Picture This—An Infographic’s Role in Content Marketing

What are Infographics?

In short, an infographic is any visual representation of information. These large, creative images (see below for an example) can be found in a variety of places around the web, like on blogs, through some social networks like Pinterest, and on bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon. For the purposes of Internet Marketing, an infographic is normally used to present a large amount or complicated data in an appealing and engaging way. And that’s the key to your business getting the most out of this kind of content—engagement with your target audience. The assumption always seems to be that web users are impatient—they won’t bother with a site if it doesn’t load after a few seconds, and they won’t take the time to read every word on a text-rich web page. To market in this environment, where users want information in (faster than) an instant, visual content like infographics just might be a way to slow people down and get your message across effectively.

How can I use Infographics for Marketing?

Just like any other visual-based piece of content, the marketing value of infographics lies in their portability, opportunities for sharing via social networks, and linking back to your business’s web site.

Portability: Once designed and completed, an infographic can be easily uploaded to an aggregator, repurposed in a presentation, highlighted in an email promotion, or discussed in an article, blog post, press release, or social media post.

Sharing: Your business’s online presence, reach, and credibility can all receive a substantial boost when users share your visual content. Because of their relatively small size and wide range of applications, infographics make for an inexpensive chance for your business’s content to “go viral.”

Backlinking: Just because any text content within an infographic can’t be crawled or indexed by a search engine doesn’t mean that these images don’t have distinct SEO advantages. Anyone that shares and/or publishes an infographic somewhere else typically links back to your business’s website; this link bait results in greater traffic and a higher search ranking.

Conclusion

It’s easy to see the benefits that can come not only from infographics, but from the integration of any visual content into your business’s digital marketing plan. The key is that the content has to be well designed. The best images are appealing and easy to understand, as well as informative and engaging. They can show your business’s expertise on a particular subject as well as increase your reach and web traffic. Finally, infographics are easily repurposed, shared by users, and serve as effective link bait for SEO purposes. For a business owner, it seems a picture can be worth much more than a thousand words.

Claim Your Place

According to Google, 97% of consumers search for local business online, therefore having a local business listing with Google Places is a must. Google Places allows businesses to connect with local customers by providing a simple free web page containing relevant company information on Google.

The first step to getting your business listed on Google Places is to verify your business. After verifying your business, you may begin building your page.

It is important to claim your business’ page, otherwise the information Google accumulates may be inaccurate. Additionally, it is advantageous to add details about your company. For example, many businesses customize their pages by including “photos, videos, coupons, and even real-time updates like weekly specials” (Google “Getting Started”).

Regardless of whether you claim your business’ Place page, customers may post reviews about your business and their experience. However, once you claim your Place page, you possess the ability to monitor and respond to customer reviews.

Not only may your Google Place page show up in the search engine result pages but also be accessed and visible on Google maps. This can be helpful to customers trying to physically locate your company.

Google Places-- a great free, easy way to create more visibility for your company online.

Increase Productivity and Leverage SEO/SEM Beyond Search for Enterprise Search Solutions

What is Enterprise Search?

Enterprise Search (ES) is typically defined as the practice of creating content from multiple enterprise sources, such as databases, intranet sites, and/or directories that is searchable to defined audiences. Enterprise Search differs from traditional web search by indexing data or documents from sources such as file systems, emails, or document management systems. ES has the ability to use access controls to limit the content that is available to user types.

How can my business use Enterprise Search?

Businesses of all industries and sizes can leverage Enterprise Search to increase productivity, reach new customers, and improve customer services. Enterprise Search can help your sales team effectively and efficiently find product information (Product updates, features, and benefits, for example) to help them in their sales process. It also helps prospective customers quickly identify information related to products or services on your website. According to Google, customers that deploy an Enterprise Search solution report an increase of conversion rates by 25%. Enterprise Search solutions offer improved customer services and cut costs by providing relevant information to customers faster.

What Enterprise Search Solutions are available for my Business?

• Google Search Appliance: Search Box with similar algorithm as Google for intranet, employee directories, internal databases, etc.
• Google Site Search: Integrated into your company website to find product and service related information
• Google Commerce Search: Integrated into your e-commerce website for a better shopping experience
• Open Source Solutions: Constellio, Apache Solr, etc.
• Other ES Solutions: Vivisimo, Attivio, SharePoint, IBM, etc.

How can my business apply SEO insights to Enterprise Search?

Enterprise Search can incorporate SEO/SEM insights to provide query suggestions, related queries, dynamic navigation and synonyms for a better user experience for customers, and create internal operating efficiencies. Your business can also leverage meta data that aligns to web related searches and business information. Enterprise Search provides an opportunity to use the insights that are generating leads and sales to save your company time, money, and develop internal efficiencies.

Tip for Considering an Enterprise Search Solution

• Be sure to choose the correct Enterprise Search solution base on your business goals and objectives.
• Consider the impact of Enterprise Search on your intended audience.
• Target your Enterprise Search on your intended audience.
• Target your Enterprise Search solution and configuration according to your audience
• Test configurations, query features, and designs to maximize its benefits.
• Measure the impact on revenue, internal efficiencies, and sales.

Conclusion

The power of search goes beyond search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. In general, we associate “search” with the customer finding us within the search results. As marketing professionals and business owners, we need to consider what happens when a prospective customer lands on business website. We work to create strategies to increase brand awareness and reduce our cost per lead, but we still need to identify opportunities to increase productivity, reach new customers, and improve customer service. Enterprise Search provides us with the ability to leverage our findings from SEO or SEM to take advantage of these opportunities to better serve customers, create efficiency, and increase sales.

Google's Value of Content over Optimization

Recently, a debate has emerged regarding Google’s potential forthcoming decision to place greater restrictions on its algorithm for websites that utilize less-compelling content coupled with so-called “over-optimization.” While the details aren’t exactly clear as of yet, at this year’s SXSW Conference in Austin, Google’s Webspam Team manager Matt Cutts made mention of “something that they’ve been working on in the last few months” that will make the search playing field “a little bit more level.” And even though multiple sources have taken this brief mention of change as something that won’t solve a much greater problem, or are criticizing Google for trying to level a playing field that inherently cannot be so, a single point remains—impactful and meaningful content has increased value for a website over SEO alone.

SEO Provides the Means to a Content End

The benefits of SEO for businesses and digital marketing teams have often been proven in the past. While the importance of SEO is beyond question, the real value of a website for searching users lies in the content they find once they arrive there. And while it’s one thing to fault Google for fighting a losing battle or “jumping the shark,” as many bloggers have touted, Google’s intention was made clear in that same conference—certain SEO techniques or “tricks” that can increase a site’s traffic in lieu of engaging, relevant content should not have a strangle hold over their (or any) search index. As it stands, whatever Google is working on, there is simply not enough information available yet to make any sweeping claims about their next update or improvement.

Marketable Sites have Meaningful Content

For any web developer or digital marketing team, a page’s content in relation to its search engine ranking is a powerful combination in terms of visibility and reach. These factors also provide a basic, yet effective foundation for additional, future internet marketing campaigns. Rather than bashing Google for over-regulating the over-optimizers and creating an unjustified fear of SEO, businesses should allocate time and resources toward the creation of content that is accessible, impactful, and informative in addition to approved, “white hat” optimization efforts. Many are anticipating further clarification on this issue when Cutts speaks again at the Search Marketing Expo Advanced in Seattle this June. Then we’ll see whether all the hype was warranted and who really “jumped the shark” on this issue.

SEO: Think You Can Do It Better?

Many business administrators believe their internal marketing and IT staff have the capability of running successful SEO campaigns. This common misconception originates from a theory that SEO is nothing more than a process of choosing keywords that relate to a business and implementing those keywords on the business’ website. However, much more is needed to run a profitable SEO campaign. The number one necessity for running a successful SEO campaign is utilizing a reputable SEO firm--that’s the easy part.

Internet marketing has become very competitive and complex within the past few years. For this reason, companies may no longer find success with a one-time implementation of basic SEO components. To be successful in today’s competitive Internet marketing environment, one must give constant attention to the campaign. For example, factors such as industry trends and changes to the major search engines’ algorithms occur regularly. Competition is fierce; a business may achieve top ranking for certain keywords one month and drop in rank the next if proper attention is not given to the campaign.

SEO firms are better suited than internal marketing staff for managing SEO campaigns because they have insights into Internet marketing strategies appropriate for various types of industries such as: financial services, pharmaceutical, and professional services.

The qualifications and certifications SEO firms acquire, such as SEMPO certification, illustrate the firms’ specific training, knowledge, and skills. SEO firms are subject matter experts--they know what to do and how to do it.

In-house marketing departments may not have the depth of knowledgeable, training, access to industry tools, and time necessary to run a successful SEO campaign. Therefore, it is best to hire an SEO firm to work in conjunction with an in-house marketing department in order for a company to achieve its goals.

By working with an SEO firm, businesses will create efficiencies, save time, and money--after all, that’s what it’s all about it.

5 Reasons to Use a CMS-Based Website

If you are considering redesigning or building a new website, a Content Management Systems (CMS)-based website is a must. The use of a CMS website will save you time, money, and create efficiencies.

5 reasons to use a CMS website:

1. Easy to update content: Adding, removing, or updating content may be executed by staff members without the need for a web designer.
2. Design: Simply change the design and appearance of the website without the headache of using editors or creative suites.
3. SEO Friendly: Stay on top of the Search Engine Optimization of the website.
4. Increased Functionality: Plug-ins and widgets may be integrated effortlessly for additional functionality.
5. Security: Content is safely stored in a database.

There you have it. Five quick, great reasons to switch your company's website over to a Content Management System.

Local Search Engine Optimization Package Trial Offer

DaBrian Marketing Group's Business Development Specialist Christopher Brown presents our Special Local SEO Package Trial Offer! For more information on this deal, please check out our SEO Promotion page.

SEO & Social Media to Capture ZMOT

We continuously receive questions about the position of SEO within the internet marketing space.  It is true that the waters between SEO and Social media have been merged to some degree, but the result is still relevant results within the search engines.  Also, the mentality of users is still roughly the same: a stimulus-like an email campaign and search for more information.  The recent eBook “Winning the Zero Moment of Truth” (ZMOT) by Jim Lecinski provides further insight into the new mental model. 

Shifting the focus to the mentality of the user has come full circle.  The ability to align SEO and Social Media within your marketing plan will help you attract customers at the ZMOT, but doing so takes a solid strategy and communication from your SEO & Social Media teams.  It’s not enough to implement SEO & Social Media into the plan; what’s more important is that these elements align to attract customers.

The Latest and Greatest in SEO

Here is some of the latest and greatest we’ve found going on in the Search Engine Optimization world:

1.     Google introduced new and improved site links which means visibility to sub-navigation pages, link selection changes from query to query, and delivery of relevant links. 

2.     Yahoo's new image presentation also allows for easy searching of galleries, a connection to your friends' Facebook images, and easy navigation of full-sized images.

3.     Content is still king.  Don’t use redundant articles, duplicate content, limit the automatically generated content, and reduce the high ad-to-content ratio on your web pages.

4.     Google + and other social media metrics will be part of the evolution of search engine optimization and link building.

5.     Link Building isn’t going away but it may not weigh as heavily as it once did in the overall search algorithm. 

From SEM to Results

It seems like businesses are trying to justify SEO, whether it’s the tactics itself or the assumptions that Social Media has made SEO irrelevant. In order to effectively justify SEO for the business, you need to understand their purpose for hiring an SEO agency or an SEO consultant. In most cases, you want more relevant traffic that should generate leads or sales. There’s a process as to how agencies go about implementing a campaign. In addition to improved site traffic, a good consultant or agency should be able to provide you with the following items:
1. SEO Audit – this should identify strength, weakness, opportunities, and threat for competitor in relation to your business goals and objectives.
2. Competitive Data – this information should be used to identify or create a competitive advantage.
3. Web Design issues – they should be able to identify indexing, crawling, load time issues, etc.
4. Improvement!

Your Trademark = My Keyword

Recently, a California Appeals Court ruled that it is legal (as least for now) to use competitors’ trademarks as keywords. Although it is legal, that does not mean you should run out add your competitors’ names, or other trademark terms, to your keyword list. Google Adwords and others give keywords a quality score based on how relevant the term is to your products/services and the landing page of your ads. Assuming that your site is tightly optimized for your specific products/services, then adding competitors’ trademark as a keyword will generate low quality score. This low quality score will result in your ads not being shown, average Cost-Per-Click increasing, and/or ad rank dropping. Although adding competitors’ trademark terms to your keyword list will get more impressions for your ads, specifically when someone is searching for a competitor, is it worth it? This answer may vary depending on the industry, the competitor, and even the location. Before, you start having your ads appear for your competitor’s trademarks, make sure that it is worth the time and effort. My point being, trademark or not, do research and test keywords and make sure that it is worth the time and effort to implement them it into your keyword list, and continue to monitor and measure performance to ensure results.

Marketing. Measuring. Testing. Results!

DaBrian Marketing Group LLC.

Back to the Basics with Testing for Internet Marketers

It seems like business owners have forgotten the fundamentals of marketing and that it includes testing. “Almost any question can be answered cheaply, quickly, and finally by a test campaign, said Claude Hopkins the author of Scientific Advertising (1923). Although the book is dated, scientific advertising is critical to SEO, Pay per Click, Website Design, and Email Marketing. It is not just important to determine what works but also learning what doesn’t work to helped the business get to the point of generating leads and converting them into sales. In today’s environment, web analytics and conversion optimization are linked to scientific advertising or marketing. Continue to test your landing pages, ad copy, and call to action.

For more information, read “Always Be Testing” for tips, guidance, and tools.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Myths & Misconceptions that the Best SEOs Rank at the Top of a Google Search for SEO

While it's very hard to convince some people otherwise, with the exception of top level SEO consultants, the results for "SEO" at Google are substandard. Even SEOToday was ironically not listed on the first page of Google on October 16, 2010, and several of the United States Top SEOs were not listed within the first 3 pages of Google. Why not? SEO considers the company, branding, messaging, and positioning statements. SEO consultants look to identify keywords and phrases that not only increase visibility, but also increase the probability of conversions (leads or sales). This request intensive keyword researches both quantitative and qualitative data usually in the form of web analytics, keyword tools and customer feedback. SEO starts with keyword research, which leads to an understanding of your client’s goals, objectives, strategies, and target audience.

This is a job for an SEO or SEM agency, not for a web design firm. In some cases, web design firms can provide most businesses with a title, keywords, and descriptions; however, the lack of expertise or human resources to allocate time and applied knowledge to keyword research, conversion optimization, keyword ranking monitoring, crawling issues, continuous on-page optimization and link building for a campaign can be detrimental. In general, their area of expertise is in creativity, user experience, and developing great user interfaces, not developing or enhancing a site for search engines. There is an evident difference, one is more creative and one is more research-oriented or analytical. You would not ask an artist to analyze and diagnose your businesses financial statements, would you?

Reading PA SEO

Yahoo/Microsoft Search Alliance Update

In late August, Yahoo! completed the transition of the back-end technology for English-language Yahoo! organic search results in the U.S. and Canada. There is now consistency of the organic search results between Yahoo! and Bing. In our opinion, there is still a gap in relevant search results when compared to Google. It’s our assumption that Yahoo! and Bing will make additional modifications to the search algorithm after the holiday season. As for the paid search results, advertisers can start transitioning their paid Yahoo! Search Marketing account to Bing now. The Yahoo! ad serving transition is expected to start mid-October. For additional tips on how to prepare for the search alliance, check out our recent search engine marketing article.

Quality Search Engine Marketing Agency?

As a Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics agency, we receive numerous questions regarding the difference between us and the local advertising agencies. Our focus is concentrated specifically on marketing tactics and strategies that will impact a business or brand in the search engine ranking via paid or organic methods. We specialize in Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics and do not attempt to be all things to all businesses!

6 Ways to Identify a Quality Search Engine Marketing Agency:

1. Has more than 1 person on staff with Google, Yahoo, Bing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and/or Web Analytics certifications. This shows that the agency has the capacity to handle more than one large search engine marketing campaign.
2. Attends industry conferences or seminars such as SES, SMX, eMetric Summit, etc. This demonstrates an effort to continue to improve the agency's overall knowledge base.
3. Can utilize more than one Web Analytics and more than one Search Engine Marketing tool. If they are "experts" in the field, they should be able to handle different tools.
4. Reads industry blogs such as Google, WAA, etc. to stay updated on trends and changes to popular industry tools such as Google AdWords, Google Analytics, MS Advertising, etc.
5. Is a member of Industry Associations. This reinforces the agency's commitment to their field, and most associations have best practices to which members must adhere.
6. Has a client base willing to provide references.

If you have a medical condition such as heart disease, you go to see a cardiologist, not a general practitioner. So, if you have a search engine marketing problem, go see a search engine marketing agency.

The Changing Search Engine Environment

The world of search engine marketing is continuously changing and most businesses fail to keep up with these changes. Over the past year, we have seen changes to Microsoft Live (now Bing). This year, we have already seen changes in Google. Google’s latest changes come with the implementation of Google Caffeine. This update will have a dramatic impact on search engine optimization and search engine marketing for businesses in 2010.

Google Caffeine is the latest change to the Google search engine algorithm. According to Matt Cutts (Google Software Engineer Extraordinaire), said that Caffeine is the new technology that improves indexing infrastructure. It deliveries faster results, more accurate search results, larger index size, and better at capturing news. This improvement means a better user search experience. Hopefully, this will translate into more searcher using Google and more advertiser using Google AdWords to attract customers.

Remember that not everything has changed with Google. The content is still key to search results and meta titles/tags are still very important. You will need to update your content more frequently and improve the quality of links to relevant content.

Our Search Engine Optimization Trends & Vision for Businesses

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will continue to increase in awareness throughout 2009-2010. According to Small Business Trends, businesses will begin to move SEO in-house; however, Search Engine Optimization agencies will also continue to be busier than ever. Let’s not exclude the increasing volume of SEO scams that will continue to frustrate our customers.

The most critical information still reaffirms that relevant content is key. The trend should also include videos, blogs, images, and tweets. The search functionality will evolve due to additional role-over functionality on Bing. Local search and mobile search engine optimization will generate additional changes in the search engine landscape. The evolution of mobile device will have marketers focusing on mobile search and mobile search functionality.

The bottom line is that businesses should start to incorporate search engine optimization into their marketing plans. We don’t recommend that every businesses jump into SEO and hire an agency but we do recommend that every business have the basics covered. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing will continue to become more challenging for organizations that don’t understand the basics. New wrinkles will continue to appear in mobile search, search engine, and local search. Once you have the basics covered, you can start to tackle the larger challenges!

Search Engine Optimization Basics for Small Business

Search Engine Optimization can be difficult for organizations that do not have the skill set or knowledge to achieve better positioning. The best resource for small businesses would be Google’s Starter Guide for Search Engine Optimization. In addition, Google offers a number of free tools to help track the performance of your website & keywords.

Google is not the only search engine on the block. You should also visit Bing & Yahoo for their webmaster/explorer tools. These search engines can provide valuable insight on your search position. They provide information on inbound links, crawlers, and more.

Small businesses should track the progress of their Search Engine Optimization. In most cases, the search engine optimization should focus on the local markets. You will need to do the keyword/phrase research for your product or services. Remember to think like your customers and keep it simple. If you do not have analytics (Google Analytics) on your website, you should set-up an account to get valuable information on which keywords and sources are sending visitors.

Let us know if you’ve discovered any useful tools.

Strategies for Optimizing Press Releases

Press Releases are intended to highlight a specific event, announcement, or special information to be sent to the media in hopes that they will cover your story. It seems pretty simple; just write and release, but there have to be tactics to ensure that your press release is getting recognized.

Since press releases are not only being read by news reporters, but also another audience being the end-users utilizing search engines, it is especially important to make sure that these possible consumers are finding your press release. By putting links in your press release, it helps end-users to be led somewhere helpful if they want more information about your business. To target your other audience of reporters and journalists, it is crucial to decide on a distributions channel that will be most beneficial to getting your press release out there in the media and to come up in search engines. There are many news services that do this including: PR Web, PR Newswire, Business Wire, Marketwire, etc.

Another very important strategy that will help optimize your press release for online search is researching and defining the right keywords to help reach your target audience. It is a great idea to place these keywords in the headline and/or subhead of the release as well as in the lead paragraph of the release since these are the most important parts of the press release. Also, to intrigue readers, try to create a creative hook that will grab attention and encourage your target audience to further inquire about your release. Another strategy in addition to keywords is adding an image to your press release because this will set it apart from other press releases as well as increase its visibility in search engines as image searches are becoming more popular.

One more thing: do not forget to track the effectiveness of your press release by measuring results. Through Search Engine Optimization reporting, you can find out how much traffic was driven to your website from the press release as well as how many people are reading the press release itself!

Article Submissions: Valuable for SEO or Not?

The general purpose of an article submission is to increase the links to your website(s). If utilized effectively, article submission can help you increase the number of links; however, it is not the most effective method. Many article submission sites have limitations with regards to the type of information that can be displayed within an article. Article Submission can help to establish you or your organization as an industry expert. If you provide an article on a specific topic, there is a good chance that someone interested in that industry will come across it on the web and use it. Remember that relevant content is key when on the web. To maintain this relevance, be sure to include your username, keywords, content, your address, company name, phone number, and contact person for each and every article submission.