Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category
Conflicts Within Marketing, Social Media, and ERP Software
Web Analytics 2.0 Hits the Stores
Today I ordered Web Analytics 2.0, which is the second book by Avinash Kaushik, the best selling author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day. As an avid website designer, SEO nut, social media fan, and overall Internet marketing addict, I can’t wait for delivery of my new purchase.
I already subscribe to Avinash’s very popular blog Occam’s Razor, which provides insightful discussion on Google Analytics and the software’s newest functionality. I enjoy his blog entries and cannot wait to immerse myself in an entire book of his Internet intelligence.
You can learn more about Avinash and his new book at www.webanalytics20.com.
Internet Marketing Guru Matt Cutts Talks Sock Puppet Marketing
Last week Google’s Internet marketing Guru Matt Cutts posted a new video in their Webmaster Central Channel on YouTube. I love these videos because they are short and to the post and without any pitch or longwinded verbiage cluttering the real message. The video that caught my eye was Matt Cutts’ discussion on Sock Puppet Marketing. Yes you read that correctly. Mr. Cutts is talking openly about puppets.
Puppets aside, the discussion was in relation to an individual or company creating fake Internet personas for marketing purposes. While Matt did not go into how Google would react to such tactics, he did provide a very funny puppet commentary to illustrate the process. While the entertainment value alone was good, Matt briefly described a real-world scenario where one company was fined over $300,000 for creating fake testimonials on the Internet. He further talked about why he and Google felt this practice was harmful for all involved.
The short of this video is this – Internet marketing is powerful and effective. People, companies, and the government now consider Internet marketing in the same ranks of traditional marketing techniques. If a technique wasn’t legal in traditional marketing, it isn’t legal on the Internet either. If marketing misrepresents anything, it isn’t marketing. It is just bad business.
Matt summed this up with stating you should avoid anything you wouldn’t want your mother to see or read. I struggle with this, because I am a mother and I know different mothers nag about different things. I would be a larger nagger than most. So, I would modify his statement to caution against any marketing tactic you have to think twice about. If you question it, don’t do it. You’ll be much better off in the end.
Wise Businesses Watch the Search Trends with Google Trends
A very wise business owner I know frequently talks about search volume and search trends when discussing Internet marketing and in particular search engine optimization. He is a data guy, an entrepreneur, and a highly technical individual who always looks beyond simple numbers to peek behind them or even in front of them. He wants to see changes before they occur and wants to know the future so that he can react quickly. He is smart and has used this business practice to ride out storms and downturns.
That being said, we Internet marketing consultants know that this request is not necessarily realistic. You cannot predict that a famous person will die or that Twitter will be attached and plan for a huge peak in web searches and resulting traffic around such events. You can however, peak into the future if you pay attention to search trending.
Thanks to Google – yes I know I can’t seem to talk enough about Google these days – this is possible. Google Trends allows you to input one or more search terms and see trending data of these searches. In the example I tried, I entered Internet marketing, search engine optimization, and website promotion to compare the trends. Google Trends quickly gave me a relative rating of these terms based on search volume and rated Internet marketing a 1.0, search engine optimization a .50 and website promotion a .08. This validated what I believed, which was more people search for Internet marketing than they do for website promotion. More importantly it told me that these three terms stay fairly consistent with few dips and spikes in search activity. What I didn’t expect it to tell me was that Nevada was the highest subregion. This I am still contemplating.
While my test didn’t show anything significant, a test of the search term “Christmas decorations” did certainly provide insight and validate my own behavior. In fact, I will use this information come fall to show my husband that I am not insane or outside the norm. If you trend Christmas decorations as a search term, you will see a large spike occurs in late November and not December 24th as my husband would wager. We Americans begin thinking, buying, and decorating around Thanksgiving. It isn’t by chance that the stores start filling the shelves with Christmas décor this early in the season. They have marketing departments and they watch the buying trends of the consumer.
So if you want a peek into the search future of your product or service offering, take a moment to review Google Trends. If you see a decline in search terms over time, there is most likely a reason. Case in point is Web 2.0 and social media. The world was a buzz about Web 2.0 and then it seemed to dip, as social media seemed to rev itself up. Or at least this was my perception. While I not always accurate in my assumptions, I was correct in this assumption and Google Trends validated this for me as July 2009 activity showed social media overtake Web 2.0 in searches. Again validating what I already believed to be the case. I’d share this with my husband as well, but he will certainly ask me why he cares about Web 2.0 or social media. At least with Christmas decorations,our discussion can last more than a nanosecond.
Suggested Reading:10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases
Today I read an article titled 10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases that was written by Robin Wauters. Very rarely do I become excited about an article. This one was different because Robin was 100% correct in her assessment of the modern day press release and she stated what so many of us Internet marketing consultants would like to scream from our rooftops.
A well-planned Internet marketing campaign will integrate a regular release of press releases, blog entries, and articles. While I would like my clients to release two blog entries and one press release per week, these are very unrealistic expectations for most companies. We therefore find a happy middle ground between what I would like to publish and what is feasible. The trick is to deliver quality contact on a continual basis. Quality contact includes press releases that are about a newsworthy topic and that are without exaggerated sales hype that offer little or no value. Robin touches on this in her article and points out the absurdity in the modern day practice of press releases.
You can read Robin’s entire article on Techcrunch’s website.
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