The 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing Blog

Lee Odden’s “Optimizes” SES NY 2012: Part 2 March 26, 2012 – 11:29 pm				Arman Rousta

[This is Part 2 of 2 in a review of Lee Odden's Search Engine Strategies NY 2012 Session. Part 1 is available here.]

Picking up on my original post last week, here are a few more slides (from Lee) and observations (from me) on Lee Odden’s SES NY presentation.

[SLIDE 5: SOCIAL SEO KPIs & BUSINESS OUTCOMES]

Odden poses an important question to digital marketers and online-focused companies – “What if Google disappeared tomorrow?” followed by a recommendation “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket!  Optimize for consumers, experiences and outcomes.”  The Social SEO KPIs slide brings to light the Business Outcomes in order to take some of the focus off obsession with KPIs, which in and of themselves, fluctuate in importance.  Insightful comment of the day from Odden, in my view was “KPIs are just a stepping stone to get what we really want, which are tangible business outcomes.”

[SLIDE 6: TOP 6 CONTENT MARKETING TACTICS: AND HOW TO OPTIMIZE THEM]

The 2011 Content Marketing Playbook, put out by the Content Marketing Institute, identifies these six tactics [1) Blog, 2) Digital Newsletter, 3) White Paper, 4) Article, 5) eBook and 6) Video] amongst the top ten CM tactics for 2011.  Odden takes us through them, giving some tips on best practices in each area.  There was no one strategy trumps all or correct strategy mix for companies to follow.  eBooks might work well for a particular company or industry, while Videos work better for a different industry.

[SLIDE 7: 30 CONTENT MARKETING TACTICS]

Odden outlines a larger list of 30 Content Marketing Tactics, which are further expanded upon in his blog.  As a marketer who has run campaigns across all of these 30 channels, my personal favorites from this list are – 1) Webinars, 2) Crowdsourcing, 3) Mobile Apps, 4) Videos and 5) Infographics.  We are reminded that regardless of the strategies utilized, keyword strategies and trending social media topics should be at the heart of them.  For example, if you want to get attention for “red widgets”, then interview a bunch of people who are “red widget” experts, and make sure to ask them a lot of questions with the wording “red widgets” as well as related phrases.  Transcribing the interview Q&A will yield a healthy amount of mentions for “red widgets” and related keywords in the text, which provides a major SEO benefit.

[SLIDE 8: CONTENT IDEAS]

Some of the memorable tips in this part of the presentation include:

• Interview Other Bloggers: Ask one question to many bloggers (so you get a high percentage of responses) or many (10 or so questions) to fewer bloggers.
• Aggregate Comments: Pull together the best comments from other blogs, and your own blogs; and put them into a fresh post or widget.
• Use of Hash Tags & Twitter Handles: Put hash tags and twitter @ handles in title tags of blog posts, and watch some cool things happen.

I like #7 as well, and have used that quite successfully for a Blueliner client (Completely Bare, a leading Laser Hair Removal and Spray Tan Spa) who gets a ton of customer inquiries to their blog.  We setup each question to come in as a new blog post, with the question as the title, and answer (from the company) as the body content.  Huge SEO benefits accumulated from this tactic.

CONCLUSION

I like Lee Odden’s presentation style.  He doesn’t mince words or talk a lot of fluff.  It’s straight advice given by a marketing professional who does “walk the talk”.  His own company, like Blueliner, does not spend a penny on advertising – because their inbound marketing strategy is so strong.  I have learned a few things from him over the years, most important of which is the consistency of his efforts in quality, multi-form content creation.  That is a lesson that everyone should take home and meditate deeply on.  Whether it’s Google, Facebook, Pinterest or the next big thing, it will be some type of content aggregator and database, that seeks out high quality content providers.  Will you be one of them?

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | 2 Comments »
Tags: #sesny, @arousta, @leeodden, Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing, odden, Social KPIs

Lee Odden “Optimizes” SES NY March 22, 2012 – 8:01 pm				Arman Rousta

I have always been a fan of Lee Odden – one of the digital marketing industry’s thought leaders – and got the chance to finally meet him today after watching his talk at SES NY.  Odden strength is in his effective communication and knack for weaving that skill into great content strategy, production and distribution.  He recently authored Optimize, which I hope to win a free copy of by live blogging from the conference (I have been taking notes and pictures throughout the session, which have been going up on Twitter – @blueliner while citing @leeodden with the #sesny hashtag throughout).  Win or not, I plan to read the book because I value what Odden has to offer, and encourage other marketers to do the same.  His message is simple, but the work required behind it is not as easy as it looks.  It requires real dedication, of time and resources, to follow through on an effective Content Marketing strategy.  Luckily, Odden gives us some good tools and a framework to approach Content Marketing, while weaving in SEO and Social Media (notice that 3 of our 7 Pillars are covered).

Here is a quick summary of my notes from today’s one-hour session in a kind of slide show (Odden’s slides, not all of them or in the order they were presented) + commentary (my observations) format:

[SLIDE 1: KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE]

Odden reminds us that Content Marketing is not just about adding more content and pages to your website; but rather about strategically devising content for specific audiences.  It’s common sense, but surprisingly, a lot of businesses don’t spend enough time doing their research and segmentation on the types of customers they have.  Odden instructs that this process should be part of the initial discovery stage of a content marketing strategy.

[SLIDE 2: CREATING CUSTOMER PERSONAS]

Once a basic level of research is done on existing CRM and Analytics data, creating Personas – which are essentially profiles of what your target customers look like demographically and behaviorally – is the next step.  These Personas then guide the content, Social and SEO strategies.  Odden got into a lot more detail about this, which I would refer to you to his new Content Marketing book website to learn more about.

[SLIDE 3: HUB & SPOKE MODEL]

Odden utilizes this Hub & Spoke Publishing model to demonstrate all of the various channels through which we can distribute and repurpose our content, as well as that of others.  Some useful tips are recommended, like “Oreo cookie commentary”, where you curate other people’s content with your own twist (kind of like what I’m doing with this blog entry, leveraging Odden’s content – the Oreo filling, but adding my own introduction and perspective around it).  Ultimately, depending on the size of your content team, a realistic checklist and process has to be agreed on, then activated via a manageable Editorial Calendar.

[SLIDE 4: SEO FITS IN EVERYWHERE!]

Odden advises us to “think more holistically about where (and what) you can optimize.”  Most companies have more digital assets (such as PowerPoint presentations, videos, white papers, and images) than they realize.  Identifying those, and building a Digital Assets Management system, so that these nuggets are accessible for various Content Marketing initiatives, is a good step.  This slide also illustrates how pervasive SEO is to the entire life cycle of a customer’s experience with any product or service category.

CONCLUSION

I have a bit more to say on this topic, and more slides from Odden’s workshop to share in Part 2 (published on March 26, 2012).  For now, I just wanted to get something out while still at the conference, while it’s fresh.

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | 4 Comments »
Tags: #sesny, hub & spoke, Lee Odden, personas

Project Re:Brief – Redefining online marketing March 19, 2012 – 11:21 am				Damjan Arsovski

Project Re:Brief is Google’s latest initiative to expand the reach and awareness of digital marketing through re-adapting couple of the most epic marketing campaigns in the history of advertising for the new, modern audience that spends enormous amounts of time online and is constantly connected thanks to the latest gadgets and technology.

As Google states on the project’s website, internet advertising turns 18 years-old this year, but even after two decades of existence and constant innovation, digital ads are used simply to inform more than they’re being used to connect, engage and entertain.

Taking Coca Cola’s “Hilltop“, Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it“, Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” and Avis’ “We try harder” campaigns, Google’s team of experts will try to re-imagine these iconic campaigns for the digital age.

Posted by Damjan Arsovski
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: Advertising, brief, digital ads, digital advertising, digital marketing, digital media, google, Internet Marketing, Marketing, online ads, re:brief

Where did Google make their money in 2011? January 24, 2012 – 7:37 pm				Damjan Arsovski

The internet marketing software company WordStream published an interesting infographic about Google’s 2011 revenues. The data in the infographic is based on Google’s investor reports and financial tables and is stating the facts in a very nice visual format.

Google’s 2011 revenues were a total of 37.9 billion dollars… yes, 37.9 billion, with a B. The most interesting fact is that 96% of the revenue came from advertising.

Thanks to companies like StateFarm, Progressive, Amazon, Macy’s, Sears, Quicken Loans, Lowe’s, Booking.com and many others like them that spend millions of dollars per year bidding for keywords like “new york hotels” with average CPC of $7.68 (used by Booking.com), “zumba dance dvd” with average CPC $5.18 (amazon), “self employed health insurance” with a extremely high CPC of $43.39 (eHealthInsurance), “cheap hybrid cars” bidding for average CPC of $15.57 (Cars.com) Google made its billions.

Below you can find the infographic with all the breakdowns and stats…

Source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/01/23/google-revenues

Posted by Damjan Arsovski
Posted in Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC), search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »
Tags: advertisers, Advertising, AdWords, cost per click, cpc, google, google revenue, google revenue 2011, paid search, pay per click, ppc

5 Reasons Why Archive.org is a Great SEO Tool October 19, 2011 – 11:10 am				Asif Anwar

Archive.org maintains historical versions of sites that allow archiving. You can see how a website looked last year or in 2001. The wayback machine keeps almost all historical versions of your site in its archive.

To many people, Archive.org is just another repository like Google’s index that stores historical data in their timeline. Many Webmasters and Search Engine Optimizers (SEOs) fail to recognize this free feature as an effective SEO Tool. Well, for those non-believers, here are 5 compelling reasons for them to admit that the Wayback Machine is a very useful SEO Tool:

Reason-1: Powerful Tool for SEO Diagnosis

Archive.org’s Wayback machine can be used as a great tool for SEO diagnosis. Have you experienced a recent fall in traffic after updating a site? You and your webmaster can’t tell what happened to the site, and what codes you may have changed, since they were not tracked.

With the Wayback Machine, you can go back and have a look at the code in previous versions of the site, before you made the update. Using a simple code comparison tool like WinMerge will allow you to see the changes in codes side by side. By looking at the changes in code, you can easily diagnose SEO for your site.

Reason-2: Site and Link Aging

Old links are like a fine aged wine in SEO, and helpful in obtaining Search Engine rankings. After changing a site to new Content Management System (CMS), you might create a lot of new links, but forget about the old links. I have seen many webmasters forget about the old links and suddenly web sales start dropping.

You can search for old links through the Wayback Machine and manage the aging of the links in the current site through 301 Permanent Redirects, which is very Search Engine Friendly. Here is a nice article on how you can improve SEO from old links.

Reason-3: Fixing Old Broken Links

As you site evolve, you throw away old links. But, there may be many sites and bookmarks out there that had a link to your old link. Not having the link there or having a 404 page instead, is a very disappointing thing for both visitors and search engines.

You can use the Wayback Machine to track back the old links and hunt down the broken links though Xenu’s Link Sleuth software. This will ensure visitor friendly, smooth browsing from other sites or bookmarks. And the Search Engines will love your site for that.

Reason-4: Source of Unique Contents

Previously, Content was King. However, after the Duplicate Content Filter update by Google, Unique Content became King. As you have probably had different content over the existence of the site, chances are you have created unique content most of the time. Moreover, to keep the site always fresh with content, many webmasters and site owners do this to get the SEO benefits.

If you are doing that, then you can use your old content elsewhere and build inbound links for your site. The best way to find your old content is through Archive.org’s Wayback Machine.

Reasong-5: Evidence for Claiming Copyright

Many people believe that you need to apply for copyright. But, the fact is you don’t need it. Rather, you need a good and strong evidence to claim for your rights. Your archived page in the Wayback Machine may not be a very strong evidence, but it is really a good one.

Posted by Asif Anwar
Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

Multi Channel Funnels in Google Analytics July 27, 2011 – 12:44 pm				Satya

Google introduced a promising new feature in Google Analytics that shows a set of reports that will help marketers understand which marketing channels customers interact with prior to a conversion on your website. Conversion path data includes interactions with many media channels that include clicks from paid searches, clicks from organic searches, affiliates, social networks, and display ads. This presents a clear view to the marketer and shows consumer behavior, helping him to understand the various channels which bought the traffic to the website by the way of clicks that turned into real conversions. This feature is known as Multi-Channel Funnels.

Multi Channel Funnels report how previous referrals and searches (organic/paid) have contributed to your sales. Once you know which channels produce the highest conversion path, channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, press releases, e-mail newsletters etc, you can focus on enhancing the successful funnel. The Multi-Channel Funnel gives marketers useful reports to know which channel contributed, how often they contributed, how long it took between the initial channel click and conversion and the channel path that is followed most frequently to conversion.

From the Google website:

Multi-Channel Funnels reports are generated from conversion paths, the sequences of interactions (i.e. clicks/referrals from channels) during the 30 days that led up to each conversion and transaction. Conversion path data include interactions with virtually all digital channels. These channels include, but are not limited to:

• Paid and Organic Search
• Referral Sites
• Affiliates
• Social Networks
• Email Newsletters
• Display Ads
• Custom Campaigns that you’ve created, including offline campaigns that send traffic to vanity URLs

Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics

Posted by Satya
Posted in blog, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website Analytics | No Comments »
Tags: clicks, consumer behavior, conversions, google analytics, marketing channels, multi channel funnels, organic search

GSM Technology Celebrates 20 year of Service July 1, 2011 – 11:33 am				Mohsin Sharief

The first GSM call was made by Finnish Prime Minister Harri Holkeri to Kaarina Suonio who was the Vice-mayor of Tampere. The call took place in Finland on July 1, 1991. The first network was built by Telenokia and Siemens and operated by Radiolinja (now Elisa) using a 900 MHz band. In the call, Holkeri and Suonio discussed the benefits of the New GSM technology, voice quality, security, privacy and the phones identity being in the SIM card. This allowed consumers to easily manipulate and choose products they like.

The GSM standard was agreed on in 1987 by 13 European nations, settings standards for the technology. In 1992 the first short messaging service (SMS or text message) was sent and Vodafone UK and Telecom Finland signed the first international roaming agreement. In 20 years, GSM has grown rapidly and today has reached over 4.4 billion people in 212 countries.

The first commercial GPRS services were launched in 2000. The first UMTS (W-CDMA) network was launched and worldwide GSM subscribers exceeded 500 million that year. In 2002 the first GSM network with 800 MHz frequency band became operational and also the first multimedia messaging services (MMS) were introduced. EDGE services first became operational in 2003 and the number of worldwide GSM subscribers exceeded 1 billion in 2004.

Over time, the technology has evolved to support 400, 800, 1800 and 1900MHz bands; and now supports WDCMA-based UMTS (3G) and later HSPA and HSPA+. The GSM standard Association currently holds 80% of the global mobile market.

Posted by Mohsin Sharief
Posted in Mobile Marketing, News, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: birthday, cdma, GSM, NSN, technology

Stretch Out The Meaning of SEO June 24, 2011 – 3:35 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

We here at Blueliner Marketing believe in the growth of digital media.  Our ability to communicate on all platforms offer a flexibility in business production which has never been realized in any other era.  Corporations are learning slowly about terms like metadata, page views, and conversion rates. But some executives still aren’t convinced that search engine optimization is a worthy investment, even if consumer traffic begins with a website for everyone. Outspoken Media had some opinions for marketing managers to crack the digital ceiling.

1.  Turn Your Data Into a Story

You relentlessly comb over the site map looking for mistakes in the metadata. The keyword list rankings have shifted a little bit over the quarter, but not too much.  The metrics paint a vivid for you to implement strategy, but what about your supervisors? Use a television show or allegorical reference to spread your data evangelism.

2.  Your Boss Isn’t Educated On the Seemingly Ancillary Benefits

In fact, I have conversations with co-workers all the time about clients who expect a complete brand transfusion in their conversion metrics when starting an SEO campaign. Unfortunately, in this world of button gratification, no mas. It takes a lot of protocol and slow roasting to see the results.  Outspoken brings out several points of value.  You gain increased web, image, and video search.  Your brand authority improves while customer acquisition costs decline.  Over time, you engage more with the customer base, and then the sales flow in.

3.  Rankings Are Up, But Traffic is Down

Again, this harkens to the last paragraph where investors could freak out in the early stages.  After a thorough metadata review and keyword implementation, you are separating the wheat from the chaff.  When this infiltrates a strong website with simple navigation paths, you will attract customers rather than surveyors.

4.  A Relationship of Obscurity

A last point they bring up is that it could be a plain old gap. Whether it be an age or personality gap  is irrelevant.  The forces of nature are not permitting management not understanding the basic value of your daily responsibility.  I bring this into the fray as a conclusion point for one simple reason. It is an indicator of a macroeconomic problem within your firm structure which is a coin flip at best.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Business News, Content Marketing, Interactive Marketing, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing agency nyc, new york interactive marketing, outspoken media, seo news

Blueliner Signs With Visual Lease For The Web June 23, 2011 – 3:08 pm				Abdul Fattah Ismail

Visual Lease is a cutting-edge, easy to use web based system that automates the management of real estate leases system. Tenants and Landlords have a dashboard overview of their leases, receive critical date notification and can build an unlimited number of reports to evaluate all aspects of a real estate portfolio. Accounting has tools at their disposal to track rents, including escalations. For retailers, Visual Lease can manage complex percent rent obligations.

Despite their extensive portfolio of clients, Visual Lease needed to increase their brand visibility in cyberspace. A couple of years back, they enlisted the marketers here at Blueliner to rise on the search index. Our development team started from scratch with a comprehensive SEO initiative. They first built site architecture with relevant keywords in order to generate a spike in conversion rates. Along with strengthening the keyword segment, they built a link campaign to improve brand development inside the real estate community. Sales improved by approximately 60%.
Visual Lease’s future development initiatives involve more mobile, open source applications. Real estate is a nimble industry where data accessibility needs to be shared instantaneously across platforms, including CRM, project management and accounting.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, blog, Business News, Content Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Small Business, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »

Latest Link Building Techniques June 22, 2011 – 6:44 am				Satya

Linking is the one of the important factors in increasing traffic to a website. Follow these 14 simple rules for a better link building campaign. These links building techniques are proven to generate better back links to your website.

Guest Blogging: Guest blogging is when you write an article, post or information on a blog owned by someone else. Make sure the blog or website is in the same industry niche as you. Look for blogs within your niche that have high pageranks.

Profile Links: It’s very important to have links to profiles in which the anchor-text contains both keyword variations and branded text.

Strategic Partnerships – Leveraging existing relationships with vendors, partners, suppliers, and customers is an easy and mutually beneficial way to build links.

Reviews: Submitting product and service reviews to shopping search engines such as ePinions.

Freebies: Give something valuable away for free. Then get listed on sites that list where we get free stuff, such as TheFreeSite.com.

Give testimonials: If you have a favorite software solution that you use – or if you love someone else’s product or service – Contact them. Most will love to have a testimonial from you on their site (with a link back to your site of course). We can also do this for content developer sites that post great content and put up great information for their users.

Viral Link Building: Participate in industry-related forums or blog on sites related to your industry. Put a link to our Web site in your email signature. Social networking sites also give out lots of links. The well-regarded content that can generate viral links on social networking sites like Facebook; include useful, relevant and unique information including anything funny, gross, disgusting or bizarre.

Look at our Competitor’s Links: It is always good to know which websites link to your competitors and which anchor texts they are using, because we can use these websites as another possible link source. It’s always a good idea to get links from sites which your competitors link to.

Social Networking: Creating a profile on various social networks will allow you to add profile to relevant categories and create groups. This also provides plenty of opportunity to get good back links.
Social Media/Bookmarking: Finding top bookmarking sites based on PageRank, Alexa Rank, dofollow and submit website using good keyword anchored phrases.

Link Baiting: The process of generating incoming links through the creation of engaging content and tools. The content should be something an audience will want to share with others.

Content Distribution: Writing unique and SEO optimized content can be promote using your social networking sites.

Embedded Content: Develop visually appealing and valuable content and promote through via social networks.

Event Marketing – Marketing seasonal or one-time events is fantastic form of outreach that also generates inbound links.

Posted by Satya
Posted in Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »