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Privacy, complexity seen as Google blind spots – San Francisco Chronicle

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

The Hindu Privacy, complexity seen as Google blind spots San Francisco Chronicle Buzz and Wave were both, in different ways, Google's answers to the skyrocketing popularity of social networking services Facebook and Twitter. ... Twitter Traffic Boost Affirms Value of Real-Time Search PC World Free Marketing Advice from the Pros Inc.com (blog) Instant results mad.co.uk Utalkmarketing (blog)

Redirected Traffic – Drive Visits in Your Direction

Posted by BlogPostman under Redirected Traffic

Have you been running an internet based business for a few months now, but can’t figure out why your daily traffic levels are so low? Even the most savvy internet users usually can’t tell you what makes them want to visit a site or not, so many web business owners are left with the frustrating task of learning by trial and error.

Many people don’t realize that internet marketing is very different from traditional marketing in some significant ways, and if you try to advertise your web site with the same mass marketing tactics that work for traditional businesses, you’re probably going to be wasting your money.

These days, many people are searching for the perfect marketing strategy that will both provide them with a high volume of consistent traffic to their web pages on a daily basis, as well as increasing their sales ration. Many have discovered that redirected traffic is one of the best ways to accomplish this.

If you’ve never heard of redirected traffic before, you should know that it is a method for redirecting traffic from popular, trusted websites right to your own home page. This way, you can be sure that people that are interested in your product or services are sure to find your site.

One of the great things about redirected traffic as a marketing technique is that it takes much of the guess work out of advertising your site. This is because the people that will be directed to your site using this technique have already expressed some interested in that industry to begin with. By clicking on a specified keyword or category, they will be delivered right to your pages.

Using redirected traffic means that you will be making a more efficient use of your marketing dollars, because you won’t be wasting your time advertising on sites that are not really attracting your target customers.

Don’t be worried if you feel like you aren’t really the best person to be in charge of your redirected traffic marketing campaign. Often these types of tactics are best left up to the internet marketing experts that have perfected their execution and delivery. Make sure you choose to work with a company that has a history of successful campaigns in your industry.

Many people don’t realize how important website promotion is to the success of their business until they are already struggling. Don’t wait until you’re desperate! Click here to learn more about redirected marketing and other tactics that work.

Twitter Traffic Boost Affirms Value of Real-Time Search – PC World

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

CBC.ca Twitter Traffic Boost Affirms Value of Real-Time Search PC World Both Microsoft and Google spent much of last year courting Facebook and Twitter. The monolithic rivals were each aggressively trying to understand and adapt ... Google corrects rumours about splitting Buzz from Gmail High Tech Lounge Going Google Ithaca College The Ithacan Google Buzz Could Become Web's Open Social Hub Mediapost.com CNET

3 Ways to Use the Google Wonder Wheel for Visiual SEO

Posted by cgseo under Social Media, Web Marketing

Share 3 Ways to Use the Google Wonder Wheel for Visiual SEO This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Google has a tool buried deep into the core search functionality that doesn’t get talked about much. The tool is called the Wonder wheel. Essentially, it’s just another way to view your search results but it focuses on creating a visual wheel of the search terms Google thinks are related to your primary search. You access this view by doing a search and then hitting +Show Options at the top of the page. A sidebar will appear on the left, scroll down to the view options and hit Wonder wheel . (If you’ve never explored the more options sidebar there’s really a lot to play with there.) This is a Wonder wheel view of the search for small business marketing. What I like about this is that I think it gives a very simple map for optimizing your web pages, blog posts and entire site and a great starting place for building much more effective PPC campaigns. There are many more sophisticated ways to all both of these, but sometimes simple is better! 1) Optimizing your site around important and related keyword phrases . If you’re going to win the search battle for your most important search phrases you’ll need to think strategically about it. The more competitive the terms, the more you have to optimize very specifically. Using the Wonder wheel approach you could focus on the optimizing your home page for the core term and then building content pages specifically focused on each of the spokes in the wheel. This basic approach allows you to take huge cue from Google as to how they view your term. OK, there’s lots more to it, but this is the basic foundation. 2) Creating more effective PPC campaigns . The more targeted any ad is in both audience and message the more likely it’s going to perform. Using the Wonder wheel approach you might ditch the core phrase because it’s likely too expensive and crowded, but focus on building separate campaigns and ads for each of the spoke terms by creating numerous ad groups by Wonder wheeling those spoke terms for another good 5-6 phrases. You can then add Google’s keyword suggestions to finish off your groups with no more than 10-15 for each. Make sure you create specific ads for each group. Again, a very simplified approach to what can be done in far more complex ways, but this might be a great way for you to get started right. 3) Shaping your blog content . The Wonder wheel is a great tool to use along side your post writing. You can determine what you are going to write about and use the Wonder wheel suggestions on the spokes as phrases you might also want to work into a post. Or, you can use the Wonder wheel to suggest topics that you should be writing about and including as phases in your blog post titles. This approach might be one of the easiest ways to keep your mind buzzing about topics for posts while keeping your SEO efforts focused as well. Related Posts: Google Keyword Tool Now Offers Search Volume I've got a funny feeling about MSN Using Google AdWords for Testing Organic Keywords Every company has two wheels Keyword Research for Targeted Web Site Traffic Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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3 Ways to Use the Google Wonder Wheel for Visiual SEO

A New Age for Social Media Marketing

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

In 2010, Social Media will rapidly escalate from novelty or perceived necessity to an integrated and strategic business communications, service, and information community and ecosystem. Our experiences and education will foster growth and propel us through each stage of the Social Media Marketing evolution. As MarketingSherpa observes, “2010 is the year where social media marketers gain the experience required to advance from novice to competent practitioner capable of achieving social marketing objectives and proving ROI.” It’s a powerful prediction and it’s one that I also believe. This is your year to excel, teach, and create your own destiny. To document the evolution in maturation of new media marketing, MarketingSherpa published its 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report . The undercurrent of the report is rooted in the shift from hype to methodology, observing that many marketers jumped on board Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other social media platforms without a plan for defining, achieving, or measuring success. The general reaction of the more than 2,300 marketers who participated in the report was that current social media tactics were counter-intuitive to proven marketing principles. This is why I believe that business success stories shared to date were wonderful to read, but they didn’t necessarily serve as a framework for my work. Too many assumptions have been made and business considerations compromised while they learned how to embrace and employ new media in a very public spotlight. In the report, MarketingSherpa condenses the ten stages of social media marketing to three phases of maturation: R.O.A.D. Research – Monitor target audiences about brands and competition Objectives – Define objectives with target audiences and social metrics Actions – Create a social marketing strategy with a definitive plan of action Devices – Deploy social platforms based on audience, objectives and strategy Phase I: Trial – no process is used and social platforms are implemented first. Phase II: Transition – an informal process is used and performed randomly. Phase III: Strategic – a formal process is used and performed routinely. I believe to the contrary however. The maturation process of social media enlightenment and mastery is far more sophisticated and incremental. In my experiences, I’ve documented on average ten stages, and in some cases several more – not including the realization of resource costs per engagement and instance. For example, many organizations can assess the cost per tweet, blog post, response, and their impact on achieving objectives. Perhaps that level of social prowess will reside in the 2011 Benchmark Report. MarketingSherpa asks in which phase of marketing maturity is your organization. With maturity, strategy and effectiveness ensue. Assessing the average of all elements, 40% of organizations reside in the Transition Phase, 66% are experimenting within the Trial Phase, and 23% are advancing, learning and adapting towards the Strategic Phase. When reviewing the total responses, MarketingSherpa learned that those organizations in the Trial Phase were mostly focused on Devices (Social Media Platforms). Research becomes the catalyst for evolving to the Transition Phase. And as we’ve always learned, actions speak louder than words, and it is Action that catapults brands into the Strategic Phase. A pattern which started to take shape in early 2009 continues into 2010 – Social Media defies economic concerns. Leading the way, retail and ecommerce will increase budgets by upwards of 79%. Publishing/Media appear to finally grasp that the statusphere holds the key towards future engagement and earned relevance, following in second with an increased social spend of 63%. Computer hardware/software, business and consumer services, and manufacturing/packaged goods follow closely with 55%, 54%, and 53% respectively. Travel/leisure and education are also investing in social media marketing with budget allocation rising to 52% and 43%. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but it does grow on tweets… One of the interesting aspects of social media is that budget isn’t necessarily created entirely to support it. Money is redistributed from other projects. The report, which I don’t have full access to, shares the responses from marketers…I would love to read it. In my experience, money has moved mostly away from traditional advertising, interactive, and also traditional PR to help spark new social programs and teams. As referenced earlier, human resources (cost of labor) accounts for most of the expenditures as social media marketers are leveraging free tools and services to engage. According to the data, MarketingSherpa estimates that 60% of social marketing is allocated towards the human factor and 20% will go towards outside agencies and consultancies to help with social endeavors. Metrics will become instrumental in assessing budget allocation for 2011 – whether it’s a fiscal or calendar year. It is a quest for meaningful metrics that inspire more accurate and beneficial programs that introduce business acumen into new media. Respondents were asked to align business and social objectives with corresponding metrics. At the top of the list, increased Web Traffic led the way across each phase. However, if you follow a stricter regiment for social media orientation and practice, Web traffic is among the easier elements to measure and honestly, increase. It is this revelation that leads to the creation of a strategic path and experience – usually resulting in the remodeling of the online corporate presence. In second, lead generation was followed by increased sales revenue in third. Expect to see those metrics increase with the sophistication level of practitioners. In fact, you could also bet that product/brand reputation and stature, reduced costs in customer acquisition and retention, and improved customer support will rank at the top as well…instead, the early phases of indoctrination place these towards the bottom of this in terms of importance. MarketingSherpa visualized the resource investment social media tactics that reflected effort required versus effectiveness. Of course most erred on programs that lowered the barrier to entry and ongoing activity including email, social media news releases , Microblogging (most likely Twitter), social networking, and content sharing (read: uploading, not promoting). However, in social media, your returns are representative of your investment and cultivation and bankable in the form of connections and earned authority. As such, on the opposite end of the Social Marketing Tactics, SEO and Social Media Optimization (SMO), Blogging, and Blogger Relations indeed required the greatest amount of effort, but also delivered the greatest returns. Influence is tiered and conversations are distributed. Decisions are guided by the information and insight available to those seeking it where they choose to search and ask. One of the least discussed aspects of social media in any study is the point of enlightenment when an organization realizes that it must socialize at multiple levels, from marketing to service to HR to product/service and everything in between. We are ambassadors not only for the brand we represent but also the value proposition and the benefits we offer and how they apply to the set of circumstances and hurdles that surround each community of nicheworks . MarketingSherpa revealed that independent voices are among the most trusted voices across blogs, boards/forums, microblogs, and wikis. However, to earn a trusted voice within any community, intelligent, thoughtful, and genuine insight and expertise is the minimum investment required. Earning trust and establishing authority are among the goals in any social program. In Social Media, we earn the prominence and relationships we deserve. Connect with Brian Solis : Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Plaxo , or Facebook — Get the new iPhone app! — Click the image below to buy the book/poster : — Image Source: Shutterstock

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A New Age for Social Media Marketing