have an inherent advantage within the digital marketplace.

Of course, the inherent disadvantage of this scenario is a digital space flooded with competition.  Nearly every software company that inhabits space online must constantly be on-guard against potentially hundreds of competitors competing for mindshare.

For the two companies below, both of which have renewed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) programs with TopRank® Online Marketing, this increased competition will be far less of a worry: