Think Insights launches with 5 main categories:

• Latest Insights
• Facts & Stats
• Research Library
• Planning Tools
• Thinking Ahead

Each category breaks down into subcategories that feature interactive statistics, videos, links, and archives. Its difficult to gauge exactly how much information is included but its safe to say don’t expect to get through it all in one night.

Latest Insights includes videos accompanied by articles about various of Google’s latest insights. The videos are very well made and I expect this section to be updated often.

Research Library is a hub containing studies, videos, and many of the supporting material that seems to be located throughout the rest of the site. Particularly useful is the ability to filter by industry and marketing objective.

Planning Tools features interactive charts, graphs, and tools. What I find amazing here is the Our Mobile Planet tool that allows you to create a chart by filtering through mobile data, country, and more.

Facts & Stats give you a bite-sized look at many different statistics. Filter by industry, media platform, and more.

There is so much information available here that this only begins to scratch the surface. It will be interesting to see how often this is updated and what is added in the future.

Mobile Web Site

Mobile web browsing is on the rise with an estimate of almost 100 million monthly mobile users browsing the web. This number is certain to rise in the coming years.

Here are a few reasons to add a mobile site in addition to your main site.

• Smaller pages for smaller screen and faster loading times
• Mobile use will continue tto rise in the foreseeable future
• Searchers are often looking for a quick way to find contact details
• People are often searching for stores and businesses close to their current location, these are high conversion searches

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is the art and science maximizing your website’s exposure on search engines like Google. Essentially, you are tying to increase the chance that someone searching for a product or service finds your website on search engines. Techniques include keyword research, content optimization, and making sure search engines can easily crawl and index your site.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click is similar to Search Engine Optimization but with a PPC campaign you are literally paying to get to the top. You might be asking yourself, why would anyone pay for SEO when they could just pay to get to the top with PPC?  Take a look at the image below to see the difference.

PPC’s main advantage over SEO is that you can pay to get to the top and you only pay when someone clicks on your link. The disadvantage is the area PPC ads occupy in search engine results tend to get ignored by most users and once you run out of budget you are removed immediately from the results. An SEO campaign can have longer lasting effects even after you stop paying for it and people click on those results in search engines more often. Both have their place in the internet marketing world. The key is to find out what is best for you.

Social Media

Social media is being leveraged more and more as a way for businesses to communicate with their clients and customers. People can stay up to date with their favorite stores, restaurants, and businesses through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. Having the ability to quickly communicate with your customers is a strategy worth considering.

Your e-commerce store can post promo codes, your restaurant can post daily specials, or just talk to your customers and get to know them.

The great thing about social media is the costs are very low. You can pay a professional to do social media marketing for you or you can set up social media accounts yourself. The choice is yours!

Email Marketing

Like social media, email marketing is another way to communicate quickly to your customers. With email marketing you can collect email addresses from customers, people who visit your website, people who you meet at conferences and other business gatherings.

Through social media you have to wait for people to follow you on Twitter or ‘Like’ your page on Facebook but with email marketing you can build a database of names. Of course, you want to do this within reason. Buying a list of names from another company or spamming people’s inbox will get you nowhere. Only send to people you have a business relationship with.

Analytics

Google Analytics and other analaytics programs allow you to track a great deal about your website and it’s visitors. You can track:

• Keywords that are being used to find your site
• Under performing pages or pages that are really popular
• How long people are staying and what they are doing when they are on there

You can have someone set up analytics for you but its also a great idea to have a professional review the analytics with you monthly. This will allow you to take action based on the results to improve your website continuously.

Five Can Help

We believe a complete internet marketing strategy starts with having a great website that is enhanced by these other great services. You may not want to include them all and that is fine! We can help you build a strategy and find out what is best for you and your business.

Give us a call: 763-972-5933

Changes in technology are changing the way an online marketing firm can benefit your business.  The advent of new devices (mobile, iPad, etc.) have changed when and where customers are getting online. The lightning fast adoption of social media (Facebook, Twitter) is changing what people are doing online.  New standards such as HTML5 and their objective to make the web experience more “desktop-like” are changing how customers are engaging online.

It’s our job to pull together all these new variables and put together a plan that best suites your business.  Whether it be reaching more potential customers who need your product or service (i.e. Marketing), or finding ways to make business processes such as customer communication more efficient, your online strategy has never been more critical.

I’m not sure Online Marketing is the best choice of words to describe what it is we do today, but it’s what we have. Maybe we are online strategists?  That has a bit of a ring to it… how can we help you with your online strategy and then take it a step further and help you implement that strategy?

QR codes are similar to bar codes. You need a bar code reader or similar app on your mobile phone to read them. They can contain information like text or a URL for a visitor to view. Its most powerful use may be to send a user to a unique URL with a coupon or information they cannot receive any where else. QR codes have been in use in Japan for awhile but they are gaining traction in the United States more and more recently. I am starting to see them on things I receive in the mail, billboards, and other marketing materials.

Creating QR Codes

Creating a QR code is a pretty simple process.

First, you need a site to generate the QR code for you. This QR code generator will do the trick.

You have four options for information to store (URL, text, Phone Number, SMS). As I mentioned previously, sending the user to a unique URL will be the focus here.

Creating the QR code is as easy as 1-2-3.

Step 1 - Choose URL for content type

Step 2 - Type in your URL

Step 3 - Choose Size

Tracking with Google Analytics

Now that we know how to create a QR code, lets look at tracking the QR code. Thankfully, tracking with Google Analytics is also really easy. You will be familiar with this if you have ever built a URL for inbound link tracking, it is the exact same process.

There is also a tool for this, Google’s URL Builder.

Step 1 – Place the URL that the QR code will point to in this field.

Step 2 – Fill out these fields with the required parameters (and the others if needed).

Step 3 – Generate the URL and copy/paste it into the URL field when creating the QR code.

Here is a brief description of the required parameters in step 2:

• Campaign Source – For this I recommend the advertising source (magazine name, billboard location, etc)
• Campaign Medium – In this case, qr_code would be effective.
• Campaign Name – Your best bet here might be a combination of the above two fields. Ex: bridal_mag_qr_code

Once you create the URL this into the URL field for the QR code generator.

That’s it! After you do this and send the QR code out into the world you can check Google Analytics to see the progress of your marketing campaign with the QR code. The easiest way may be to navigate to Traffic Sources -> Campaigns.

Be sure to check back in and let us know the results of your marketing campaigns with QR codes.

Research

The cornerstone of every successful SEO campaign is research. Keyword research, market research, and competitor research are all a must. Without proper research your SEO campaign could be targeting unrelated keywords or targeting the wrong market entirely. Before hiring an SEO company make sure that research is something they value. Ask them if they are willing to share with you the results of keyword research.

Better User Experience

Part of the SEO battle is getting your site to appear in search engines for well researched keywords. The rest of the battle is delivering informational content, turning potential customers into paying customers, and turning one time readers into returning readers. Sometimes lost in the shuffle to get more traffic to your website is the ability to keep people interested once they reach your site. Before hiring an SEO company you need to make sure they are considering what happens once someone clicks on the site. Targeting unrelated keywords, keyword stuffing, and not adhering to great usability and design standards may gain more traffic but not quality traffic. Make your SEO company agree to using no spamming tactics that will almost certainly not work out in the long run.

Break Down the Quote

When your potential SEO company gives you a quote or proposal, look for a break down of services to be performed. If they do not provide a break down, do not be afraid to ask for one.

Here are some MUST HAVES:

• Site Audit for Technical Issues – There are many issues that can prevent search engines from effectively indexing a website. Among them are duplicate pages, broken links, and bad URLs.
• Keyword Research – The keyword research to find the keywords your site should target is vital to the success of any SEO campaign. So vital in fact, that if this step is skipped no SEO campaign will reach its maximum return on investment.
• Content Optimization – Using the knowledge gained from keyword research the next step is to optimize your website’s content.

If you have the budget, I would additionally recommend link building, local search optimization, & social media optimization.

What happens if you don’t claim your listing? Well, you leave Google to guess …  and they might guess that your one location, small town meat shop is a billion dollar, global fast food restaurant.  I’m not kidding.

Above is the local listing for McDonald’s Meats, an awesome little butcher shop in Clear Lake, MN.  If you notice the reference to mcdonalds.com domain, I think we can see how this unclaimed listing isn’t getting the right business the local search traffic.

What continues to be alarming for me is the number of businesses that lack correct information online, multiple sources to be found by and online marketing strategies (no matter how small they might be).

Inc. Magazine’s recent write-up on this local search study highlighted many of the statistics compiled from the survey of 4,000 consumers surveyed and over 1 million that had their online searches monitored.

Here are a few numbers that should jump out at a business owner or marketer and make them take note:

• 70% start looking for a business online, up 7% from 2009
• 33% use Google, Bing or Yahoo – traditional search engines
• 22% use Internet Yellow Pages or directories (Yelp.com included)
• For those using local search sites, Google Places commands 41%, Bing 11% (up 7% from 2009)
• 78% of consumers say reviews and ratings factor into their purchases
• 1 in 6 searchers is frustrated by the lack of reliable & correct information about small businesses on the web
• 33% give up on a business when they can’t find the information they are looking for

So to put numbers into words, what you have online to represent your small business is huge.  So what can you do as a small business?  Here are just some of the basics:

Be Visible

• Have at least a basic web presence
• Make sure you claim your main local search listings (use GetListed.Org to check)
• Make sure you are listed on directories like Yelp, Citysearch, InfoUSA
• Look into what local sites you can be linked on or listed on – chambers, org’s, local blogs
• Look into social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging might be a fit for you
• The key here is to have more than a few “entrance points” into your information

Be Accurate

• Make sure your info is correct on all platforms – hours, services, products, photos, links
• There might be data on your business, but you should CLAIM your listings & data
• Develop content to build trust, show your expertise and help you win comparisons

Have A Plan

• Even the smallest plan beats hoping you’re getting out there
• Find and attend a small business workshop or seminar on local or online marketing
• Search online! There are numerous great blogs, people on Twitter and more to help you
• Seek out a trusted and recommended small business online marketer
• Research your competition, their website, their social media, their listings
• Network with other business owners

The numbers in this report are only trending higher every year for the importance of an online presence and reputation.  Get started with the basics and put an end to your “hope” marketing plan, it won’t pan out.

4 Quarters Design & Build is a Five Tech client that witnessed this bleed first hand.  Their recently redesigned website earned them the opportunity to take part in a TV news story and gain valuable offline exposure for their business.

A recent deck collapse in the Twin Cities led the WCCO reporter to find a deck construction expert to contribute to their story.   A quick search on Google by the TV reporter and he had his expert, 4 Quarters owner Brian Jacobson.

Building Credibility
It’s easy to see that the key to a successful website and online marketing is credibility.  The right look and feel, helpful content and other elements all contribute to your website being viewed as a trusted resource.  That resource might be needed by a search engine or by a TV reporter, either way the benefits can be numerous.

Congrats to 4 Quarters and Brian on the air time, can we get your autograph?

This week I had the opportunity to speak on search engine optimization at a conference put on by the Immunization Action Coalition out in Philadelphia.  The conference is called the Social Media Summit and focuses on helping the medical and health community bring awareness to vaccinations, immunizations and health using social media and Internet marketing.

My role was sitting down with many of the various organizations attending and conducting a review of their website and search engine optimization efforts.  In my hour sessions I focused on SEO best practices, establishing trust online and offered action items for their websites to improve their websites visibility to Google, Bing & Yahoo.

It was a fun challenge to work with medical and health organizations both large and small and discuss websites ranging from 15 pages to 50,000 pages and the  efforts needed to optimize content and spread their message online.  From building links to maximizing your meta page title, we covered a lot of ground.

Organizations I worked with over the 2 days included:

• American Academy of Family Physicians
• ECBT – Vaccinate Your Baby
• National Association of School Nurses
• Autism Science Foundation
• National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners
• National Network of Immunization Nurses and Associates

The conference also engaged some other social media professionals to launch a social campaign right from the conference for Real Guys Immunize.  A very cool idea for a conference.

The best news is that I didn’t have to get any shots to take part in this conference, but I did learn some valuable information on vaccines and children.  My thanks to all of the great attendees I met, the Immunization Action Coalition and Eventive Meetings.

For the last three years, David has sough out, compiled and published his Local Search Ranking factors that are the read in local search.  In bringing together a great group of local search experts together you get more than one opinion, rating and thoughts on over 60 elements that are part of local search (good, neutral or bad).

Many of my favorite local search gurus are included in the panel including Mike Ramsey, Paul Jahn, Ed Reese, Mike Blumenthal, Andrew Shotland and more. Over 30 experts, all in 1 post.

Thanks again to David Mihm for this incredible resource and having myself and Five Technology be a part of it.