The Adwords system is completely user-centric, whether you are someone typing in a search query, or a company looking to sell more of a product or service. It is all about relevance. Ads show that satisfy the user’s search query most effectively, and the company benefits because they know that the click, for which they have just paid, is a very qualified lead.

From a company perspective, Adwords can be much cheaper than employing a full-time sales team; with all the fixed overheads that come with that. You can measure exactly how much profit each sale generates (ROI) via a suite of measuring tools that Google offers to its advertisers for free.

How much did it cost to acquire each new customer? You can think about the margin you are looking to make on each sale, and then control the budget you spend on trying to acquire that sale via the Google Adwords/ PPC method. You are in complete control of your budget and who you are trying to target. And in conjunction with Google’s measuring tools, you can always look to improve your ROI.

By constantly tweaking your keywords and ad text, you will improve your sales and profit. A free keyword tool from Google, even does a lot of the leg work for you!

Google Adwords works. Our own clients can testify to this. We have increased their sales significantly over the past couple of years. And with complete control over the costs attached to marketing via Adwords, there are no hidden risks.

Good for business? We think so:

But any fears we had were quickly dispelled. We felt that the whole event was extremely well organised, and we made some great new contacts. Furthermore, we had a great deal of fun! The seminars offered an excellent opportunity for people to learn more about what the companies at the event can offer their own businesses. Whether it be social media or SEO, we hope that the attendees will have come away a little more knowledgeable than when they arrived.

Going forward:

It is our understanding that the videos of the seminars will be uploaded on to a website once 7video have got them edited. Any one who attended the event, we would love to get your feedback, on what you got out of the day. And, if you need any advice or have any questions following on from our seminars, we would be happy to help!

One way to increase adoption and results is to develop a process that is followed by anyone in communications, media relations or PR that is in a position to publish content online.

By adding a process, it adds accountability as well as the likelihood that a much greater quantity of content will be keyword optimised and promoted to extend the reach of news direct to end consumers as well as to journalists and reporters doing online research.

Here is a possible framework, which we hope will help you.

• Objectives:  What are your goals? You can’t finish your mission without an end goal, so it’s important to identify some kind of general website traffic, citations, links, social engagement and organic referring traffic goals.

• Audience:    Who are you trying to reach? This question can be answered at a broad level in relation to online PR and news content as well as at the individual content level. Keywords and promotion tactics can vary whether it’s direct to consumer, journalists, analysts or bloggers that you’re after.

• Social Conversations & SERPs:  Listening to social conversations about the topics important to your company, brand and constituents is essential for knowing where to engage and promote. Think of it as reconnaissance.  The SERPs, (Search Engine Results Pages) are your SEO battlefield and it’s important to understand what types of content is being displayed for your most important keyword phrases. While personalization is a factor that can make the SERP experience vary according to your location and web history, it still makes sense to identify what media types are included: web pages, images, video, blog posts, news, etc.

• Resources:   Content, people, processes.  What content and media do you have to promote? If you put out a press release, adding images and/or video can increase distribution quite a bit.  Who do you have available to you to help? Copywriters, IT, marketing. Adding SEO and Social Media components to content authoring and publishing processes will ensure more of your content goes out in an optimized state.
• Tactics:  What channels to optimize? This is where information captured in Listening and SERPs helps you decide what kind of content and which social channels to optimize for.  If news, images and video are represented in the search results and there are relevant conversations happening around social media sites including some or all of those media, then your “marching orders” are to leverage those types of media in your news optimization.

• Measure:  SEO, Social, PR. Knowing when you’re a success is important for productivity as well as reporting upstream in your organization. Setting goals, making benchmark measurements and then tracking progress as skills and effectiveness are refined will help you stay on track.

SEO insiders have wondered whether this new search innovation would affect placement strategies. And the simple answer is: yes. Yes, there will be changes to the way SEO professionals run their clients’ campaigns. Yes, this will affect the industry as a whole. And yes, we believe SEO professionals will have to adapt to meet ever-evolving needs.

But to think that this development is rocking the SEO world is to misunderstand the realities of the industry. In its roughly 15 years of existence, SEO has grown from being a small wildcat operation run by webmasters and content services to being one of the most dynamic, fast-growing sectors of the tech market. The reason for this rapid growth is because — not in spite –- of the constantly evolving nature of search engines.

Of course, as with any complex question about a dynamically evolving industry, there is a caveat. While the Bing-Facebook agreement and the recent updates to Google will change elements of how we do our business, the fundamentals will remain the same. As much as innovation shapes the day-to-day processes of optimization, the core foundations of the industry remain unchanged. The goal was — and still is — putting clients at the top of results pages, whether this is through organic search, paid search or social media.

Social media is nothing new in the world of online marketing. Facebook alone has 500 million users. We have already seen certain Twitter feeds included in Google search results. Before long, results may integrate other social networking sites, like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and myriad other sites that haven’t even been developed yet. For SEO professionals, this change highlights the need to integrate social networking if they haven’t already.

The Bing-Facebook agreement is indicative of the many changes that have taken SEO from a small-time game to a major, innovative industry. SEO is not about counter-punching, and it’s not about simply reacting to the changing search-engine landscape. Instead, it is about growing alongside search engines. It is about evolving with them to ensure that searchers get the results they need.

For years now, successful SEO firms have not been focusing their efforts strictly on organic search results. They’ve been steadily evolving along with changes in search engines: new Google algorithms, the emergence of Bing, the development of Google Local, instant searches, paid search, and searchable Twitter feeds. To be successful, SEO firms now need to become something more advanced: Digital Media Agencies.

Digital Media Ageniess are about handling the many online representation needs of their clients. While top search engine placement remains the major goal, it is just one aspect of what they seek to do. A Digital Media Agency also seeks to manage a client’s online reputation, create and maintain their social presence, and handle the many other aspects of a client’s online brand.

Will SEO professionals have to change their strategy in reaction to a new social media paradigm? The answer is yes. Their evolution into full-fledged Digital Media Agencies is imperative. And as the social and search industries continue to change, so too will Digital Media Agencies need to innovate.

SEO is the art of making sure your site makes the front page of search results, regardless of the search engine. If you want to be found for computer repair in Birmingham then you need to make sure you’ve done enough small business SEO to be found by Brummies with broken computers. You’re not worried about people in Leicester for example. They’re not going to be your customers, so there’s no reason in trying to reach them. This is where local search becomes more important.

Some small business SEO experts will tell you that keyword advertising and pay-per-click is the best way to go. However, depending on your industry and search terms, that can either be a shot in the dark or an expensive form of marketing. Before you give that a try, there are plenty of affordable search engine optimization strategies that exist for small business people.

Achieving your own small business SEO: When you’re just starting out, you may not have the budget to hire a small business SEO firm. So hopefully you have plenty of time. It’s actually fairly easy to manage the basics. For instance, when you produce your website, make sure you follow proper search engine optimization techniques — using proper keywords in page titles, sub-heads, and throughout body text — and build backlinks by leaving comments on various blogs and websites.

We should be prepared to spend a few hours each day on building backlinks. While many of us don’t have the time to spend a few hours doing this, it’s still important to put some time into it. Even if you only allow yourself enough time to put in three comments a day, you’ll have 100 backlinks within five weeks, which can greatly boost your small business SEO.

When is it time to hire a small business SEO professional? Eventually you will reach the point where you just don’t have time to put into your small business SEO. The time you took to submit those three comments, or the two hours you had been allowing yourself are now being taken up with other marketing, selling, meetings, fulfilling orders, and completing projects. You know your small business SEO is important, but you just haven’t had time for the last several weeks.

This is the time to start looking for a small business SEO professional. Presumably when you’re out of time to do it, you’re also reaching a success plateau which you’ll have a hard time moving off of if you can’t devote the time to your optimization efforts. A small business SEO professional will not only devote the time that you don’t have anymore, but they have been able to keep up with the latest developments in the technology and techniques. They’re reading the latest articles, they’re using the latest tools.

If you try to catch up, you could have a small learning curve you have to overcome before you’re ready to start your small business SEO efforts. And if this is something you continue to put off, you’ll either have a bigger curve later, or you’ll eventually start to slide back off the front page.

Hiring a small business SEO professional allows you to stay focused on those activities that make you money, rather than the ones that will detract from them.

Search engine optimization is going to be crucial if you’re trying to build your online brand, and attract local customers. While you can do most of the work yourself, you ideally want to get to the point in your business growth that you need to hire a professional to handle it for you. Regardless of what you do, small business SEO is going to be important enough to you that don’t want to ignore it.

With 10 years in marketing, advertising and 10 years in internet marketing, we can offer affordable solution for you to develop your brand online. We have two Google Adwords professionals in-house, and know how to drive sales through SEO. We have done it for our own sites!

Well, you are not alone.  Every year, thousands of UK businesses buy into rogue services that fail to deliver results of any kind. The most popular type of service that Internet Marketing companies push is called Search Engine Optimisation, otherwise known as SEO.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of increasing a website’s position in the search engines so that the website receives more visitors. If carried out correctly, an SEO campaign can deliver a measurable increase in targeted traffic:  visitors looking for a particular service or product.

By focusing on specific keywords, a website can be optimised to appear in the search engines for relevant searches. The more exposure a website gets in the search engines and the higher up in the results the website appears, the more visitors the website will get from its target market.

How do businesses get stung?

SEO is a specialist service that requires technical knowledge of how the internet and search engines like Google operate. There are a variety of scenarios that lead to a business feeling cheated by an SEO company. Typical scenarios are rogue SEO companies;

• Pretending that guarantees can be given for what ranking position a site will attain and how long it will stay there for.
• Not analysing the individual requirements of a client’s business and then applying inappropriate or ineffective strategies that don’t deliver results.
• Charging monthly fees on a rolling contract so that business owners see the campaigns as low risk (and essentially ‘worth a gamble’) but end up paying more than the value of the work done.
• Taking on clients that operate in extremely competitive environments where there may be no room for successful optimization.

10 tips to qualify an SEO Agency

So how can you avoid the unpleasant situations that we have just discussed? Research, preparation and asking the right questions are pretty effective in our experience. Here’s our top 10 tips.

1.    Ask them what guarantees they provide on indexes and rankings over time.

If they give any guarantees to do with Google (or other search engines), bin them
2.    Ask them how long it will take to get your website on the first page of Google

All SEO campaigns take time, and a real SEO company will say that a minimum of 3 months work is needed to make progress (unless you already rank for the keywords). Any mention of anything less, walk away.

3.    Do a Google search for their company name, paying particular attention at forum posts

Any negative experiences will come up, as will positive experiences
4.    Ask them what their rates are and how they price up campaigns

If they price per keyword that’s fine, but if they offer packages for £100 or £250 per month without first finding out what your needs are be cautious; the campaigns may not be tailored to what you need.

5.    Ask them what reporting they provide for clients

A genuine SEO company will provide monthly reports on what is being done each month for your money.

6.    Ask them what keywords their company website ranks for in Google.

Check their rankings. If they don’t come up, be sceptical. If they are a new company it’s acceptable to ask how they intend on ranking and how long it will take them (they should be at least trying to rank and have an understanding of timeframes) and only move forward on client testimonials directly from the clients (as well as doing point 2).

7.    Ask them what they think about your website

Most SEO companies will highlight how well optimised your website is for the search engines to read. Page titles internal linking, and keyword optimised copy are some points they should mention.  The emphasis shouldn’t all be on Meta Tags and if anybody tells you to focus on the “keyword meta tag” in particular, then beat a hasty retreat.
8.    Ask them how campaigns are planned to get you a return on Investment as soon as possible.

A good company will have a plan that will target low hanging fruit keywords to get an additional amount of traffic through to your website in the initial 1-3 months. Alongside this, they will have a long term strategy (3-12 months) to target the competitive keywords for your business. If they don’t provide a reasonable plan, question their approach and how long it will take you to see some form of ROI.

9.    Ask them what policies they have to protect your campaign and service from competitors.

An ethical SEO company will only service 1 client per sector or niche. By doing so, you will be sure that they will only optimise your campaign and not your competitors after you. If they do not commit to working exclusively for you within your sector / niche, be skeptical about their approach and ethics.

10. Ask them for case studies of their clients and contact details.

A genuine SEO agency will be happy to provide case studies and contact details for client references. These references will provide you with an unbiased, real life experience of the services being provided.

Conclusion

Just a few simple checks could mean the difference between a cost-effective campaign that delivers traffic, leads and clients, and an expensive failure that could even leave you worse off in the search engine rankings than before.

Remember to keep asking those questions! We have a proven record of delivering a return on investment when it comes to our clients regarding SEO. Why not give us a call on 01694 724 899, and we will be only too happy to answer any queries that you may have!

The report, which was conducted by Forrester Research Inc. on behalf of Shop.org, the online retailing division of the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, notes that most retailers regard customer ratings and reviews as useful and directly correlated to sales.

And though the report adds that 66% of retailers are unclear about the effect on business of other forms of social marketing, it notes that 58% say the primary benefit of social marketing and social commerce is in listening to and better understanding customers.

Other forms of social marketing and social commerce cited in the report include social product recommendations, product sharing in social networks, e-commerce widgets, customer-generated videos, social shopping sites, online forums and co-browsing.

The report also notes the percentages of online retailers agreeing with the following statements regarding social marketing:

• The return on investment is unclear, 66%
• The primary ROI is in listening to and understanding customers, 58%
• We’re pursuing it now to avoid being latecomers, 54%
• We’re pursuing it because of the buzz surrounding it, 50%
• We use a specific set of metrics to measure social marketing initiatives, 36%
• It has helped to grow our business, 34%
• We’re pursuing it because our competitors are, 28%
• We’re pursuing it to satisfy senior management, 15%

The report also notes the percentages of online retailers who have used the following methods to measure the effect of social marketing:

• Click-throughs to a retail site from a social marketing tool like Twitter or Facebook, 60%
• Growth rate of followers on sites like Twitter and Facebook, 57%
• Total subscribers to blog or social network page, 53%
• Unique visitors to social marketing tool, 42%
• Improved search engine optimization, 38%
• Requested action taken (i.e., video views, contest entries, coupons downloaded), 33%
• Insight and market research findings, 31%
• Time spent on social tool, such as reading a blog, 26%
• Percentage of products with multiple customer reviews, 25%
• Number of referrals from customers, 24%
• Media buzz generated, 24%
• Return visits to social tool, 21%
• Not yet measuring social media initiatives, 17%
• Number of installed widgets (i.e., desktop links to e-commerce site), 11%

The flipside is that Social media marketing can be so compelling and addictive that if you are not careful an hour is gone and you haven’t done a thing. Friends and colleagues often make the observation that there is so much valuable information  and tempting headlines that compel us to read and view that like the temptations of the mythoglical Greek Ulysses ‘Sirens’ who lured away away ancient mariners we too can be turned from away from our destination.

So how do we keep on track so that the ‘Sirens’ of Ulysses don’t distract us to destruction and ensure we meet our goals?

1. Check your goals

Why did you set up your social media marketing channels in the first place? Is what you are currently doing on social media moving you towards those goals. Some goals may be quite specific such as to to increase inquiries by 20%. It may be a more general goal such as to connect, engage and communicate or create more brand awareness. It may be to write one blog post a day.

2. Get Focused

You have now checked back to your original goals and now you need to refine and continue to determine what are the most important and prioritize them. For me one major goal is to write our  blog post on a daily basis.

3. Set a Schedule & A Routine

Providing yourself with a schedule and a deadline can ensure.. mostly… that the activity is done and then you can move on to the next task.

4. Planning , Creating and Developing Content

To ensure that we have information to place on the social media channels that we are using we need to be constantly brainstorming and keeping an eye out for content to  post that provides value to your clients and answers their questions and helps solve their problems.

5. Optimizing your Channels

So you now  have the content on your social media platforms….are they set up to ensure that people will find them online and when they get there they will find it easy to view and read. A blog may need some search engine optimisation tweaking and with the changes to Google’s search with the recently announced ‘Google Caffeine’ having more recent content on your web presence is more important than ever. Do you have your LinkedIn profile public and do you have your website, blog and facebook pages entered in the page?

6. Promoting Your Brand on Social Media

A lot of people think that once they have published their blog or posted that the online world is just going to turn up… they won’t .. so you need to tell the world. Tweet it (a few times). Place your content on as many channels as time, money and resources allow. Take your eNewsletter and embed social media buttons at the top and the bottom of the email and also place buttons and links to your blog.. email can be integrated into your whole social media activities.

7. Measuring and Monitoring

Set up measuring and monitoring tools and use them as these can provide the feedback on what is working and what isn’t,

8. Analyze and Adjust your Activities

You now have the numbers on your different activities…. use this tweak and fine tune your activities to ensure that they are producing the best result for the least effort.

9. Communicate and Engage with your Social Media Tribe

Ok .. so you have had your head down and tail up, pumping out great content and doing fantastic things  but you haven’t had time to listen and engage. You need to ensure that you are not just doing but also connecting otherwise one day you will look up and the tribe has dissappeared

10. Help Someone in your Social Media Community

Take time to promote and help someone in your online community achieve their goals and you will be find that reciprocation is often forthcoming and your efforts will be paid back in spades.

How do you keep focused?

As we have mentioned before, the biggest benefit of social marketing is it’s ability to enable you to engage in ongoing dialogue with existing and potential customers. You cannot expect real quantifiable Return on Investment (ROI) from the outset, but in time you will see the benefits. Below are 8 top “social tactics” that you can deploy..and many of them you will be delighted to hear..are inexpensive!

1. Ratings and Reviews: These are already used by most retailers, and offer an opportunity to reduce content creation costs.  This also enables you to have direct contact with your customers, and gain an honest insight; which will help you refine your product more effectively to meet customer needs.

2. Microblogs (eg. Twitter) This is inexpensive to launch, can provide a great platform to offload excess stock (Dell); and provide an opportunity to serve your customers’ needs in real-time. It can also put a face to your brand.

3.  Social recommendations - gives you an opportunity to “leverage” the wisdom of the customer. It exposes customers to content deeper in the site, and encourages “stickiness”. A referral from a friend is, furthermore, so much more powerful, than from a company!

4. Company Blogs – provides the biggest opportunity for SEO benefits. They do not drive a great deal of traffic, but can be set up for relatively low cost.

5.  Customer generated outfitting – Enabling customers to see how they will look in different products will enhance cross-selling considerably. This method further engages shoppers and provides a more interactive customer experience.

6. Product sharing on social network sites – Much more effective than company social network pages. Customers promote your brand for you! Nice..

7. Social shopping aggregator sites – This is a great opportunity to drive incremental traffic to your site.

8. Open APIs – Opportunity to “crowdsource” technology.

These are some of the methods you can look at to drive sales through social media. It all points to the same thing though. Before embarking upon any of this, you need to have clearly identified your target audience, decided upon your goals, and then your approach to meet your objectives. Only some of these methods will  be of benefit to your business, but I hope this gives you a guideline as to what those who have achieved success, do!

A lot of this material was taken from a presentation given by Suleika Bloom , who is the Social Media Director of Heels in the US.  This was posted on Social Commerce Today , a fantastic source of information by Dr Paul Marsden.

Not only is online marketing’s share of spend increasing but it is at the expense of traditional advertising … as Paul mentioned the other day, people are increasingly not using newspapers as much, although I still buy them myself (!), so what is the point of advertising in them?

Pretty simple really – spend your marketing money where the people you want to reach exist!

More information, with the appropriate Forrester Research numbers can be found at http://www.briansolis.com/2009/07/the-decline-of-advertising-and-the-rise-of-social-media/