posted by Mark

If you were able to check a web designer’s sites for W3C compliance and want to go even further under the hood, there are a few more things you can look for in their samples. Although some of the terms might seem a bit technical, you don’t have to fully understand what you are looking at to be able recognize certain characteristics. Here are two important questions to ask:

Are their websites coded using table-less techniques? The only thing you have to know about designing with tables is that it was once a very popular technique, but isn’t acceptable for a professional solution these days. Most of the designers still using them are either very inexperienced, or lack the coding skills to stay with the times – either way, it spells trouble for your site.

To check for tables, just right click on empty space somewhere on the sample page and select: “View Page Source” or “View Source.” You can also access the command from the menu at the top. It could be worded or placed differently on your browser, but it should be easy enough to find.

Scan the HTML code that comes up and look for a lot of these: ‹table› or ‹tr›; or ‹td›. Seeing more than a couple indicates that the site may be built with tables, and that you should be looking elsewhere for help.

Are their websites well optimized for search engines? Frankly, this isn’t going to be all that obvious to the naked eye. Still, there are a few things worth looking at, like whether the site has search engine friendly URL’s (something like www.websiteaddress.com/about-us is good; seeing www.websiteaddress.com/?id=294 isn’t). You can also check to see if each page on the site seems unique, and whether they have titles (the text that appears at the top of your browser) that describes them well and accurately. Or, you could even view the page source code again and look for tags like ‹h1› and ‹h2›, since these indicate that the content has been properly structured.

As we mentioned, a trip “under the hood” of a sample website isn’t going to be a familiar experience for most people who are evaluating web designers and firms. By taking the time to examine these clues, however, you can go a long way toward figuring out what sort of value you’re going to get for your money.

posted by Mark

It has been said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it, and as far as search engine positioning goes, that’s not bad advice. If you can come up with the next hot buzzword or key phrase in a particular industry – or even amongst a targeted search group – then it should be pretty easy for you to grab the top spots on Google and the other major engines before anyone else can.

Accomplishing this can be easier than it sounds. All you have to do is choose a target market, find out what the industry leaders are talking about (or will be in a few months), and either get there, in an SEO sense, before any of your competitors do. Or, if your site is popular enough already, you can use new content to tilt the conversation in the direction you want to see it go. Before you know it, you’ll have a steady stream of visitors that you pulled out of thin air.

Creating the future in search is a great way to put yourself at the front of the pack. Here are a few more steps to get started.

Focus. Just as you can’t be all things to all people, neither can most of us dominate large numbers of search terms and phrases at once. Try to pick one or two that you think are likely to become more popular – and profitable – and use those as a starting point.

Be consistent. When it comes to building traffic, treat your new SEO efforts as you would any other. That means articles, links, and a steady stream of fresh content for search engine spiders to find.

Define yourself as an authority. Make sure that what you write and post isn’t just filled with new keywords, but positions you as the authority on the matter. “Buyers” are always preferable to “visitors,” and people like to buy from experts.

If you see a trend coming, don’t be content to spot it and move out of the way. Start optimizing your site for search engines now – you’ll be in prime position when the rest of the world catches up.

posted by Mark

For all the talk and theories about how to take advantage of the YouTube explosion – few can agree whether the billion-hits-a-day site is mostly Internet TV, search engine, digital university, or social media – it might be that answer has been with us all along. That’s because, rather than thinking about YouTube as a marketing medium, it’s better to see it the way users do: as a series of channels and clips.

Some viewers go to YouTube for entertainment; others to learn, or to stay in touch with their favorite teams, shows, and characters. But what makes them so great isn’t that they are uniform (they aren’t), but that they’re self selecting.

In other words, as with Google or Yahoo, users will tell you what they’re looking for by entering in a search term or visiting a certain channel. But on YouTube, because they’re searching videos, rather than web pages, you can even more closely guess at what they’re hoping to find… and then give it to them.

If the people who are likely to find your videos seem to be searching for an informational resource, provide them with one. If they seem to want to be entertained, wrap your marketing message in something silly and light. But no matter what you do, don’t treat titles and descriptions as tools to simply reel them in. You need hits to gain attention, but you need to hold that attention before you can persuade anyone to do anything.

YouTube works best as a marketing tool when it’s treated with the same common sense as any other online medium. Remember that attention leads to action, and then make a point to give people just what they want … along with a taste of your marketing message – they’ll reward you by not changing the channel.

posted by Amir

Here at Blue Beetle, we spend a lot of time helping our clients to find the flood of new traffic, orders, and profits that can come with a successful online marketing plan.

I guess we just take it for granted that they’re ready to handle them when the time comes.

To be fair, they usually are. For a lot of businesses, ramping operations up to meet a jump in demand is a good problem to have, and an easy one to deal with. For others, though, a sudden spike in orders can be a big headache.

With that in mind, ask yourself: are you really ready for online marketing success? Here are a ways to tell:

You could easily double your sales volume next month. If handling extra production, shipping, credit card transactions, and other details wouldn’t represent a problem, you’re probably well-poised for online growth.

Your site is ready for more traffic. It used to be fairly common to see business websites crashed by spikes in traffic. These days, most webmasters are better prepared, but it’s still a good idea to be sure your site could handle a rush of new shoppers.

Customer service isn’t a weak point. Often, where a lot of companies fail isn’t in finding new buyers, but keeping them happy once they do. Finding customers only to watch them leave after their first order – and possibly start spreading bad word of mouth about you when they do – is never going to lead to big bottom line improvements.

Most entrepreneurs and marketing managers don’t sit up nights worrying about what will happen if their online marketing plans are too successful, but it’s worth taking a few minutes to figure out whether you’re really prepared for the flood of new customers you’re trying to find.

posted by Amir

Search engine optimization, which is only a about a decade into its existence as a serious discipline, is already undergoing some big changes. It used to be that writing a few articles, changing a few heading tags, and getting a couple of links to your site was enough to see your site crawl towards the top of Google or Yahoo. These days, though, that just doesn’t cut it. Online marketers have gotten smarter and more sophisticated, so your company will have to be, too.

Even more, the changes that are taking place have big implications for all areas of marketing, not just SEO. Here are four trends to look out for, and what they mean to your business:

The rise of the long tail. Searchers aren’t just looking for basic keywords anymore; increasingly, they’re trying longer strings – hoping to find exactly what they’re looking for, rather than something close. That means your landing pages should be specific, and informative, or you’re running the risk of leaking visitors.

More emphasis on social media. Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites are factoring more strongly into search algorithms, meaning that searchers are as likely to find your social profiles as they are your home page. Keep that in mind, and use your accounts to not only enhance your SEO, but add a soft marketing tint.

Video results gaining in popularity. Google, YouTube, and others are making video more important than ever – even outside of normal “video sharing” sites. Be sure you’re using clips as part of your marketing mix, especially for your most important key phrases and themes.

Higher pay-per-click costs. More advertisers, especially in the high-traffic keyword areas, are driving up click prices. That doesn’t mean you have to abandon PPC – for the most part, paid traffic still converts at a higher rate – but that you have to be smart about it. Setting up your PPC account and ignoring it is the recipe for a lot of wasted time and money.

posted by Amir

A lot of attention is paid in online marketing circles – including this blog – to the best ways to bring traffic to your company's site. That's not a bad thing; whether you are relying on search engine optimization, pay per click ads, social networking strategies, or something altogether different, the fact remains that you can't have sales without visitors.

But never forget that visitors aren't enough. In fact, they are only half of the equation.

The other half, the more important half, is what you do for the people who take the time to click through. What is it they get – in terms of information, service, or value for their money – that makes it worth their time and attention?

Even though it isn't discussed often enough in marketing circles, the question is incredibly important for two reasons. The first is that your unique competitive advantage is what will ultimately turn traffic into sales. Regardless of what your business offers, there are probably dozens of other places to find online. Your customers need to have a compelling reason to choose you instead.

The second reason it's so important is that offering value drives its own traffic. In other words, if people love your product or service enough, they won't just keep coming back, but also refer to their friends, colleagues, and family members through strong recommendations. And as any of us who have been in marketing for any amount of time knows, those are the best perspective buyers you can find.

Decisions about what kind of business you're in, and what its unique selling proposition is, were probably made long before you jumped in to online marketing. Don't take it for granted, however, that you shouldn't take a bit of time to think about it now and then. Offering value to your customers, and communicating that on your website, isn't just a great way to gain traffic, but also to make the most of it.

posted by Amir

In many ways, the explosion of social network marketing has mirrored the growth of search engine optimization just a few years ago. Both are focused around content, both change the ways that businesses can attract new customers (not to mention the philosophy behind those methods), and both are largely considered necessary for any company with an Internet presence.

In fact, given that they are coming so closely related, you might be wondering: are search engine optimization and social media marketing still different topics?

The short answer is that they are... but only just so.

At the moment, SEO is a lot like commercial real estate. You might start out at a remote location, but through the careful investment of time and effort, you can steadily move your business into a high traffic, high profit neighborhood in a relatively short amount of time. It's still one of the most cost-effective ways of finding new customers, and the process that often takes on a life of its own once you've got it moving.

Social network marketing, on the other hand, closely resembles networking events in the off-line world. Approach them the wrong way, and you'll quickly find yourself stuck in a mixer with low-level marketers talking endlessly about products nobody wants. But open the door with the right kinds of content and profiles, and you can slip behind the velvet rope and talk deals with the movers and shakers. In other words, social networking is a great way to meet individual decision-makers – rather than a horde of "generic" customers – as well as deepen relationships with your existing buyers.

Search engine optimization and social network marketing definitely overlap, and the two are inching closer to one another all the time. For now, however, they are still separate disciplines that yield separate results. But even though you might have to spend a little time on each one, both are great ways to bring new business into your company

posted by Mark

Recently, we posted an article pointing out that YouTube – with more than a billion daily hits – had effectively become the world's second-largest search engine. But as much as we'd love to take sole credit for the idea, it seems that we aren't the only ones who noticed.

It’s difficult to find solid numbers, but estimates suggest that users are adding more than 200,000 new videos every single day, or about 13 hours worth each minute. While lots of those undoubtedly involve house pets dancing to modern hits, many of the new additions are coming from savvy online marketers just like you... and the trend is only gaining strength.

Here at Blue Beetle, it reminds us of something.

It wasn't that long ago that regular old search engine optimization was the hot new thing. Companies had just started figuring out that fresh content was the key to working your way to the top of Google, Yahoo, and MSN (now Bing), and so they got into a mad rush to add articles to their websites. In many cases, this was a great thing, because it brought valuable information to the Internet. But just as often that meant marketers who were trying to make a quick buck posted poorly-written collections of key words they called articles, making it difficult for searchers to actually find the useful pages they were looking for.

The same thing is beginning to happen on YouTube. For all of the wonderful advice and entertainment that has already been uploaded, we are starting to see badly-produced videos coming from marketers looking to take shortcuts. A few of them might find a way to make money from this strategy, but it's bound to fail in the long term because people don't go online looking for junk—they're searching for quality advice and insight.

With that in mind, we are going to tell you something you probably already know: the goal of your video marketing campaign shouldn't be to have the most YouTube videos, but the most effective. Post material that educates and entertains, not clips that take up a few minutes while parroting your sales message again and again.

One good video on YouTube can bring you millions of views and thousands of new customers, but a badly done piece only costs everyone time and aggravation.

posted by Mark

Social networking is every online marketer’s favorite new toy, and that’s a good thing… mostly. After all, anything that lets you find new customers, improve your search engine positioning, and possibly even spread your message virally is going to be a useful tool. And really, that’s why it’s at the top of so many experts’ “must try” lists for 2010.

It’s that last bit that gets us in trouble.

The second the majority of us brand any idea as something you need to try, there’s a temptation to feel like you… well, need to try it. While that’s the wrong idea to approach to take to any marketing effort, it’s especially true with social networking.

The beauty of working with blogs, as well as sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others, is that they allow for a kind of informal give-and-take. In other words, they let you reach behind the curtain a little bit and engage your customers in a friendlier way.

The quickest way to ruin that is by coming at them with something that's boring – or worse, overtly commercial. And yet, that's exactly what tends to happen once you start to treat social networking like just another item on your "to do" list. Your posts and ideas become more and more stale, until all that's left is a steady stream of fluff that few people would actually take the time to read.

With that in mind, think of social media the right way: as a tool for engaging customers in spreading the word about your company in a semi-personal way. Don't treat it like an ongoing press release or just another piece of business communication – the moment it becomes uninteresting to you, you'll start giving that impression off to the buyers you're trying to attract.

posted by Mark

Search engine optimization, like any facet of online marketing, is a little bit harder than it looks. Just when your company has gotten its site to the top of Google for one of your most important keywords, a Malaysian pop star decides to use a similar phrase as the title of her newest album and pushes you back down, or a competitor gets hit with a lawsuit that makes you want to scrub the term as quickly as possible.

In other words, it's not easy and the game is always changing.

For that reason, a lot of businesses get a little bit desperate when it comes to SEO. What starts as a mission to improve online business quickly becomes an obsession with RSS feeds, embedded tags, and long-tail key phrases. And really, there's nothing much that's wrong with that... so long as it doesn't interfere with a core marketing strategy.

There should be a reason you're trying to improve your search engine position, and one that goes a bit deeper than "trying to get more hits." Having some sort of established plan can keep you grounded in moving forward, even in the face of inevitable distractions and setbacks.

There's no way around it: good search engine optimization takes time. Looking for shortcuts, or just moving things around to stay busy, isn't just a waste – it’s counterproductive. That's why it's so important that you have a good idea of where your best clients are coming from, and how you can find more of them through Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

This is a small step, but one that's critically important, because without it you'll find yourself constantly chasing the latest fads and trends. There certainly is a time and place for working the details and staying ahead of the curve, but it's only after you've covered the basics.
Search engine optimization is a complicated topic, and that's why so easy to "miss the forest for the trees," so to speak. Have an online marketing plan, stick to it, and then examine your progress from time to time. It might not be as exciting as frantically updating pages, but it's going to be a lot better for your bottom line in the long term.