1.  Logo – (Noun) “A symbol adopted by an organization to identify its products or services” We all know it’s never about what you have, it’s about how you use it that makes the difference! Since you've spent the time and/or money on this masterpiece called your "logo," make sure it shows up everywhere including business cards, social media sites, and any other promotional materials. Your logo is your company's identity in a picture and the more you show it off, the quicker your brand recognition will grow.

Does this really matter, you ask? Consider this… how likely are you to remember a random fast-food restaurant you visited when they use generic bags and soda cups versus the restaurant that brands every cup and bag with their logo? That garbage in your car becomes advertising and will make an impression every time you see it.

2. Interact – Who knew this was a part of branding? Speak directly with your target and, even more importantly, with your clients. Share and respond to social media comments, answer your phone using your company name and/or slogan, and use interactive communication tools such as surveys and email marketing. Remember, everything you send and share should always include your logo and slogan.

3. Solve – Your mission should be simple. Every business offers a product or service that offers results and/or a solution; and just because you know that, it does not mean your target market does. Leverage your interactive tools to share a clear, concise, and consistent solution that is unique to your brand identity. Remember, the process you use to help your clients may be complicated but your message should be simple enough to earn the trust and comfort of your clients.

Branding is more of an art than a science; it takes creativity, time, patience, and just like a painting, it will even go through an ugly stage. An initial brand launch should focus on creating awareness for your unique product or services. Luckily you have a friend in the industry- whether your current brand is sour or your business is brand new, HMG can help you too!

I don’t pretend to be a savvy shopper, but when I dive wallet-first into the clearance section at The Gap, I tend to stock up on accessories in my favorite color — black. Why? It’s a universal truth that black goes with everything.

So does branded journalism. In the words of veteran digital content guru Ann Handley, “Content is the new black.”

Handley is right, branded journalism (also known as brand journalism or branded content) has caught on like a wildfire this year. From Tory Burch’s fantastic branded blog to Mint.com’s MintLife section, brands realize the value of consumer-facing content like articles, photos or videos, and are rushing to create some with the company name on it.

Why? For a lot of the reasons we discussed in the first post in this series and mainly because consumers are demanding it. As brands become more accessible to fans through social media, people want more from brands than their products and services. So much so, even Twitter is looking to hire a Head of News. That leads us to branded journalism.

But branded journalism breaks the natural order of business that advertisers, journalists and businesses have subscribed to for decades. This makes some people nervous, traditionalists angry and opportunists jumping on the branded content bandwagon faster than Baltimore fans during the last Super Bowl.

So that leaves the question, if you’re going to start creating content for a brand, be it a local business or a Fortune 500 company, what are the best practices? Better yet, how do you do it ethically?

Try these simple steps for better branded journalism:

1. Build a process

Journalistic content should be more than an article or blog post thrown together quickly. Create an editorial plan, support whatever content you create with strategy, edit it, review it with key company team members and a set time to distribute it via a medium that will reach your intended audience.

2. Share something valuable

Share something that your target market will respond to. For example, Home Depot’s YouTube page features an array of do-it-yourself garden tutorials. Completely different from Red Bull’s adrenalin-pumping YouTube page that offers an array of video features on the brand’s extreme athletes. Both give their fans journalistic content in the same medium, but do it completely different ways to reach separate audiences.

3. Know your boundaries

Producing journalistic content doesn’t equate to producing a Pulitzer winning news article, so stick to your industry and the topics surrounding it. Create content targeted at a company’s audience, on subjects related to your company’s industry. Find creative ways to make content relevant to trends and new stories without reporting the news.

4. Stick to the facts and cite your sources

People want transparency from their favorite brands. Always support your content with facts from experts and credible sources. Back up your claims with research, data or testimonials from credible experts that you mention by name.

5. Strike a balance

Don’t use branded journalism as an opportunity to knock a competitor’s product or service, use it as an opportunity to share valuable content. If needed, acknowledge competitors professionally when it’s appropriate. Focus instead on sharing real insight about a subject consumers are interested in.

6. List a byline

If possible, list the author or producer of a branded journalism piece. This gives your work credibility and gives audience members a face representing the brand to connect with. Melissa Lafsky Wall left her job at USA Today to head up content production at dating site How About We, where every article or column in the site’s Date Report section is credited with a byline.

7. Track results

Producing branded journalism is useless if it doesn’t reach the correct audience to support business goals. Use analytics to track your results and SEO to shape the strategy behind your content. This ensures that you don’t just produce quality branded journalism; you produce branded content that gets results.

*as posted by Sarah Giarratana on IQ's blog

We all know SEO has changed dramatically over the years and will continue to change. The way we market, sell, deliver and report on SEO services has not kept pace and needs to catch up. If you ask marketers today what SEO is about they will likely still say things like, "ranking #1 in Google" and unfortunately this is what they are looking for in the SEO sales and service delivery process. (Read: SEO Buying & Selling Tricks that Create Unachievable SEO Results & Expectations)

We know SEO is an on-going, long-term process. More specifically, it is the process of continually discovering highly converting, non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions. It’s about understanding search intent and how keywords used to describe your products and services evolve as a prospect progresses through the buying cycle. It is then about having insight into great data and taking action by including those optimized keywords in your content marketing plan.

This SEO process cannot begin and end in a particular project phase or be completed after just one month of keyword research. It is now a four-step process that requires an SEO culture change, which includes:

• Selling the concept of discovering and optimizing for highly converting keywords
• Discovering non-branded keywords driving traffic and conversions
• Delivering additional SEO services to capitalize on highly converting keywords
• Reporting on the evolution of highly converting keywords and content

Step #1: Sell the Concept

The first place to introduce the concept of discovering and optimizing for highly converting keywords is in your marketing and sales conversations. Many SEO prospects and clients still want to buy the promise of a #1 search position for their keywords. This goal is difficult to obtain and maintain and sets unachievable expectations for you and your client.

Instead, avoid the urge to agree upon a list of keywords with your client that your team is going to "optimize for" - that list of 10, 20, or 30 keywords that your team will go away and "do SEO for." We call this list of keywords the Keyword Gap. Every client will have a list of keywords they think they want to rank for when in reality there’s a more highly converting keyword list that will perform better. That’s what the second step, Discovery, is all about.

You can do some initial keyword discovery in the sales process to demonstrate the Keyword Gap. Show the prospect some data for two keywords, for example:

Which one is the better performing keyword:

• Keyword #1 (condominiums for sale in Richmond) in Position #4 for a particular page with 20 visits and 10 conversions?
• Keyword #2 (condos in Richmond) in Position #3 for a different page with 3 visits and 1 conversion?

Based on the topic of this article, the quick answer is, Keyword #1 in Position #4 (condominiums for sale in Richmond) is a better performing keyword. An alternative answer is: more keyword discovery is required to understand if there are opportunities to optimize the web page that Keyword #2 is positioned for. Or maybe Keyword #1 is one of those highly converting keywords that should be included in all content marketing efforts.

Take away: Build time into your sales proposal and SEO program for on-going discovery to uncover those highly converting keywords prospects are using at different stages of the buying cycle. Base decisions on great SEO data from a variety of sources including SERPs, organic traffic, and conversion data. Always be on the lookout for new opportunities to optimize.

Step #2: The Discovery Process

The discovery process for new non-branded keywords should be practiced as frequently as possible. Uncover the new, non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions and determine whether there is an opportunity to further optimize the web presence for these keywords. The success of this process depends on setting up goals and conversions in your analytics system. One of my favorite sayings about SEO is, "don’t bother even starting the SEO process unless you have website analytics goals and conversions configured."

Goals and conversions in your analytics system do not have to be complicated. Start with simple conversions and as you learn about your web presence increase the sophistication. Think about what you want your website visitors to do. What would you consider a successful visit? Here are a few examples of metrics to measure successful visits (conversions) from organic search:

Time spent on site - If a visitor has stayed on the site for a certain number of minutes (3+) and the bounce rate is low, then perhaps it can be concluded that the visitor read the content. The content was appealing to them.

Number of pages visited - If the visitor reviews two or more pages, then perhaps it can be concluded that they were intrigued with the content enough to read further.

Main product or services page to contact sales page - If the main purpose of the site is to promote the organization’s main product, did the visitor review the product page, then the pricing page then the contact sales page?

Take away: Below is the process for uncovering highly converting keywords.

1. Set up goals and conversions in analytics.
2. As frequently as possible, look for the top non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions.
3. Understand the rank position for the keyword and which page or pages are ranking.
4. Understand the search volume for the keyword (both broad match and exact match).
5. Analyze the ranking pages and look for opportunities to optimize for the keyword in question.
6. Implement changes and watch for changes in position, traffic from organic search, and most importantly conversions. If there are positive changes, create some additional content that includes the keyword and again watch for changes.
7. Report newly identified, non-branded keywords and progress to the client.

Step #3: Deliver Additional SEO Services to Capitalize on Highly Converting Keywords

Once a new non-branded keyword is discovered and reported to the client, discuss the keyword opportunity and the plan for capitalizing on it.

• What was the entry page for that keyword?
• Where in the buying cycle is that keyword likely to be used?
• What kind of content can be created and distributed to further support that keyword and the prospect as they demonstrate their intent to find content?
• Is it worth further investment in SEO?

At this point, there is an opportunity to upsell the client on additional service hours to optimize and create content for the newly discovered and agreed upon keywords. It is also the point where the keyword should be included in the full content marketing strategy and further planning done on the type of content prospects require at this particular stage in the buying cycle. Perhaps it’s a focused case study, with supporting blog content, video, whitepaper or a combination. Think about the distribution points for the content and the possible backlinks and social signals that can be created for the keyword.

Take away: Set aside time each month to discuss newly discovered keywords with the client.

Step #4: Report on the Evolution of Highly Converting Keywords & Content

The approach of identifying and focusing on highly converting keywords then incorporating those keywords into the full content marketing strategy requires a different level of reporting compared to the basic monthly SEO reporting of number of backlinks, number of keywords on Page 1, etc.

Including keyword visits and conversions data alongside position data is a great first step to getting the client thinking about the difference between ranking #1 for any keyword versus ranking for the keywords prospects actually value and associate with your organization.

Once the keyword is incorporated into the full content marketing strategy the reporting requirements should shift to be focused on the performance of the particular piece of content or the content marketing campaign. This is where the disciplines of SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing begin to completely collide. (Read: 10 Reasons Why You Need an Optimized Content Strategy Now)

Take away: With the right tracking and metrics technologies the impact of content on a web presence for the purpose of organic search optimization can be reported, including:

• How the position has been affected for a particular cluster of keywords
• How many backlinks and social signals have been created
• How many keyword visits and conversions are associated with the content campaign
• And most importantly, how many sales are attributed to the content

Conclusion

Google’s algorithm updates have changed the practice of SEO. Search marketing firms have an opportunity to evolve their sales, delivery and reporting practices to differentiate themselves. Focusing on the discovery of highly converting keywords beginning with the sales and marketing conversations through delivery and reporting will produce stronger SEO results over the long term and happier SEO clients.

*As posted by Sarah Giarratana on IQ's blog

As a growing copywriter with a print journalism background, I love the idea of “branded journalism.” Editorial content written for brands, targeted at consumers, supported by analytics, published in digital spaces, that raises a big middle finger to the rule that advertising and journalism can never mix? Sounds good to me.

For brands, the need for journalistic content stems from growing branded communities in social spaces. As brands and consumers engage in more personal conversations via social, consumers simply demand more from them.

More than ever, consumers want brands to give them things of value outside of their products or services. A sense of community that includes transparency, responsiveness and quality branded content. That’s where brand journalists and copywriters come in.

Last week, I stumbled on the work of Kevin Maney, a veteran USA Today reporter who turned his attention to advertising after two decades of writing and reporting as a journalist.

After a successful reporting career, Maney made an interesting move. He started working with big brands like IBM to create journalistic content.

Maney co-authored a book in conjunction with IBM, but branded journalism can include works of art, articles, blog posts, books, photos or videos produced by a brand to reach an identifiable market.

Couple creating content with the market downturn, and many wannabe journalists and former reporters are turning to jobs in advertising, marketing and digital. Many seek jobs that offer more security but still challenge them to use skills from writing in the newsroom like critical thinking, deadline management and creativity.

According to Robert McChesney, co-author of Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done to Fix It, public relations professionals now outnumber reporters 4-to-1. With print journalism seeing a continual decline in revenue, it isn’t surprising that some journalists are now writing for brands. Market aside however, branded journalism still causes some debate.

Critics fear that branded journalism might fully eclipse traditional journalism. Will the news report about a damaging tornado suddenly be sponsored by a home insurance company? I highly doubt it. The audience would be too quick to call a news organization on it, like they did with The Atlantic’s big advertorial fail in January.

The Atlantic fiasco highlights that we’re working in a time where the line between advertising and journalism is blurrier than ever. Marketing, digital and journalism just came crashing together, giving us a choice. We can either sit here staring or use this opportunity to create new, innovative content that people will respond to.

By we, I mean brands or agencies working on behalf of brands. New organizations don’t have the freedom to pepper advertising content in their editorial work, but ad professionals now have the unique opportunity to produce journalistic content. If done right in digital spaces, that journalistic content will likely produce results.

The key lies in planning responsibly. Branded journalism needs to be intentional, driven by strategy as much as it is by good writing. It must be targeted and audience-specific and not overstep it’s bounds. Producing journalistic content doesn’t equate to producing a Pulitzer winning news article, so brands shouldn’t try to.

How each company executes branded journalism will vary, but hopefully by the end of the year we will see more fact-based, journalistic content reaching consumers and generating revenue.

To track branded journalism, its growth and the debate surrounding it, a good place to start is Maney’s blog. Ignore the clunky WordPress theme and focus on the journalistic content. After all, content is becoming very valuable.

In steps 1-3 of this series I discussed Creating a Plan, Content and Execution, and Analysis. Now, let’s focus on optimization. By definition, optimization is the process of making a design or system perfect. What is perfect? Well, perfection in terms of digital strategy is maximum effectiveness based on your key performance indicators, or KPIs. I suppose “maximum” and “perfection” are hard to quantify and may never be truly reachable, but the point is that you are continually striving to improve ROI. To throw out the jargon: you want to create better ads and content to achieve the most conversions for the smallest budget.

It’s important to remember that optimization is not a one time event. This process is ongoing and evolves with the successes and direction of your company. Successful optimization requires patience, constant attention and experimentation. It’s also necessary to stay in touch with trends and changes in your industry.

In a recent Legolas Media blog, they state that, “click performance isn’t always the best way to measure digital campaign success.” It’s easy to look at a growing number of clicks or impressions and feel victorious, but these may not only be the wrong metric, they could be hurting your brand. Remember, you are optimizing your campaigns to achieve your digital goals by tracking KPIs. If you feel like you’ve lost sight of them, maybe you should take a step back.

Optimizing Your Campaigns

Although I could break down each type of content, or different ad network, I will try to speak in a broader sense. Here are some questions to ask yourself when optimizing your campaigns and content:

Are your ads organized properly?

Most online ad platforms allow you to separate your ads into different ad groups based on topic, product, or service offering. If multiple topics, whether keywords or ads, are combined within a single ad group, your performance can suffer. Separate your ad groups by purpose or topic, and make sure to remove keywords or ads that are not performing well, which can hurt the overall ad group performance. You want to rank higher for a lower bid, so break experimental ads or new ideas out into new ad groups. It’s great to experiment, but don’t damage an ad group that has been performing well.

Are you engineering your content for better performance?

There are two parts to developing engaging content. The content must be informative, helpful and/or entertaining to your customers. You also need to make sure your content is engineered to reach the right audience. This begins with analyzing your title and keyword use and making sure it matches popular, low competition search queries. Tweaking a word or phrase can make a big difference when search optimizing your blog or video content.

Are you learning from past successes?

Once you find that a bit of content or an ad is successful, figure out why and use it as a template approach for the future. It’s simple, I know, but make sure you do it. Match high performing text/taglines with the strongest images and keywords. Eliminate tactics that don’t bring success in terms of your KPIs.

Are you looking at analytics and defining conversions?

To decide what campaigns and ads are performing the best, its not as simple as comparing dollars out to dollars in. There are many steps in between for a prospect before they are ready to buy. Knowing this, you’ll need to define conversions. Conversions are metrics you use to measure the value of a visitor and are often organized into a series of actions, or a conversion funnel. The difference between a visitor that looks at three pages and one that looks at four (and fulfills a conversion) could be the indicator that they are seriously interested and aren’t just browsing. If you work backwards from your conversions to the source, you’ll be able to see what ads and keywords are generating leads and which ones are attracting window shoppers that never become customers.

Are your landing pages working for you?

Improve messaging and targeting of your ads, and when visitors arrive on your landing pages, make sure the content and personality fits your ad. If your landing page doesn’t provide the correct information, or leaves customers with questions, your bounce rate is most likely high as well. Make sure your ad keywords match your landing page keywords, and keep the pages as streamlined as possible. Clutter loses conversions. Here is a helpful list of reasons why customers don’t convert on your website.

Are you improving PPC ad ROI?

We’re striving to get the most out of the smallest budget, no matter our specific goals. Maximizing investment is a universal goal for any business. To pay less for your PPC and display ads, you need to:

1) improve your relevance by making your ad and landing page more cohesive

2) remove keywords or ads with poor performance

3) keep up with trends and be willing to make changes often

Are you still focusing on KPIs?

Make sure you are still moving towards your original digital goals and basing your decisions on your KPIs. If you start tweaking and experimenting without a method to your madness, or without a control in your experiments, you probably need to get re-acquainted with your digital plan.

So now you are ready- courageous, confident and excited to launch your own digital strategy. Just remember to stay focused on your digital goals. Good luck!

2012 could be dubbed the ‘Year of the Recall’ for the auto industry with various automakers calling back more than 14 million cars in 12 months for inspections and repairs involving safety issues.  For perspective, nearly 14.5 million cars and light trucks were sold last year.  The number of cars sold versus those recalled was a near wash by year’s end.

And it was recently announced that Toyota plans to settle an estimated $1.3 billion in class action claims involving sudden, unintended acceleration first reported in 2009 in certain Toyota, Scion and Lexus vehicles.  The anticipated settlement would be the largest payout by any auto company, ever.

What’s interesting about 2012 is that in spite of widespread safety issues, auto shopper interest saw negligible impact.  In fact, year-end sales were 13 percent better than 2011 and the best we’ve seen in the past five years.

So, what’s going on here?

Maybe it’s a recovering economy or a testament to the loyalty of certain car shoppers who, despite all odds, remain steadfastly devoted to a particular brand. Or, perhaps it’s consumer indifference, which has adapted over time to safety issues that, in recent years, have become the norm rather than the exception.

More than any other factors, I believe the reasons automakers have fared well in the midst of seemingly insurmountable obstacles are twofold.  First, there have been drastic improvements in the way auto recalls are handled. In tandem, auto marketers have optimized digital to successfully speak to—and listen to—their customers in times of crisis.

Toyota in Crisis

In 2009, on the heels of a crash reportedly caused by sudden, unintended acceleration that claimed the lives of four people, additional reports began emerging of sudden acceleration problems in a number of Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

The automaker’s top-down management style was cited as the culprit for the fundamental curtness in which an ever-growing wave of consumer complaints was addressed.  Amid accusations of ignoring hundreds of complaints for almost 10 years prior and being rebuked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for “misleading” comments in a press release, Toyota was criticized for sitting on its hands by failing to effectively communicate with its customers along the way that there was indeed a problem it was making every effort to fix.

In a February 2010 Jumpstart Automotive Group Survey, 80 percent of respondents indicated they’d buy American on the heels of the Toyota crisis and 51 percent indicated the automaker’s safety issues had changed their perception of the brand, leading them to eliminate it as a consideration for their next vehicle purchase.

Turning to Social to Calm Concerns

That same month, Toyota realized the need for open lines of communication with its customers in the wake of public backlash and turned to Digg (with roughly 40 million monthly unique visitors at the time)  to offer up Jim Lentz, Toyota Motor Sales USA president, to answer questions voted on by fans in a video Digg Dialogg.

Around the time of the first Digg campaign, the automaker also launched “Toyota Conversations” on TweetMeme to aggregate top stories being tweeted about Toyota.  It took to YouTube to post an apology by Lentz explaining the sticking accelerator pedal situation in recalled Toyota vehicles while assuring customers its dealers had already begun repairs on floor mat issues from an earlier recall.

Toyota’s better late than never PR and social media campaign proved effective, bottoming out negative consumer opinions about the brand.  Industry analysts praised Toyota’s proactive social media approach, crediting it in part to helping lessen the recall blow.

Toyota in Fast Forward: A New Approach

This past October, the automaker announced a recall of 7.4 million vehicles worldwide—the largest number of units in Toyota’s 75-year history as well as the auto industry’s single largest recall since 1996—due to a faulty power window switch that could melt and potentially catch fire.  One month later, it announced another recall involving 2.8 million vehicles due to a steering glitch.

Not only were the latest Toyota call backs mass and swift, digital communications efforts were candid and clear.  Malfunctioning components and potential hazards were outlined, and the repair process was described in detail.

Recently, Jumpstart gauged the behaviors of approximately 19 million monthly car shoppers across our network of 14 automotive websites in the weeks following the October and November recalls.  Our analysis revealed that interest in Toyota cars and trucks was virtually unaffected.

During the four-week period following news of the 7.4 million vehicle recall (from October 10 to November 10), shopper interest in Toyota cars and trucks across Jumpstart's suite of websites remained relatively strong with a meager 0.4 percent decline in share at an average of 9.0 percent compared to the first 10 months of 2012.

Following November 14, when it was announced that 2.8 million vehicles were being recalled, Toyota's shopper interest held relatively steady at a tiny 0.1 percent decline over the prior two weeks.

Sales data indicates consumers are embracing the brand in record numbers, with 9.7 million Toyota vehicles sold in 2012—its biggest sales year ever. Granted, Toyota customers are fiercely loyal in general, but the manner in which Toyota handled its latest mass recalls proved much more effective in mitigating negative opinions.

Digital marketers have access to the most powerful communications channels available today.  Never before have we had the capability of real-time, two-way dialogue—an immediate and reciprocal communications stream enabling us to allay concerns, answer questions, address problems and tap into the opinions of the people who matter most—our customers.

Using these channels to 1) acknowledge problems clearly and quickly 2) explain solutions to problems and distribute messages broadly and 3) address consumer concerns in real time is always the best approach when mitigating a crisis.

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group, an innovative marketing solutions provider for automotive advertisers.

What these people want is proof that content marketing works. Rather than hearing about the soft benefits (which are very important too, make no mistake), they want the cold, hard facts. Well, courtesy of Business Bolt’s recent content marketing survey, here they are...

#1: 71% say content marketing helped them improve their site’s rankings

Google loves fresh, high-quality, relevant content – and lots of it. This was made clearer than ever during the iteration of the Panda algorithm update in 2011. The more you can publish on your site, the better your rankings will become. It really is as simple as that.

#2: 77% believe content marketing helped boost their site’s traffic

Higher rankings are typically accompanied by a boost in traffic. This is simply because more people see the site and all of its lovely content. More traffic means more chance of conversions. Sounds great, right?!

#3: 70% confirmed that content marketing increased awareness of their brand

Publishing valuable, solid content helps position your brand as an industry thought leader and a name that can be trusted. Combined with the rankings and traffic boost, it’s no wonder content helps improve brand awareness so well.

#4: 59% said that content supports sales growth

A truly inevitable result of increased brand awareness, more visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and higher traffic levels, a boost in sales is one key benefit of getting involved with content marketing. More sales = more money. What’s there to argue with?

#5: 45% revealed that using content marketing had cut their advertising costs

Not only are you going to make more money by utilising content marketing, but you’re going to save money too! It’s like a brand owner’s dream.

These sound simple and perhaps too good to be true, but the facts don’t lie. These marketers really believe in content and can demonstrate – in cold, black-and-white stats - how it truly has improved their business, in all sorts of ways. Isn’t that proof enough that content marketing really works?

A major part of online marketing is making sure that your website shows up in search engine results. For the small business owner on a budget, hiring a consultant to handle the search engine optimization (SEO) for their business website can sometimes be expensive.  There are definite benefits to having a specialist manage your website.  But it is always good to know these basic elements of SEO, whether you plan to do them yourself or just want to understand what your consultant is working on.

Titles Count

The page title is what shows up in the results pages when someone performs a search, so it's important to have a page title that very accurately reflects what the page is about. It is also important to have unique page titles for each page on your site and the more descriptive the better. Some of the elements you may want to include in your page titles are the name of your website, name of your business, maybe some description of your products or services and your location if it is a local business. On the technical side of things, make sure to use title tags to identify your page title.

Make Site Navigation Easy

The easier your site is to navigate the better able search engines are to evaluate the most important content.  While Google's search engine treats each page individually for search results, it also takes into account the pages context within the website.

Breadcrumbs

Using "breadcrumbs" is a good way to make things easier for your visitors. Breadcrumbs are a series of the links the visitor has followed to get from the home page to the current page.  This is what breadcrumbs look like:

Provide Two Sitemaps

A sitemaps is a page that shows all of the pages in your site organized by their hierarchy. For site visitors this is a good way to get a quick bird's eye view of your website without having to click through all the navigation links. Search engines like XML sitemaps, but humans like good old HTML sitemaps that are easy on the eyes and easy to follow. From a technical standpoint, there are free tools to create both types of sitemaps.

Promote Your Website

With the latest changes to Google's search algorithms it is more important than ever to promote carefully. You do want to get your website noticed, but you definitely want to avoid anything Google may see as extreme, which it views very negatively.

Put your URL on all your promotional materials, including your business cards. Create an RSS feed so people can keep up with your new content easily. Get to know sites related to your topic and approach them about linking to each other's sites. Inbound links, also known as backlinks or incoming links are a great way to get SEO love. Running display ads can help both for the clicks they can attract as well as by increasing how often people search for your business by name.   Be judicious in who you get to link to you, though, because unrelated links will actually hurt you.

Use Free Webmaster Tools

All of the major search engines provide free webmaster tools that are designed to make it easier for them to gather the information about your site to make their search results better. Google Analytics and Website Optimizer are two basic tools every webmaster should use. If you use Wordpress there are also free SEO plugins that make it much easier to optimize pages with very little effort.

Provide Great Content

We have saved the best for last, because great content has the biggest impact on your websites long-term SEO. If you get all the other things right and have lousy content, you may get site visitors, but they won't come back. Content SEO is a subject all its own, but a great start is to have well written content that is extremely relevant to your products and/or services and keep adding new content frequently. We have touched on frequency in other articles and it bears repeating here. One great article won't cut it. When it comes to content you must be consistent and persistent to get good long-term results.

From an SEO buyer’s perspective, it must be downright confusing and discouraging to obtain multiple quotes from SEO service providers that very clearly have differing price ranges and service methodologies, but not so clearly defined differentiating skill sets and experience.

So sellers attempt to make it easier for buyers to understand SEO proposals in order to ultimately get to a closed deal - a signature on a contract. In the meantime, are they undermining their own profession and setting themselves up for failure by setting unrealistic expectations with clients?

Or are SEO clients being unrealistic in their expectations of SEO results in the short term versus the long term, leading SEO service providers to drastic measures that may ultimately result in the client’s web presence being penalized in organic search? Or even results in the client quitting or not paying?

This blog post is for both buyers and sellers of SEO services in hopes that 2013 will be the year of equilibrium for SEO. The year that SEO is finally regarded for what it is – extremely important in the digital marketing mix; a long-term online strategy that is based on strong, optimized content published and distributed across the entire web presence proving relevance and authority.

The four SEO selling and buying tricks described below produce unachievable expectations and create disequilibrium in the SEO services market. When these tricks are practiced by either the buyer or the seller the economics of SEO fail, because the time and effort required to meet SEO expectations and results will not match.

1. Promises of a #1 Search Position

The trick of selling the promise of a #1 Search Position as well as clients buying the promise has been around for quite a while. It still surprises me, especially with all the algorithm changes that have occurred recently, when I see this assurance in online advertisements or on an SEO agency’s home page.

Buyers, if an SEO agency promises a #1 Search Position for a keyword, exercise caution. Unless you are Wikipedia, a #1 Search Position cannot be guaranteed. Buyers need to understand that organic search positions are produced based on relevancy and authority of content around a keyword. There are numerous, uncontrollable, external factors and competition around a single keyword - no one, not even Google, can guarantee organic search position.

Read: The Five Forces of Keyword Competition Framework.

Sellers of SEO services, if your team is able to consistently deliver a #1 Search Position for a keyword, can that position be maintained over the long run, is it a highly converting organic search term, or is it perhaps not even searched on?

2. Promises of Increased Sales from SEO

The promise of increased sales as a result of SEO efforts is only possible if the SEO agency has complete control over the client’s sales processes (e.g. sales funneling, pipeline structure and reporting, sales team, commissions, etc.) and the SEO agency has sales consulting expertise on staff.

Sellers of SEO services beware… how do you even know there’s a market for what your client is selling? You may be able to improve their web presence for organic search conversions, but how do you even know their products or services are in demand and the processes around selling those products or services are efficient and proven?

Buyers of SEO, if increased sales are a requirement for your business, consider hiring a sales process consultant rather than an SEO professional whose actual task it is to improve your web presence visibility in the search engines for highly converting keywords.

3. Selling and Buying SEO Services Without Any Mention of Content Marketing

The outcome of Google’s massive algorithm changes over the past two years is that it takes really great, fresh, optimized content produced on a regular schedule to convince Google that the source is relevant and authoritative and should therefore be returned as a search result. This takes a lot of commitment, work and a strong focus on content marketing.

SEO (including the building of backlinks and the creation of social signals) requires a content marketing strategy. In fact, it is impossible to execute on SEO without one. Buyers’ expectations of SEO services will be better met if they also buy into a content marketing strategy.

SEO will also have a longer-term effect on a web presence in organic search when more quality, optimized content is produced.

The lack of a content marketing strategy will leave the SEO seller with insufficient content to work with to positively impact organic search position and the buyer with unmet expectations about SEO in general.

4. Selling and Buying SEO Services Without Any Mention of Social Media

Similar to #3, SEO agencies that are not yet factoring social networks, social media and social signaling into their SEO services methodology are doing their clients a disservice.

A blatant note to both buyers and sellers of SEO services: a year ago, Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, said, “The social signal, the people you ‘hang with’ is actually a ranking signal.” (December 2011).

In 2011, Matt Cutts was asked by an SEO Agency what three things should be included in your SEO strategy, and one of the three items he suggested was, “think about social media marketing … a lot of people think SEO versus social media marketing, and a lot of the time it makes sense to keep a holistic view.”

SEO results will be better gained and expectations better met when an entire web presence is optimized for organic search. This means distributing optimized content across the web presence to be socialized and shared, thus increasing relevance and authority for your audience.

As Chris Johnson of A4U details in an excellent analysis of the IAB / PwC OPM study, the affiliate marketing industry in the U.K. has been valued (alongside lead generation) as a £9 billion ($1.43 billion) revenue generating industry.

Source: A4U

Key Highlights (courtesy of A4U)

• There are c. 3,000-4,000 advertisers and c. 10,000 publishers actively engaged in Online Performance Marketing in the U.K. (in this instance — Affiliate & Lead Generation).
• Advertisers expected to spend (through commissions, management fees, bonuses and other marketing spend) £814 million on Online Performance Marketing in 2012, generating c. £9 billion of sales for advertisers.
• This spend was achieved through at least c.100 million transactions and an additional c. 70 million leads generated.
• This is equivalent for c. 7-9% of U.K. digital marketing spend, and drives c. 5-6% of retail e-commerce in the U.K.
• The largest end-sectors include Finance, Retail, Telecoms & Media, Travel & Leisure.
• Market growth of c. 14% p.a (2008-11) and c. 7% p.a in 2012 (expected).
• Cashback, voucher, loyalty and price comparison websites are the leading publisher types.
• Sites designed specifically for mobile and tablet account for c. 4-5% of advertiser spend on Online Performance Marketing.

Leading Industry Sectors
Similar to the U.S. market, U.K. advertisers in finance, health and wellness and travel and leisure are some of the top spends of online performance marketing services.

According to The Next Web:

The biggest spenders in OPM are in the financial sector with insurance and credit card advertisers taking the lead with 45% of expenditure. This is followed with 20% by clothing, accessories and electrical and computing advertisers. The top five are rounded out with telecoms and media, travel and leisure and gaming.

Growth Forecast
U.K. suppliers of OPM services are experiencing a strong increase in demand for their services. According to The Next Web, between 2008 and 2012, OPM expenditure in the U.K. grew by 57%. Suppliers of OPM services and technology estimate that their revenue will grow by 25% this year.

What the Report Means for U.S. Marketers
The study of the U.K. online performance marketing industry is instructive for U.S. marketers in several ways.

First, it offers a comprehensive look at how OPM is positively impacting advertisers and publishers across an entire country. Recognizing that UK advertisers spent £814 million in 2012 on performance marketing services, generating c. £9 billion of sales, provides a solid baseline for performance marketers to use in generating additional new and incremental business opportunities with clients.

Second, it firmly establishes the proper role and value of online performance marketing. For an industry as robust as it is, OPM often suffers from a lack of broad understanding by advertisers and publishers of how it can benefit their business. This report makes clear that there are a variety of industries that benefit from performance marketing services (e.g., finance, travel, insurance, etc.). Consumers recognize the value of performance marketing campaigns, as they are estimated to generate c.100 million transactions and an additional c. 70 million leads.

The fact that OPM campaigns account for 7-9% of U.K. digital marketing spend, and drive c. 5-6% of retail e-commerce in the U.K. indicates that OPM is an important factor in brands’ retail and lead-generation efforts.

Finally, the report demonstrates to US advertisers that performance marketing is here to stay. After more than a decade of rapid growth, online performance marketing has matured to a point where it is a recognized marketing channel and increasingly comprises a larger percentage of advertisers’ online marketing budgets.

Our industry’s lifeblood is the midsize sedan category, representing approximately one quarter of the total auto and light truck market in sales volume.  Across Jumpstart Automotive Group’s channel of third-party automotive websites, the sedan segment is the largest vehicle category, representing 36 percent of total shopping activity.

In this highly competitive segment where even a fraction of a percent in loss of share can be catastrophic, the marketing stakes are higher than most.

Jumpstart recently analyzed messaging, creative, rollout strategies and the social and mobile efforts of three chief contenders vying to overtake Toyota for the number one sedan sales spot—the Nissan Altima, the Honda Accord and the Ford Fusion—to gauge how marketers duke it out in heated brand battles like this.  Campaign highlights follow.

Nissan Altima

The Download:  Nissan marketers are clever, creative and funny.  Knocking Toyota Camry off its pedestal will take a lot more than a great sense of humor, but they’re on the right track.

In the meantime, they sure make the competition fun to watch!

Nissan’s “Innovation that Excites” campaign used the concept of invention to help the automaker stand out from the competitive pack, hilariously communicating the company’s latest innovations, including an easy-fill tire alert, in its “Breakup” and “Enough” broadcast spots.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Particularly noteworthy was its sneak peek campaign featuring a glimpse of an Altima headlight here, a rear bumper there.  In all, the campaign covered virtually all media bases with a mix of broadcast, digital and print and out-of-home.

Its social/mobile efforts “Innovation Garage” and “Altima Experience” were as inventive as the brand itself, including this feel-good moment “Proposal.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Although OEMs typically look at third-party automotive websites as a medium for lower-funnel and retail messaging, Altima successfully extended the “Innovation that Excites” campaign and utilized high-impact homepage units across Jumpstart’s automotive websites to reach consumers actively researching and shopping for vehicles.

Honda Accord

The Download:  Way to speak to (and relate to) your customers, Honda!  While we’d love to see you take a page out of Nissan’s book when it comes to innovation in creative and mobile strategies, we appreciate your polished and reliable approach to marketing…much like we appreciate your cars.

Honda’s “It Starts with You” campaign did a great job of conveying the automaker’s uncanny ability to build cars based on what Accord customers want and need…because it actually understands what its customers want and need.

Its broadcast spot “We Know You”and print, outdoor and online ads in that same vein, were nicely done, painting a relatable picture of people in real-world driving situations and how the Accord’s advanced safety and technology features help them overcome driving dilemmas.  If you’ve ever been visited by a bumblebee behind the wheel, you can relate too.

Honda’s integrated media buy was extensive, including a mix of print, home page takeovers on major portals, broadcast spots across high-profile TV shows and sports events (including the World series) and in-theater and outdoor in nearly 30 markets.

Finally, Accord content was integrated into Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends and in the popular news aggregator Pulse.

An interesting side note:  Honda Accord was Jumpstart’s midsize sedan segment leader midway through last year, representing a seven percent average monthly share of sedan shoppers, ahead of Toyota at six percent and Nissan at five percent.

Ford Fusion

The Download:  While we applaud Ford’s fearless imagination and digital marketing prowess, it may have taken itself a little too seriously last year.  From social media sagas to vanishing cars, we struggled to follow along.  Unfortunately, it seems car buyers did too.

Ford’s “Random Acts of Fusion” campaign relied on Ryan Seacrest and celebrity personalities Joel McHale and Kate Micucci for comic relief, playing on the concept of life’s big and small acts involving real-world customers who unlocked a story over time while participating in driving and entertainment experiences.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chinese contemporary artist Liu Bolin—dubbed “the invisible man”—hand painted innovative print ads to make other cars seemingly disappear when the Ford Fusion was around, merging art and auto to create some really incredible tableaus.

The cornerstone strategies of Ford Fusion’s “transmedia marketing initiative” were digital and experiential and included a heavy blend of social media coupled with radio and video, along with American Idol-style finale events at various Ford dealerships and print ads in national auto and lifestyle magazines.

Similar to “Fiesta Movement” and “Escape Routes,” the campaign created brand ambassadors in real world social media users to talk about the Fusion with their peers.  As of last October, the campaign had generated more than 12 million consumer engagements.

Who Won in 2012?

Once again, Toyota reigned supreme in 2012, with the highest midsize sedan sales volume (up nearly 24 percent from 2011).  Honda Accord made great strides in closing the second place gap with a 29 percent growth in sales over 2011.  Nissan Altima showed up for the party too, with a solid 11 percent growth compared to the prior year.

(WardsAuto, January 2013)

It will be interesting to see how the midsize sedan Battle of the Brands shakes out as 2013 campaigns extend into the coming months and after the much-anticipated launch of 2014 model year marketing initiatives!

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group, an innovative marketing solutions provider for automotive advertisers.

Facebook + Audience Targeting

In the beginning, Facebook was viewed mostly as a social site for teenagers. Eventually, the site became a staple in daily life for adults who want to keep in touch with friends and family. Now, it's one of the top sites for businesses that want to reach out to clients and partners in the personal way they've come to expect.

Facebook provides great ways for companies to draw and maintain the interest of target markets. Customers can keep track of a favorite company and stay in the loop about opportunities for discounts and other deals. Companies can make a fan page with multimedia, important announcements and links to a main website. Ads on Facebook have become a great placement for display ads, which can be useful for building a fan base as well as basic brand awareness campaigns. Facebook has also opened up new opportunities to use its data for targeting purposes.

Twitter + Display Ad Content

Twitter has been associated with momentary updates between friends, but it's also a powerful tool for business growth. Companies often use Twitter for brand promotion and market monitoring. Thanks to the site's personal feel, it's great for staying in touch with clients and partners. Twitter can also be used to draw traffic, create viral campaigns and possibly improve search engine rankings.

Businesses must remember that Twitter's biggest strength lies in its opportunities for immediate social interaction. New rich media banner ads make it possible to include a moderated Twitter feed in the banner, allowing businesses to keep the content as fresh and up-to-date as possible.

LinkedIn + Remarketing

LinkedIn has become known as the premier social networking site for professionals, but it's actually much more than that. Virtually all notable business people have profiles on LinkedIn, so it's an excellent place for making the right connections. The site simplifies the process of sharing information, discussing issues and establishing reputation with others in a network. Over time, this means forging potentially profitable relationships with both clients and partners. For best results on LinkedIn, businesses need to have a content strategy that attracts traffic to their own website.  From there, they can use remarketing to keep their brand top of mind to the viewers who have expressed high interest in the offer.

Take a Holistic Approach

Rather than getting lost in a pointless argument about what marketing channel is the best, marketers should be looking for ways to use the advantages of each to get the most out of their online marketing efforts. Both social media and display advertising require an understanding of how to get the most out of them, and taking an integrated approach will always be a recipe for success.

• Fine-tune your copy: Carefully staging the appropriate SEO keyword phrases throughout your advertisements and blog postings will help draw targeted consumers to your website. For example, as your neighborhood’s resident yoga studio, you could create blog postings expounding upon “7 Heart-Healthy Yoga Positions” or “Yoga Options in Trinity, Florida.” You can better serve the interests of your niche market by researching phrases that your target consumers are searching on Google.
• Utilize lifestyle marketing techniques: Seek your consumers in the places they frequent, and advertise to them there. Some imaginative thinking will come in handy here. When I worked as an intern at a music marketing firm, we placed strategic stacks of CD samplers and indie rock band stickers in trendy boutiques, head shops and music venues. People who buy trendy indie music also shop for trendy indie clothes, after all.
• Partner up: Consider working closely with companies that provide services within your realm of expertise but that aren't directly competing with you. These “sister companies” will help your business spread its good name throughout the community, exposing it to clients who may not have discovered it otherwise. Great combinations include makeup artists and event photographers, freelance graphic designers and copywriters, and fitness trainers and nutritionists.
• Dispense freebies: The thought of giving anything away for free may feel like a crushing blow to the small business owner, but doing so will create a reliable path to lead niche customers right to your shop. If your company happens to sell high-end jars of Beluga caviar, contact a select few upscale culinary bloggers and offer to partner up for a reader giveaway. When the blogger writes up a post about your freebies, he just may provide your company with some of the greatest PR it has ever experienced.
• Court the tastemakers: You know these influential people. They’re the ones in key positions to influence a body of your potential clients or customers. If you run a restaurant, reach out to your city’s local food bloggers and attempt to form a professional liaison. Having someone with an arsenal of consumer outreach at their fingertips creates such advantages that many businesses actually sponsor events to bring tastemakers together in one place.
• Sell yourself: Take the face of your company out into the community and meet members of your actual niche market. Targeting potential consumers is never easier than when you’re selling yourself – join local groups, attend meetings or conventions, and set up booths at celebratory events like parades and festivals. Here is where you’ll be able to personally meet with those you seek.

Have other ideas for reaching a niche market? The best part about online marketing is that you have many options for how to target a specific audience.  For more suggestions, check out the blog at Vantage Local, where we focus on tactics for local advertisers using targeted display advertising.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how the SEO landscape has changed for the better over the past three years, with Google’s continued and unwavering focus on the concept of relevance. However, three aspects of SEO have not changed at the same pace. The outcome is often a gap in expectations between the team delivering SEO services and the client literally banking on the results. The three aspects of SEO that I feel have not changed at the same pace as the SEO industry include:

1. The way SEO services are marketed and sold.
2. The processes around how SEO is delivered and reported on.
3. The ability for agencies and in-house teams to prove the ROI of SEO efforts.

But the importance of SEO in the digital marketing mix remains unchanged and unchallenged. There are consistently 1 billion Google searches performed every day with 94% of those searchers clicking on organic search results over paid search results. Patience will continue to be a virtue to the marketer who invests in SEO over the long run.

Here are 10 SEO truths I have discover in SEO conversations I have had with agencies, in-house marketing teams and end clients over the past 12 months:

SEO Truth #1: Rank Doesn’t Matter, Conversion Does.

If I had a dime for every time I heard the statement, “Oh, we don’t need SEO, we already rank #1 for [insert keyword here].”

I witness many SEO conversations where improvement in rank or position is the focus without any consideration given to web page visits and conversions. Many prospects, clients and bosses are lost in the infatuation of ‘Ranking #1 in Google’ and unfortunately because that’s what they want to pay for, that’s what they are sold and/or what we attempt to prove to them.

The more important metric is conversion.

So it could be that a client wants to rank #1 for ‘HR Software’, and they currently rank #5 for that keyword with a conversion rate of 5%, while a similar keyword phrase, ‘HR Software for SMBs’, has a conversion rate of 10% and is ranked #9. Clearly the latter should be the focus since it already has a higher conversion rate with a lower rank. Assigning resources to understanding the opportunities throughout the web presence, and optimizing content for the keyword ‘HR Software for SMBs’ is a better investment of time and money.

SEO Truth #2: Great SEO Results Require Great SEO Data.

SEO is the ongoing process of understanding a web presence, how it compares to the competition, which keywords are driving organic search conversion, and optimizing for those keywords by producing fresh, relevant content. This process is impossible without access to accurate, timely data about that web presence including: page-level rank, backlink metrics and social signals data, organic search keyword research, competitive intelligence, analytics conversion data.

Basing SEO decisions on old, inaccurate SEO data will yield corresponding SEO results. SEO data is the starting point to the entire SEO process and outcome. Great insights will lead to great outcomes. SEO data and SEO software should be considered a cost of doing business or executing a campaign just as email marketing campaigns require an email marketing platform.

SEO Truth #3: Report on Social Signals Just Like Backlinks.

Think of social signals as the new backlink. Now don’t get me wrong, backlinks are still important to organic search and should continue to be reported on, but social signals also deserve ongoing focus and integration into an SEO strategy.

It has been two years since Google and Bing announced that social signals are now factored into their organic search algorithms. Agencies and in-house SEO teams need to demonstrate that they are increasing the number of Likes, Shares, +1s, Tweets, Retweets and YouTube Views at both the web page level and the network level. Social signal metrics should be included in the monthly SEO report as well.

SEO Truth #4: SEO Technology is Telling.

Just as a sales consultant hired to improve sales processes and ultimately conversion rates would not attempt to do so without customer relationship management (CRM) software, neither should an SEO agency or in-house team attempt to effectively improve a web presence for SEO without some support and assistance from technology.

There are many SEO software and tool options – from full software systems to stand alone tools. SEO technology is required more today than ever before in order to assist in the ongoing efforts of keyword research, rank checking, competitive analysis, backlink discovery and tracking, content tracking, analytics, social signal monitoring and monthly SEO reporting capabilities. The technology and tools you select can make or break you too.

Going it alone, without the support of a technological foundation to track a web presence on a daily basis for the purpose of ranking higher organically in the search engines is like trying to do email marketing by BCCing your list from MS Outlook – your deliverability rates, open rates and conversion rates will be immeasurable and less than expected.

SEO Truth #5: Daily Insights into SEO Metrics is Essential.

The SEO reporting cycle is still very much a monthly process (although I’m seeing this standard move to weekly with larger agencies and marketing teams). Having daily and weekly insight into all the SEO metrics included in an SEO campaign is important to understand how your efforts are tracking towards the ultimate goal. Having the insight and intelligence to adjust the goal if more or less progress is being made than anticipated can only be accomplished with daily insight into accurate SEO data and metrics.

SEO Truth #6: A Backlink Strategy Without a Content Marketing Strategy is Just Plain Scary.

Even after all the Panda, Penguin and Freshness updates, I’m still amazed to see some agencies providing quotes to clients where the main thrust of the contract is a promise to build ‘x’ number of backlinks per month. SEOs should continue to deliberately build backlinks in directories that are industry or locally specific to the client, but that’s where deliberate backlink building should end.

To build long-term, non-spammy backlinks, an optimized content marketing strategy is required where fresh relevant optimized content is being produced on a consistent basis. Content in the form of blogs, press releases, case studies, and whitepapers wherein the content contains keywords that are driving organic search conversions as well as naturally occurring backlinks to the main corporate website. Not only will this approach to backlink building withstand the test of time, it will also create social signals which will also positively impact the web presence.

SEO Truth #7: Spend Less Time on Reporting, More Time on SEO.

A typical SEO contract consists of analysis, recommendations, implementation and reporting. The most painful of which is reporting - mashing together end-of-month reports from multiple data sources to demonstrate progress to the end client, never mind trying to make it look pretty. Laborious, repetitive reporting takes away too much time from what will really pay off – the doing of SEO.

This reinforces truth #4: SEO Technology is Telling. Making use of technology for weekly or monthly automated reporting will allow for more time being spent on the task of SEO which will yield better results for the client and will allow you to scale your business.

SEO Truth #8: Think Outside the Google Search Box.

Yes, Google continues to be the entity that SEOs attempt to please, and rightfully so. I can’t see this focus changing in the near or distant future either. With the continual convergence of social media and SEO, we also need to think about the prospect of searchers starting their searches directly on social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. A web presence should be represented for its branded keyword phrases within these sites as well. Test your branded keywords and test your clients’ branded keywords to see if they return the expected search results on these social networks. If not, optimize!

SEO Truth #9: Communicate the CTR Opportunity Gap by Keyword.

Once there is an understanding of the high-converting keywords, it is worth the exercise of applying paid search volume data with organic clickthrough rates (CTRs) to communicate the opportunity gap between ranking #9 versus #3.

Let’s use the keyword “HR Software” as an example. The total Google search volume (U.S., Canada, and Australia) is 2,120 searches per month, combined with the fact that 94 percent of searchers click through on organic search results (GroupM UK and Nielsen, August 2012). Given Optify’s CTR data for positions #1 through #20, the opportunity gap can be communicated to the client.

2120 monthly searches * 94 percent = 1992 * 3.0 percent /30 days = 2 daily click-
throughs for position #9 in Google.com for the keyword "HR Software"

Position #9 will yield 60 clicks per month (2 clicks per day * 30 days) while increasing the position to #3 will yield 180 clicks per month (6 clicks per day * 30 days) presenting an opportunity gap of 180-60 = 120 clickthroughs per month. What value does this translate into for the client?

SEO Truth #10: It’s about the Hierarchy of Web Presence Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization is now more about Web Presence Optimization. As the ways we sell and deliver SEO services continue to evolve, the hierarchy of web presence optimization is a model that may help structure sales contracts and service delivery tasks while ensuring that keyword metrics are focused on conversion, backlinks are built out effectively, and social signals are integrated into the overall SEO strategy.

While Adweek plays down the significance of Black Friday, retailers have already started counting the days until holiday shopping starts. The National Retail Federation predicts a 4% year-over-year increase in store sales this season plus strong 12% growth in online shopping.

Social is already a discovery tool used by a wide variety of consumer demographics. In a recent holiday marketing report, Marin Software said, “Shoppers who once turned to search engines for information are increasingly relying on social connections for the latest news, product information, special offers, and brand suggestions.” Social is a natural place for people to find gift ideas and learn about brands before they've decided to buy.

Moreover, with social occupying a bigger share of brands’ time and budgets, more and more marketers are looking for ways to use the interest graph to bring their holiday messages to the right people.

Using the Interest Graph to Reach Two Kinds of Holiday Shoppers

Interest graph targeting, which connects people to what they love, has a special role to play in holiday campaigns: not just for Black Friday, but for the entire holiday shopping season. Brands can use interest graph targeting to reach all kinds of categories of shoppers. We'll discuss how marketers can use interest graph targeting to reach two examples of holiday shoppers: trend conscious and value-driven. 

Trend Conscious and Early Adopter Shoppers

Another highly valuable consumer in social is the design-conscious, trend-sensitive shopper. Brand marketers may be familiar with persona names like “Savvy Socials” and “Tech Trendsetters” — those personas overlap the Trend Conscious social persona. Trend Conscious consumers follow brands and organizations that value aesthetics, like Design Within Reach, The Fancy, Ghostly, Svpply, Dribbble, bigcartel, and more. And while Trend Conscious consumers tend to be a more affluent consumer, they look for discounts too, by keeping up with deals on Fab and Gilt Groupe and shopping at Ikea and Uniqlo. Reaching the trend conscious consumer with interest targeting is as simple as aggregating the followers of the brands above (and similar) into an audience: e.g., followers of @Anthropologie and fans of Behance.

Value-Driven Shoppers

Often one and the same with family decision makers or moms, value-driven shoppers are a massive marketing demographic. While they’re price-conscious and seek bargains, the volume of their buying activity and their ability to turn over inventory makes them important to marketers. Discount customers are well-represented in social, and interest graph targeting makes them easy to reach. Simply aggregate the followers of discount retailer brands like Walmart, Target, BigLots, and Costco and add them to low-cost, family friendly brands like Kroger, Home Depot, JCPenney, Walgreens, and Ross Dress for Less.

Want to talk about how to use interest graph targeting to talk about an audience we haven't covered? Let us know in the comments.

When it comes to marketing budgets, big isn’t always better in social media.  In fact, smaller budgets sometimes net the best results.

In our industry, most automotive marketing budgets are sizeable.  But like other businesses, share of budget dedicated to social media varies by automotive brand.

The fact is social media levels the playing field between the haves and the have-nots.  With a little bit of ingenuity and knowledge, and by following these three simple steps, it’s possible for small budgets to compete head-to-head with deep pockets to achieve maximum success.

Step #1:   Develop ideas with viral potential.

Marketers who view social media as efficient channels through which they steadily self-promote, where they do more talking than listening, or where they attempt to impose brand messaging and force brand loyalty instead of encouraging it are looking at it all wrong.

Social media is efficient because it’s viral. It isn’t designed for bragging about how great your business is.  It’s about enticing people to brag about your business for you. Essentially, social media offers smart marketers the opportunity to turn a handful of people into an enormous labyrinth of loyal brand ambassadors.

In order to do this, marketers should focus on ideas that have 'cosmopolitan distribution' potential, or the best chance of engaging people to converse, comment, share, like or follow on a mass scale by entertaining them, enlightening them, or by making their lives easier in some way, and by giving them a public forum to voice their opinions.

Probably my favorite example is Ford’s Fiesta Movement.

The concept is simple enough. Give 100 consumers deemed “agents” a Ford Fiesta for six months, ask them to complete a series of missions and document their experiences -- through their own eyes and ears and in their own words – on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

The results at the end of the first chapter in 2009 were extraordinary.  The campaign garnered 6.5 million YouTube views, 50,000 requests for information about the Fiesta (the majority from new customers) and sales of 10,000 units in the first week of the campaign. The best part?  Ford’s initial Fiesta Movement was reported to have cost a tiny fraction of the expense of a typical national television campaign.

The launch of BMW’s ActiveE electric car is another great example of social media success on a small budget.

In 2010, the automaker created a mini four-film documentary series featuring thought leaders such as Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson to discuss their views about mobility and the future of cities.  BMW showcased the video series “Wherever You Want to Go” online, opting out of traditional TV advertising common for a new model launch, instead soliciting engagement exclusively from social media users.

Then, BMW created an app designed to simulate and track users’ daily driving experiences and their impact on emissions, to determine if an electric car was right for them.

Virtually zero media dollars were spent, yet the campaign netted a staggering 450 million media impressions. Beyond the marketing impact, the automaker says the wealth of data gleaned from the campaign will be used in the design and engineering of future BMW vehicles.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What the Ford and BMW campaigns demonstrate is how an idea with viral potential is worth its weight in gold – in this case, how a great idea proved more effective than the budget (or lack thereof) behind it.

Step #2):  Be ‘resource wise.’

Probably one of the biggest myths about marketing on the social web is that it’s free.  It isn’t and it never was.

Marketers familiar with social media understand it takes a great deal of resources to be successful, including time spent strategizing, developing and implementing campaigns, and consistent man hours dedicated to routinely engaging with audiences. Costs for design and production, analytics, content creation and research can all put a significant dent in budgets too.

Following are a few suggestions to help marketers cut costs and improve ROI.

• Focus on identifying trends surrounding posts and tweets that net the biggest reactions and interactions. Replicate those strategies.
• Like the Ford Fiesta campaign, leverage User Generated Content (UGC) to reduce development and production expenses whenever possible.
• Rely on turnkey social media management apps to automate posts and updates, gather data or monitor conversations to alleviate the burden of time consuming tasks.
• Take a page out of Marketing 101 by integrating your efforts.  Messaging of traditional campaigns should align with social media messaging.  Post broadcast ads to your company’s branded social sites.
• Enable your social media audience to share special offers or discounts with their friends.
• Make your customers the star of your social media campaign.  Post photos of contest winners or reward your most influential followers with exclusive sneak peeks or special discounts.  Fan inclusion is a simple and cost-effective way to build brand awareness.

Step #3): Simplify the sales path.

In Michael Stelzner’s 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, it revealed that by spending as little as six hours per week in social media marketing, 61 percent of marketers surveyed saw lead generation benefits.

Social media isn’t all fun and games.  As marketers, our bottom line goal is to positively impact the bottom line of our business.  What this means is that any social media marketing campaign – any good marketing campaign for that matter – should include 1) clearly defined goals 2) performance analytics and 3) calls-to-action.

Unlike traditional media where making an immediate purchase after seeing a magazine or billboard ad requires more effort than most new media consumers are willing to expend, social media audiences should never be more than one click away from a call-to-action to learn more about a product or service, or from submitting a request to purchase that product or service.

Bear in mind I’m not suggesting in-your-face, hardcore sales tactics – I’m talking about the ability for users, in one easy step, to request product information or ‘buy now’ if they want.

If you need more inspiration about successful social media campaigns on shoestring budgets, check out highlights from one of my favorite non-automotive campaigns – Tourism Queensland’s groundbreaking “The Best Job in the World.”

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group.

But before we start, a disclaimer: I’m not a mathematician and these are truly back-of-the-napkin calculations.

Walking: A lot of us rely on the oldest form of human transportation to get to many of our meetings. Whether from a subway stop, office, or moving from agency to agency (the 3 blocks from MEC to Mediavest anyone?) it’s often the easiest, most efficient and (in the summer) sweat-inducing way to get from point A to point B.  Rather than estimate how often, distance between, etc., I’m going to estimate the amount of time per week and work backwards. The average person walks at 3.1 mph -- average new Yorker, closer to 4.5 – but lights, angry cabbies, groups of tourists waiting for Letterman (Mediavest again), and the humanity surge around Harold Square (UM) bring it down closer to 3 mph.  Including to and from the train, I walk about 3 hours a week on average. At 3 mph that’s an estimated 9 miles per week.

Cabs:  Despite the smells, weak AC in the summer, dampness in the winter and the fact you’re often jumping into the car of someone who thinks Manhattan is an aggressive driving video game, we all use them (except for my friends at Tremor). I quickly added up a month’s worth rides and it came out to approximately 17 miles.  Using that as a benchmark, I’m looking at approximately 204 miles in a cab per year.

Elevators:  I’m not sure about you, but I rarely give stepping into an elevator a second thought. When you step back and think about how often (and essential) elevators come into our day to day, well, check it out:

The Lobbies of the major digital agencies in New York:

• OMD:                  24^th floor
• Mediacom:          24^th
• Mediavest:          14^th
• Zenith                 10^th
• PHD:                   7^th
• UM:                    7^th
• Horizon               6^th
• MEC:                  6^th
• Initiative:             5^th
• Digitas:               4^th

Average story of a New York City office building: 11 feet

I’m pulled to each of these agencies by my team not necessarily on a weekly basis, but often enough that I usually hit 6 to 8 of them a week, some of them twice. Math warning: The average floor of the agencies above is 11.  Factor in going up and down (22 floors) then multiply by 7 meetings (per week, total), and it equals 154 agency floors per week.  Taking into account our own office on the 16^th (4 rides per day with lunch and meetings = 64 floors) the total number of weekly floors covered and total feet are: 474 floors and 5,214 feet respectively.

Yearly breakdown – based on 50 work weeks (2 weeks vacation):

• Walking:   450 miles
• Cabs:        204 Miles
• Elevators:  23,700 floors, 260,700 feet (at 5280 feet per mile, that’s 49.4 miles)

To put this in perspective

• Walking:  This is the equivalent of walking from New York to Boston... and back (216 miles one way).
• Cabs: Taking a Cab from New York to Baltimore with a couple miles to spare (192 miles).
• Elevators:  And taking an elevator ride to the top of Mt Everest 8 times (29,280 feet), or laying it on its side and taking it to Norwalk CT

Talk about hustling for media budgets.

-Marc

As a quick recap, the research concludes that 94% of searchers click through on organic search results, and that the top three positions in Google earn 61% of the clicks. These numbers are not far off the numbers I’ve used for years when describing the importance of SEO in a marketing budget as well as ranking on Page One for the keywords prospects are searching on to find your organization. The GroupM and Nielsen numbers simply (and strongly) validate the importance of an on-going SEO strategy.

A significant disconnect, however, continues to exist between the impact that SEO can have on impressions, clickthroughs and lead generation compared to PPC and the representation each receives in a typical marketing budget. Take Forrester’s U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, for the years 2011 to 2016. Marketers are spending and will continue to spend, on average, 88% of their search marketing budget on paid search campaigns to access just 6% of the available clickthroughs, and 12% on organic search in attempts to reach an astounding 94% of the available clickthroughs.

I’m not the first person to point out this imbalance, nor will I be the last.

I find it useful for marketers to visualize the difference in available CTRs from SEO versus PPC. Before the GroupM and Nielsen CTRs were published, I used Optify’s CTR data to apply to monthly search volume for a given keyword. The chart below depicts the daily estimated number of clickthroughs for the keyword phrase “HR Software” in Google.com, Google.ca and Google.au across Page One and Page Two of the SERPs.

Based on the research, data available and assumptions below, an HR software company attempting to rank for this keyword should expect, if they were occupying position one in Google for the term “HR Software”, 24 clickthroughs per day from SEO and just two from PPC; three clickthroughs from SEO if they were in position six or seven for the same term and nothing from PPC.

Think of this more as a model for comparison rather than an exact answer since there are so many uncontrollable factors surrounding a keyword. (Read: Five Forces of Keyword Competition)

In this model, one must also consider the difference is resources (time and money) required to increase positions in SEO versus PPC. With SEO, the input of time and money is uncertain, however, the results are longer lasting. With PPC, one can instantaneously gain a top position, but it can disappear just as quickly without a trace of ever being there.

2120 monthly searches * 94% = 1992 * 36.4% /30 days = 24 daily click-
throughs for position #1 in Google.com for the keyword "HR Software"

The purpose of this blog is not to convince marketers to shift their marketing spend, nor is it intended to discount one marketing tactic over the other. (I believe there is a time and a place for all marketing tactics within a given strategy). The purpose is simply to take a closer look at SEO as a line item in a marketing budget and other marketing tactics that affect SEO.

SEO as a Line Item in your Marketing Budget

Marketers are spending more on SEO than they realize when they also have the following line items in their budget:

• Content Marketing
• Social Media
• Video Production
• Public Relations

These marketing tactics affect a web presence and organic search rankings and can have a significant positive impact on SEO including: rank, backlinking, social signal generation and fresh content, but are often not included in the traditional SEO budget.

Content Marketing

SEO cannot be done without content creation in the form of on-site content optimization and off-site optimization (i.e., blogs, press releases, case studies, how-to guides, videos, etc.), yet content marketing is often a separate line item from SEO, and unfortunately a lot of off-site content is not optimized for SEO.

A client case study, for example, can have a significant impact on SEO rankings if it is deliberately optimized for keywords driving traffic and socialized for the purpose of organic search ranking.

It is worth noting that according to the Custom Content Council, marketers spent $16.6 billion on electronic content marketing in 2011 and the trend is continuing.

Social Media

Social media and SEO are very much separate line items in a marketing budget, but content socialized at the page level through Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube generates social signals which can positively impact SEO and an organic search ranking.

The most direct link between SEO and social media is Google+ and Search plus Your World. If you have not yet started to build out your personal and business Circles, please do. A piece of content shared through your Circles has an opportunity to be found by your followers through Search plus Your World – before your competitors’ content is found.

Video Production

Video can be a secret weapon in an SEO strategy given that YouTube is the second busiest search engine and your prospects want to consume your content in video format. Many organizations are specifically itemizing video creation in their marketing budget. If the video content is optimally tagged, it can dominate in both YouTube and Google proper for the keywords the video has been optimized for.

Public Relations

Many organizations have a PR budget that does not factor into their SEO budget. So although PR efforts may be impacting SEO, they could be positively impacting it even further if the PR content was optimized for keywords driving traffic.

Press releases that are written specifically for a keyword that is converting targeted traffic will be more impactful on lead generation efforts given that Google gives priority to fresh, relevant content and will likely list the press release in its News section if it is distributed through the proper channels (e.g., Marketwire, Businesswire, PRWeb, etc.).

Stop Underestimating SEO in Your Marketing Budget

SEO today consists of more than just backlink building and on-site optimization. Content marketing, PR, social media and SEO go hand-in-hand, and the investment in one tactic can positively influence the outcome of another.

If you are an SEO professional, but not yet involved in your clients’ social media, PR and video production efforts, talk with them about the importance of bringing these tactics together for the overall benefit of SEO. If you are a marketer and are working with different professionals or employees on each of these tactics, it is worth your time to bring the different disciplines together in attempts to optimize all content across your web presence for keywords that are driving targeted traffic and conversions.

SEO as a line item in marketing budgets is typically underestimated. The gap between what marketers spend on SEO versus PPC is not as significant as Forrester indicates. Those marketers and SEO professionals who attempt to execute SEO in a silo will never get the results they expect (especially not overnight).

My marketing budget has a line item called “Optimized Content Marketing Strategy” with sub categories that include:

• Content Marketing
• SEO
• Social Media
• PR
• Video
• Email Marketing
• Paid Search

This approach will give you a better chance at reaching the top of Google for your converting keywords and the opportunity to enjoy awesome organic clickthrough rates!

Websites like Groupon or Living Social are two of the most important examples of flash sale services in this debate. These websites offer consumers up to fifty percent off a product or service. In turn, the flash sale is intended to drive sales and increase traffic to a brand in hopes of a providing a new satisfied and loyal consumer.

However, when companies subtract lost profits and website fees (as much as a 75% hit on top-line revenue!), does the cost outweigh the benefits? A flash sale can pay off when companies need to liquidate surplus stock or boost traffic during otherwise dead times. The truth is that many customers who claim these deals may not be the typical customer that the business has in mind. These are bargain shoppers who expect big discounts on valuable goods and services. The question is, will they be willing to pay full price as a returning customer?

Companies can also improve their revenues by communicating to customers that they are getting something very valuable in return for their money.  I consider this selling on value, as opposed to selling on price.  Companies need to prove to the consumer that they are the best and worth every penny. They can accomplish this because research shows that in the long run, clients will pay more money for items or services they believe to be worth it.  But selling at a steep discount for even a brief time can undermine the value proposition.

A business should do a thorough internal inspection of its consumer base and finances before deciding to go try a daily deal. This will allow them to do a cost analysis of the potential sale versus potential client increase. Sometimes investing in straightforward advertising (like online display ads!) can actually be a better deal. Daily deals can be exciting, but negative effects can outlast any sales bump.

The business of selling luxury products has changed in these post-recession times.

In 2008, average U.S. wealth plunged by over $11 trillion – the largest year-over-year decline since the early 1950s. As wealth plummeted, a noticeable shift in consumer sentiment occurred too. Many people accustomed to affording finer things no longer could. The ones who could were generally less boastful about it in the midst of economic crisis.

Today’s high unemployment and poverty rates and a less-is-more attitude have skewed the way consumers view luxury, but that doesn’t mean they don’t desire or appreciate a first-rate lifestyle. Baby Boomers, our country’s richest generation, know unparalleled wealth. Generation Y is more than familiar with modern excess too.

What it means is that present-day luxury buyers are less about conspicuousness and more about how a high-end product substantiates its worth by fundamentally improving their lives or by creating an unforgettable experience.

The most successful integrated luxury marketing campaigns have evolved in the way they target, and then best speak to, premium buyers – how they cultivate a deep and meaningful interest among consumers, how they build an emotional bond between buyer and brand, and most importantly, how they effectively reinforce the value proposition of a product’s worth.

Recently, we analyzed luxury automotive marques Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Acura, Lexus and Cadillac as chief marketers map out launch strategies to capture the lion’s share of luxury in a very unconventional market.

Because we know that successfully launching a luxury product is unique and challenging in its own right, our goal was to highlight some of the smart tactics auto marketers employ to reach and resonate with a new age luxury consumer, and to look at how digital media is shaping the luxury landscape today.

Consider the following statistics:

Pew Research Center released a report last November that revealed people in higher age groups (65 and older) had roughly 47 times as much net wealth as those aged 35 and younger.

And recent data from The Affluence Collaborative, a research company specializing in the study of high-income consumer habits, shows:

• 57 percent of wealthy consumers indicated they like to have the latest gadgets and to be on the forefront of the latest in the technology realm versus just 18 percent of the general population.

• Approximately 72 percent of wealthy consumers are active on Facebook.

• Twitter usage among the wealthy increased by 350 percent year-over-year in 2010. Twitter usage growth is expected to continue at this rate through the end of 2012.

Today’s Baby Boomers aren’t aging gracefully and they’re not going away quietly. Now, more than ever before, they’re active and involved – both online and off in their daily lives – and wealthier compared to their same age group 20 years ago.

Their children, Generation Y, soon to be the largest generation in U.S. history at a little over 70 million, is a smart, varied, technologically-skilled population who trusts peer opinions more than traditional advertising, who is aging quickly and whose expendable income is increasing.

The bottom line? The digital generation gap is shrinking between older, more affluent buyers (once seemingly not so savvy but now up-and-comers in technology), and younger, digitally-proficient consumers with less – but increasing – expendable income. Luxury auto marketers, in particular, have noticed.

Cadillac

Cadillac, historically popular among older adults, is in the midst of a product renewal dubbed “Cadillac Renaissance” to, in part, court Millennials with the introduction of more youthful products, primarily the CTS sport sedan and the new ATS, a compact luxury car designed to go head-to-head with the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

Cadillac touted the performance of the CTS-V as the world’s fastest production sedan in a video featuring a Ferrari 458 tailing the sedan on a challenging road course. The automaker took its ATS campaign – 40 ads and online videos in all – to YouTube and the Olympics world stage this year, airing racy “cinematic adventures” of the ATS in thrilling Morocco, Monaco and Patagonia.

Lexus

Traditionalist Lexus, known for attracting more mature buyers, has revved its product line with the IS sedan and convertible – bright spots for the younger crowd. And its redesigned ES, with smartphone-enabled Internet and app connectivity, boasts a more athletic demeanor compared to its predecessor.

The ES marketing launch centers around the automaker’s social media channels, including an invitation to entrepreneurs and innovators for submissions of newly formed products to be voted on via a custom Facebook app. $100,000 in seed funding will go to four fan favorites.

And Lexus will be the first manufacturer to create a Brand Magazine on Flipboard, a social magazine designed for iPad, iPhone and Android. It will also run ads on Esquire’s and ESPN’s Flipboard channels and will sponsor the ESPN Saturday Afternoon College Football Halftime Show.

Audi

On the flipside, Audi, an afterthought in the minds of luxury car buyers not more than a decade ago, is looking up, in the average age of its buyers and in sales, with record 2011 numbers at over 117,000 units sold.

The brand’s had no trouble appealing to a younger crowd in the past with its flagship compact sedan, the A4, but today it’s looking to attract a broader, more mature audience with a focus on mid- to large-size sedans in its A6, A7 and A8 models.

The automaker’s memorable A6 marketing campaign, “Making the Road an Intelligent Place” features highly relatable roadway challenges for young and old drivers alike (potholes, confusing road signs, harebrained drivers) to tout how the performance of the A6 helps drivers overcome these challenges.

Acura

While some luxury car buyers are motivated primarily by the emotions of reputation and prestige, Acura buyers err on the side of sensible – according to the company’s marketing execs – walking the Millennial/Baby Boomer line. Its customers craft a long list of features they desire, they do their homework to become highly familiarized with the brand and its products, and most importantly, they want the biggest bang for their buck.

Acura’s marketing strategy? From a high level perspective, reinforce reliability, quality of design, high resale value and a less expensive price tag compared to European counterparts in its messaging to drive home what makes Acura better – in this case, its “value” proposition.

Mercedes-Benz

Much to the dismay of diehard Boomers, Mercedes is coming off quality issues from 2009 but has since turned things around, launching six exciting new models last year. Its limited run yet highly sought after SLK convertible and SLS AMG Roadster have helped bolster the automaker’s street cred, while its entry price point C-Class coupe has helped add Mercedes to the set of luxury car considerations among the younger crowd.

The automaker has incorporated a blend of “legacy” (see its Super Bowl Commercial featuring Janis Joplin’s ‘Mercedes-Benz’) and edge to its marketing messages as curb appeal for Millenials, while reminding them of the automaker’s longevity and reputation in the luxury automotive space.

Sure, your grandpa will probably still drive a Cadillac, but in this digital age, chances are your son will drive one too.

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group.