No one could have forecasted the rate at which social media might catch on had you asked them just a couple years ago. Below you’ll find the top 20 sites on comScore’s social networking list. It’s not definitive, but gives you a good idea.
The one site that stands out, given the time its been around is Facebook.
To put the social media growth into perspective, have a look at this;
If you crave additional social media statistics try this post on mashable.
Brands are built in decades, not days, but when it comes to online branding they’re far more achievable to create in less time with the inclusion of SEO.
When building your brand online there are several ways to go, or you can include them all. Internet advertising is often the route many will choose to start, yet similar to branding offline, it is both time consuming and expensive.
Social media is another option, but I don’t think this a strategy to rely on entirely. More of something to include with your internet marketing plan in addition to other strategies you might include.
With search engine optimization (SEO), there is really only one downside, and that is that it takes time to develop before seeing results. However, it’s been proven time and again that SEO provides the best ROI in the long term.
With SEO, not only do the links drive potential customers, it also has direct correlation to online branding because as you begin to rank for key phrases that consumers are already searching for, it creations a connection to the brand. This means that a brand can become synonymous with phrases that consumers are looking for, and creates that top of mind awareness when a site is ranking.
By including SEO in your online branding efforts you’re going to push your brand harder, and can achieve the branding holy grail – having keyowrds trigger consumers to think of your brand. This is how strong brands evolve.
By ranking (or owning) a phrase, your brand becomes synonymous with a phrase. In the offline world, it takes marketing and advertising agencies years and years to achieve this. If ever.
Your brand image is more than the logo or identity created. It’s about reputation management, advertising, public relations, and the emotion or thoughts that it conjurs up when mentioned.
SEO could be one of the most powerful tools available to grow, shape, and ultimately reach brand status.
“The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose.”
- Richard R. Grant
You can define and craft a vision of what your brand stands for through SEO by ranking for terms and phrases which represent your product or service.
Case in point; if you were to search for “buy books”, depending on your location, you’ll probably see Amazon as the first result. In Canada the website Chapters displays first. And considering that 42% of the clicks will go to that first listing in the search results and only 12% to the second result, its clear that the majority will click on that first listing and probably associate it as where they should just go if they wanted to buy books.
It’s important to note that online branding success factors differ from those of offline brands. If you take a look at Interbrands top 100 you’ll notice that many of those such as Google or eBay are unique to the web, or that the internet would have played a large part in their development.
Brands overestimate the extent to which consumer pay attention to branding, but the way it influences their decisions is almost subliminal, and SEO can be a major force.
Pick your battles/keywords wisely and you just might shave a few years off of developing your brand online.
Tags: online branding, SEOAs the economy takes its toll on advertising budgets, marketers are looking for ways to stretch their ad dollars and get more for less. For some, that means shifting their budgets towards Internet advertising.
Even though the ad spending revenues were down 5.3% in the first half of 2009, according to the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers, I suspect that with the strengthening of the DowJones will carry optimism and more advertisers will loosen the purse strings a little.
And Google shares in the optimism after stellar third-quarter results and reporting the strongest quarter in the company’s history.
In fact, the Guardian reports the Internet advertising has surpassed television ad spend for the first time in the UK. The internet now accounts for 23.5% of all advertising money spent in the UK, while TV ad spend accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets, a first in UK business history.
“We are in one of the most difficult economic slumps in decades. As the economy improves, we’re confident that brands will devote an even greater share of their budgets to reaching consumers as they make interactive media a larger part of their lives.”
- Interactive Advertising Bureau Chief Executive Randall Rothenberg
About 60 percent was spent on UK search advertising, the majority of which is understood to have gone to Google, the largest player in the search market. Which reminds me, Google is looking for a new head of marketing in the US.
Could these be hints that the economy is showing signs of recovering?
This whole post was the result of a video. It made me start thinking about online advertising, search, where we are, and where we’re headed. Considering the advances in just a few short years I doubt anyone can predict where we might be at 5 or 10 years from now. The video is called Did You Know 2.0 and includes lots of interesting stats.
Tags: Internet AdvertisingThere’s no doubt that it takes a little while for an SEO campaign to get off the ground. Which is why Search Marketing is a great way to get lead generation working for your business. Using Google Adwords, a business can be online and accepting leads in a matter of minutes.
Search marketing is what’s also known as Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, where you pay only for the ads clicks on, not how often its displayed. This Cost Per Action type of marketing is popular as it allows you to better control your marketing budget. If you’re new to this type of advertising, you’ll be glad to know that you can cap your daily spend.
It should be noted that while Search Marketing with programs like Google Adwords or similar options can bring in leads fast, the Cost Per Click quickly adds up depending on what business you’re in. Also, the paid search listing typically get 20 percent of the clicks from search results, while the natural search listings tend to get the other 80 percent of the clicks. The thing with the natural listings is SEO can be it take 6 months or more to start ranking due to the cycles of link crawling and indexing. But on the other hand, SEO tends to be a better return long term strategy, despite the initial up front investment.
An interesting introduction to Adwords can be found at NY Times.
The future of search is personal. I remember hearing that from a Claria guy at Adtech. They had released PersonalWeb (now defunct). You may remember Claria from their previous brand name Gator. They had created what they called a “personalization engine” that served both Web surfers and advertisers.
Then hakia came along, but it was a short lived battle when Powerset, its main competitor, was sold off to Microsoft.
Now there is Jinni, the new video search engine. Jinni has labeled itself as the first “Taste Engine”. This based on algorithms semantic search technology and personal recommendations.
Possibly most interesting about Jinni is their vision of the future where a search engine becomes personal and results are served based on personalized recommendations. Think how powerful that could be once tapped into social networks.
Ongoing monitoring of social networks like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc is in the works, with Jinni wanting to be part of the conversation, without actually becoming a social network itself.
The old rules of digital marketing have changed. Past performance measures of ROI differ to that of “traditional” digital media. Recent research shows that consumers can be up to 40 percent more likely to purchase a product if they have liased with that brand in a social space.
Consumers do their fair share of online research before making a lot of purchases, and online branding has a big influence when a potential customer searches a phrase and find you in the top 5 natural listings. Of course paid listings are fine, but almost 80 percent of the clicks go to natural listings. Which is why a lot of people prefer search marketing and Internet advertising over SEO. You can turn on your campaigns quick, and track them easily.
But when it comes to your best online marketing ROI, there’s no comparison to SEO. The only downfall is the initial time and investment up front. But you might look at as an investment in your online branding.
Another area of Digital Marketing that’s difficult to forecast a return on can be social media. It seems this really depends on whether Social Media is the right fit for your business, but it’s more than just Twitter and Facebook. Although if you’re new to it all you might have trouble telling. But it’s fairly important that online branding includes a social media strategy, as well as developing your presence within relevant circles such as participating in the right forums and commenting on blogs.
Although the performance measures aren’t clear cut, developing metrics beyond web traffic is a good start.
The AAW (Advertising Association of Winnipeg) is hosting an event this week where the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau ) will be giving a talk on Internet advertising in Winnipeg. Should be a great primer or refresher.
For anyone with an online presence, SEO is not a question of whether you do it, its more of a question of when you begin. Even if you’re just starting out online, its imperative that you begin creating links to your website.
SEO boils down to on-page and off-page optimization. While neither can be covered in a single post, the one thing business owners can do is build links.
There are 2 simple thoughts for off-page optimization as the topic begins to get more complex than you’d initially imagine. The first thing to remember is keep your links relevant. It’s important to stay within your link neighborhood, and the temptation of free or easy links are sometimes hard to resist. Remember that crap links can damage your link profile and usually can’t be undone. The second thing to remember is, when available, link with keywords instead of your URL. And a combination of both is more natural.
Usually you would pick 3 to 5 phrases of 2 or 3 keywords like “SEO Winnipeg” and stick with those if you’re keeping the link building light and in house. Keep at it while monitoring your rank and you should see your site position climb slowly. As all links are not created equal, that’s another discussion. Keep track with a simple spreadsheet containing the phrases and dates last checked, and update it every week or two. And a reminder – keep it relevant.
Tags: link buildingAt first glance, it might appear that branding online is strikingly similar to branding in the world of brick and mortars, but while there are many similarities, online branding requires a richer knowledge and skill set. Specifically, online branding requires an in-depth knowledge of search engine ranking and other forms of search marketing.
Online Branding and SEO
Offline, branding involves a myriad of techniques to increase visibility and stay present in the minds of consumers, primarily though repetitive advertising. Ads of every kind increase visibility. If this were to be translated to the internet, you’d build a brand through website and blog advertisements. There is certainly credence to this method, but the online marketplace is more vastly segmented than markets offline and without well placed advertisements and results, you’ll miss your market entirely regardless of how much money you’re throwing into an advertising campaign.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) fills the largest void created when offline branding techniques move online. Instead of constancy of ads, you must now also focus on reaching your specific target audience through popular search terms as well as strategic ads on relevant websites. Internet branding is a combination of techniques, but SEO is essentially the foundation of connecting a company with a term or phrase. Ranking number one for a particular keyword phrase essentially is your brand online. With branding, becominging synonymous with a phrase is a holy grail of sorts, and can be accomplished online.
Using SEO for Internet Branding
SEO builds brand awareness online by targeting specific keyword terms in the search engines. SEO takes time to work, and once effective, it requires constant dedication to stay at the top of the results. Your goal through SEO and online branding is to have consumers search for a phrase representing your brand. When the results appear, your company should be one of the first sites that appear in the search results. If you’re ranked in the top five for your search term that is also your brand, you’re extremely well positioned for both conversions and online reputation management.
PPC ads can replicate these results, but not to the degree of authentic search result listings. Advertisements are not as trusted by visitors as search results, and text links only receive 20% of the clicks on the results page – a far cry from the solid internet presence you’re seeking.
Building an Online Brand by Other Means
PPC is a lesser alternative to SEO, but there are other elements of online branding that can have tremendous results. Foremost of these is social marketing. By taking advantage of the increasingly social nature of the internet, your brand can be easily established and constantly replicated within your market.
Internet marketing is also an option, but with click through rates being a half percent on average, it takes a decent budget and call to action for anyone to click. And with the web being as fragmented as it is, reaching your audience with banner advertising can be challenging.
Search marketing is another element of online branding. Paid positions through banners and search results can contribute strongly to the overall reputation and presence of your company online. Again search terms, target markets and the overlap between keywords and brand will be one of the foremost criteria for positioning yourself properly on websites relevant to your branding efforts.
Tags: online branding
This is asked often, so I’m placing the answer here and will refer others to this post in the future.
SEO goes in cycles. Links are built, then they are crawled by SE’s and indexed. But when the Search Engine crawls and indexes content it doesn’t necessarily reoganize its index and find your new rank. With Google, the search engine will update its entire index about every four months. And since Google has well over half the market share we’ll just focus on that one Search Engine for this post.
Let’s suppose that we started a campaign in January, and Google just updated its index. You would be starting at square one. The exceptions being things like the age of the domain, age of existing links, strength and relevance of those existing links, and whether the links were anchor text or simply URL’s.
If your hypothetical website called widgetworldusa dot com only had links pointing at it with the URL, it’s link profile needs work. But if you widget site had anchor text linking to it for phrases you’re pursuing, like “industrial strength widgets”, then you’re off to a good start.
Now about 3 months later you’ve built more “industrial strength widgets” links, but not all of them were crawled and included in the index yet. So on the first update you can hope for 25-50% of your links to have been picked up. These will go into consideration on the next update that’s another 3 months away.
Now it’s 6 months later and you’re still hard at work on link building. This is the second Google update, with probably half or more of those links in the first update now included. But between update one and two you can again hope for 25-50% of your links to have been picked up.
Factors that generally play into how long does seo take can include the age of your domain, the relevance, the age of the link, the age of the link the domain is on, the age of the domain that the link is on, the authority of the domain your link is on, and much more.
Hopefully this provides a little insight about why SEO takes so long, and why many people offering SEO services usually require a commitment of 6 to 12 months to start a project.
For those wanting instantaneous results, Search Marketing and PPC is probably more suitable. But you should note that it accounts for less than 20% of the clickthroughs for search engine results pages (SERPs) and that the natural listings and SEO boast 80% of the clicks.
The best strategy is a mix of both, with Search Marketing to get you started until your SEO campaign catches up. It’s also worth noting that your cost per customer and SEO ROI will decrease as time goes on. Because SEO provides a long term strategy for increased consumer presence, it has added value as compared to paid search marketing.
