Have you noticed SEO seems to change almost as much as a teenage girl? If your website doesn’t keep up with the ever changing demands of SEO, be prepared to watch from the sidelines while your competitors reap the rewards of search. SEO can be a very powerful tool, but can be overwhelming to keep up with. Even within the past year, Google released its panda ranking algorithm update which lowered the rank of “low-quality” sites, incorporated social platforms to search, and is now offering features such as site-links and ratings in search engine results. With the changing climate of search, make sure your business is taking advantage of these three SEO strategies in the new year.

Integration of Search & Social

With more social platforms than ever trying to rival Facebook, there is no doubt that 2011 was the year of social media. Within 2011, search and social media have been integrated more than ever. Search engines have realized that people are getting more and more valuable information from social media platforms, which has significantly narrowed the gap between the two. In fact, search and social are only going to become more integrated in the years to come. Twitter ‘shares’, Facebook ‘likes’, and even Google+ ‘+1s’ have become a huge channel for sharing information and significant influencers in search rankings. Within Facebook, businesses are taking advantage of promotion opportunities that generate ‘likes’ through the development of custom pages. This helps in creating an audience for your business to engage and interact with. If you do not currently have a social media presence, let Starkmedia help build and integrate it into your priorities for 2012.

Content Links

One of the most effective ways people are gaining traction in SEO today are credible, authoritative content links from other sites. This can be harder than you think. Google is smart enough to know whether a link is credible or not. In fact, Google has gone out of its way to penalize websites who link to ‘spammy’ sites or content farms. So instead of attempting to trick Google, look for avenues to write fresh and creative content that the web will want to link to. Many will rely upon blogs or guest blogging to accomplish this task. Some businesses will contact publications or associations they may be a part of for content links. Other sites will naturally attract quality links. Regardless of the website, authoritative content links are necessary in the long-term stability of your search engine rankings. Not sure where to start? Starkmedia can provide you with a clear strategy to build your web presence.

Get Local

You may have noticed that the majority of searches that you perform will have a Google Places section. There is a reason for it. A study from SEOmoz has revealed that visitors gravitate toward local listings even more than the top few positions of the page when they are displayed. What does this mean? If your business generates revenue from a physical location, make sure that you are taking advantage of all local listing channels such as Google Places, Yelp, and Yahoo! Local Listings. It is a great way to build more visibility to your site. Be sure that all the information across these channels are consistent and accurate.

The future of SEO presents new opportunities for you and your business to grow your web presence and increase interaction with your customers. Having trouble establishing an online presence? Are you unsure of your website’s next step? From design to SEO, let the team at Starkmedia guide you on a path toward online success.

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1. New Year, New Media Vehicles
2. Search Engines Introduce Social Media As Ranking Factors
3. Making the Right Connections on the Web

The evolution of social media has stirred up the marketing game and new platforms continue to surface. Which ones are worth your time? . . .

QR codes have arrived on the scene and are making quite an impact. In June 2011, 14 million American consumers scanned QR codes with their mobile devices as reported by bizreport.com. With a vast array of uses and possibilities, these eye-catching bar codes could be the perfect fit to your marketing strategy.

One way to target both potential and current customers is to use two different strategies when creating your QR codes. In order to target potential customers, create QR codes and display them on products at retailers. When the code is scanned the user is taken to a specifically designed mobile page that highlights specs for that product. For current customers, place a QR code within manuals for each specific model that leads the user to a resource page with information on that model’s parts, maintenance, etc. These vastly different approaches will give you the opportunity to successfully target each audience. Is there an opportunity you’re missing?

To find other possibilities for marketing with QR codes as well as keys to success, scan the code with your QR reader or view it in a browser.

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Starkmedia has been in the web industry for over ten years. Throughout these years, the industry has made substantial changes and online marketing has naturally evolved with it. In our experience there are a few important changes to recognize as we tackle our marketing budget.

photo credit:scottchan

Social Marketing:
Marketing was originally focused on throwing out a message to the masses, but the adoption of social media has turned the tables. Social marketing has turned our communication into more of a two-way conversation. Expectations have shifted as consumers assume resources and information are available rather than blatant marketing messages. Start a conversation and engage your social audience by creating a customized campaign centered on a service or product.

Foot Traffic & Web Traffic:
One of the goals of marketing was to get the prospect in the door, but now there is another avenue to think about. Most prospects are checking your online presence before they even step into your store. A company must consider what impression they are making online and how they can take that opportunity to bring the prospect closer to the point of purchase. Assess how your online endeavors can support in-store opportunities.

In With the New AND Keeping the Old:
Like every other aspect of our lives, marketing has been changed by ever-advancing technology, but just because there are new channels for receiving information, we cannot ignore the traditional means. The success of a marketing campaign often lies in the merging of all marketing efforts. Find ways to promote online endeavors offline and vice versa.

Relevance Increased:
One of the differences between online and traditional marketing is that when people come to you online they are often searching specifically for your product or service. Search engine optimization takes online marketing a step further by allowing businesses to target keywords and optimize their websites to make it easier for people to find them. In online marketing there are opportunities to gain visibility both through natural and paid search. Paid search is more effective for immediate impact with little effort, while natural search results generally evolve with time and effort. Utilize the benefits of online marketing by assessing your site for more SEO opportunities.

In Conclusion:
Begin by asking yourself: “How much of our marketing budget should I allocate to online endeavors?”  Next, think about all of the online opportunities: website improvements, paid and natural search, email, social media, banner ads, etc. and ponder which areas make the most sense for your business. Staying updated on the most recent trends in online marketing is something we pride ourselves in. As you plan new marketing campaigns allow Starkmedia to guide you in the process of merging traditional marketing methods with new online marketing opportunities.

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1. Qdoba’s Social Media Success

A little insight into a Social Media position at a web design firm: I see a lot of websites everyday! As I stumble across new websites, I immediately make an assumption about the company based on the pages I’m presented with. Although budgets don’t always allow for extreme makeovers there are small things that can be done to your website to steer clear of presenting the wrong impression. I’ve listed 3 areas to consider as you approach changes to your site in the upcoming year.

1. Personalization

It’s no secret that we respond to things that are specifically tailored to us—this is a big part of the popularity of Amazon and Zappos. Below are a few small ways to tailor your site towards the individual visitor.

• Options, choices, & features! Allow your visitors opportunities to personalize and create a “home” out of your site. Meriter has presented personalization through their My Chart feature, which allows their patients to securely schedule appointments, send messages to health care providers, view their medical history, and pay online.
• Custom Newsletter Sign-Up. The ever-popular Groupon just rolled out a personalization feature allowing users to choose what types of deals they would like to receive. If your company offers a range of specific services or products, allow your visitor to choose what they are interested in and send them updates and information based on their choices.
• Targeted Ad Blocks. Use personalized home page ad blocks to appeal to your visitor. Briggs and Stratton use the IP address of their visitor to feed location based ad blocks. When I visit Briggs and Stratton, I see information on snow blowers, while the individual in Hawaii will not.

2. Social

The phrase “staying ahead of the curve” is reserved for those who act upon events prior to their occurrence. Getting ahead of the online curve doesn’t require a massive social media following, just a method to engage users. Although Facebook and Twitter are the two most commonly covered platforms, they are just a part of the “social” movement. Developing strategies for your customers to engage/share with your company will not only benefit your marketing efforts, but also has the potential to enhance your search rankings.

• Customer Reviews. Opinions hold weight in the world of e-commerce. Adding customer reviews can not only add to the credibility of your products, but also enhance your search engine rankings.
• Social Sharing. Give your visitor the ability to share your content. When browsing any article allow visitors to easily share the information by providing the most popular social sharing links next to the title.
• Applications. Expand your social reach and go beyond Facebook and Twitter. Think about how YouTube or LinkedIn could promote your business. Pentair Water wanted to demonstrate the ease of installation for their Easy Sump, so they embedded YouTube videos within their site to walk users the process of installation. Make sure to bring continuity to your efforts by promoting your social activity on your website and also by customizing them to match other branding efforts.
• Mobile. Have you forgotten about your mobile audience? The use of the Internet on mobile devices continues to grow and as it grows it only becomes more important for businesses to ensure access to their site via the mobile web.

3. Site Traffic Tracking

Monitoring how site visitors interact with a website often gets lost in the shuffle. Traffic tracking tools such as Google Analytics are, for the most part, underutilized. Data collection advancements in site traffic tracking tools provide insight and customization for very specific data. Depending on your companies’ online goals, tracking tools will likely provide the ability to monitor your online success.

• Site Goals. A goal is a website page which a visitor reaches once they have made a purchase or completed another desired action, such as a registration or download. Goal conversions are the primary metric for measuring how well your site fulfills business objectives.
• Search Engine Performance. Nearly 90% of users begin their web session at a search engine. A well established search engine presence is critical to online success.
• Content Gaps. What content does your site offer which users aren’t finding or visiting? Addressing content gaps will improve site traffic, as well as the user experience.
• Custom Reporting. One of a kind reports designed for your unique site goals.

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1. A Mobile Website that Appeals to the Mobile User

The two biggest players in search – Google and Bing – have officially confirmed that social media, specifically Twitter and Facebook, are used in their ranking algorithms. The real game changer is that social media’s influence is no longer limited to just social search, but is now affecting ALL search queries. Search engines are determining social media’s influence for each specific query by evaluating the context of links shared on both Facebook and Twitter. Social media’s level of influence is determined in two forms: the amount of times a specific URL/link has been shared and the quality of authors sharing a specific URL/link.

Danny Sullivan, search marketer, outlines the specific changes in his recent interview with representatives from Google and Bing.

How does this apply to you?
. . . It really depends on the nature of your company. The search engine / online market environment for every website is different. Social media may be hot topic right now, but it’s not required that everyone should just jump right in. However, I can suggest that everyone at least consider it. If your website is involves in e-commerce and hasn’t gotten involved, I strongly believe you are missing an opportunity. To make an informed decision on your involvement listen to the conversation going on. If there is talk about your brand or services, it is time to get involved.

The Future:
The opinions of those we call friends are important to our decision making. Google and Bing want to integrate the recommendations (in the form of sharing a link) made by our friends to bolster their users’ experiences. The influence of web-users and what they view as important will only become more relevant to search engine rankings. The belated confirmation of social media’s influence is only the drizzle at the beginning of the inevitable storm. CNN predicts the severity of this oncoming storm in its new article, “Why Your Facebook ID is the Marketers’ Holy Grail”.

Related posts:

1. What is Google Social Search?
2. Qdoba’s Social Media Success
3. Maximizing Your Site’s Search Engine Exposure

“There’s a way to do it better-find it” -Thomas Edison

Facebook continues to change the way that we communicate. Yesterday, Facebook announced their new messaging feature that is designed to aggregate all of your communication into one convenient location. From this location (your Facebook Messaging Account) you will not only be able to select how you send a message – SMS, chat, and email, but you can also pull all messages from those different forms of communication into one place. Adding additional layers of convenience is the ability to separate emails depending on the sender and sending all messages in real time. Facebook has examined the way we communicate, realized the complexity of it, and devised a service to combine our many communication tools in hopes of creating just one home base.

Photographer: jscreationzs

Tangible Take Aways . . .

1. Facebook is expanding it’s messaging capabilities. Are you seeking new opportunities/avenues to communicate in a new way to your customers?
2. Just as Facebook values innovation shouldn’t you? Whether it means adding social platforms to your marketing plans or updating your current website to remain relevant, innovation is imperative to your success online .
3. Facebook discovered this feature by analyzing how their audience communicated. Have you taken the time to see what your customers/prospects are doing and what they need right now?

Other Information on Facebook’s New Feature:
Five Reasons Why Facebook Matters in the Words of Augie Ray
Facebook Explains Their New Feature

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The most common updates posted to one’s social network usually revolve around their own life and/or something they plan on doing. The hyper-usage and gross popularity of Facebook and Twitter also revolves around its users’ ability to write up to the second status updates. Foursquare has taken notice of Facebook and Twitter users’ slight narcissism and added features to make up-to-the-minute status updates easier, more compelling, rich, contextual, and locationally relevant. Below are some convincing reasons to latch onto Foursquare and the opportunities of this platform.

RELEVANCE.
The cornerstone of Foursquare is locational relevance, which is provided by using geolocation technology built into many modern cellphones. When a user is logged into Foursquare, businesses that are in the area and have a profile through Foursquare appear as the user enters their vicinity. By offering promotions to nearby users it substantially increases the relevance, and lowers the barriers to user participation, making them more likely to take advantage of the promotion, thus increasing your customer base.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.
Are any of your competitors in the neighborhood? Offer an incentive on Foursquare to entice users into your place of business rather than theirs. In addition to adding an incentive, Foursquare also allows users to leave comments and tips about a business. This feedback is yet another way to attract the user to your business, as word-of-mouth remains a very strong marketing tool. After all, people are most likely to listen to the people they’ve already chosen to listen to.

POTENTIAL.
Since the platform is still developing, there is an immense opportunity for growth. Foursquare has opened their API to developers, which increases the potential for new features, increased relevancy and usefulness.

REFERRALS.
When a user checks into a location they have the option to post to Facebook, Twitter, or both. Posting a ‘check in’ to your social networks will broadcast a recommendation to your social-sphere. Research shows that individuals are more likely to visit a place of business that was recommended by a friend, making Foursquare an excellent outlet for referrals.

Using Foursquare is cost effective and (in most cases) free. The potential reward for a business far outweighs the time and capital commitment necessary to get started and stay up-to-date. Our recommendation is to start using the application for personal use, recognize the potential and then register your business and discover the opportunity.

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Facebook wants to make the web more social by allowing you to connect with your Facebook friends and see their recommendations while surfing other websites. Facebook is hoping other sites will implement the “like” button, which enables users to leave a trail of where they have been and what they recommend. Businesses are excited over the potential traffic that could be gained through this new feature, but that’s just the surface: this should also help highlight the interests of their customer base to allow for better targeted, more effective marketing.

Still Confused?
How you implement this feature is up to you. You can start small by adding a “like” button to the top of your blog that, when activated, will feed the visitor’s “likes” onto their friends’ news feeds and will also be stored in their preferences. OR you can dive in by not only inserting the button, but also by adding a widget that will allow the visitor to see other friends activities and likes.

Opinions and Information
CNN discusses the changes in detail.
Business Insider praises Facebook’s ambition, while considering future implications.
LikeButton allows you to explore the feature described above by giving you a sneak peek into what your friends have done online.

What to do?
If you are already involved in social media, keep it going! Continue maintaining interaction and building a base of friends. If social media brings bouts of anxiety, now is the time to reach for the Valium and begin getting social. Even if you are a firm believer in Facebook’s eventual demise, something else social will rise and take its place. See what people are saying about you and talk to others who have experimented with social media.

Enjoy the journey and BE CREATIVE!

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1. Qdoba’s Social Media Success

The beauty of social media is its versatility and wide range of applicability. Creativity is highly encouraged within the social realm and evidence of it often determines success or failure. Qdoba’s social media efforts focus on “fan” involvement and incorporate creative games, contest, and promotions to meet this goal.

Recently, I spoke with Doug Thielen, head of non-traditional marketing for Qdoba. During our conversation, we tackled the topics of a starting strategy, audience monitoring, and responding to negativity. Below is our interview, which highlights the key points of our conversation.

How did you immerse social media with your existing marketing?
During the election we started a marketing campaign called Taste Bud Politics. The campaign involved a quiz that connected certain Qdoba foods with a political party or candidate. From the quizzes, we created Facebook pages/groups so that the participants could post videos and engage with one another. Through this marketing initiative, we were able to get a better feel for social media and it also became our activation piece.

From your initial step, how did you decide where to exert your efforts?
Listening was one of the most important parts when making our transition into social media. Using a social media monitoring program, we listened to the conversations occurring in order to see what was being said and where it was happening. With the results of this “digital snapshot,” we made a decision to focus our efforts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. After getting involved in social media, we realized the importance of extending our efforts with each regional franchise.

How were you able to maintain continuity among franchises?
Before extending our social media initiative to regional franchises, we wanted to empower them with tools to succeed. In order to provide continuity, training was necessary, so we created “Social Media 101-A Guide to Social Media.” Along with the guide, we also included the colors, logos, and backgrounds needed to create a profile, page, etc. With continuity in place, each franchise was then able to become more relevant to their local audiences, but also remain connected to Qdoba as a whole.

How much time do you spend on your social media efforts?
Currently, I am the only one running our social media campaigns. As our fan base has developed and response increased, some of the opportunity was being lost because I was unable to interact as much. Since this increase, we have decided to hire an additional member to facilitate this social demand.

How do you measure the success of your campaign?
Our goal is to engage with people individually, so we often monitor which posts elicit the best customer responses. On Twitter, we utilize hashtags to measure volume and mentions. We also refer to our “digital snapshot” to gauge our progress. This snapshot allows us to measure the ratio of positive to negative comments and to see if our influence has increased.

How do you respond to negativity?
There isn’t one specific way, because it is often dependent on what kind of response we are dealing with. I have found that taking negative comments off isn’t a good practice, because it will often fuel the individual’s anger. If it is a specific complaint about the service or food, we often respond directly to that person to resolve the issue. I have found that responding correctly to a negative situation can often turn a customer into an advocate for the brand.

Qdoba’s most recent campaign, Craft for Life has become quite popular and was even mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel.

*Qdoba is not a client of Starkmedia

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Google’s Internet dominance is looming as Google Buzz settles within the market. In my previous post, I share Google’s recent acquisitions which often lead to tools worth adopting. In the case of Buzz, they are jumping into an already hot market-the social web-and are providing evidence against the argument that social media is fleeting. The platforms may come and go, but the social experience is here to stay.

I have just begun to experience Google Buzz, but below I have collected some interesting perspectives on this newly released tool.

How Google Buzz could benefit business.

A short video on how Twitter is the driving force behind Buzz.

A downside to all the Buzz.

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1. What is Google Social Search?