Google+ Pages for Business

Google+ for Business

Let the Gold Rush begin. Google+ Pages for Business are rolling out across Google’s servers by the hour over the coming days this week. In the early hours of this launch, it’s clear this is going to be big.

Consider the time it took for Google+, Facebook and Twitter to amass 10,000,000 users. View the graph here. 16-days for Google+. 16-days. Say what you will about starting from scratch (Twitter / Facebook) compared to leveraging an existing base (Google+ with Gmail). Doesn’t matter.

Watch how fast businesses start rolling out their pages, making offers, engaging customers, etc. It will be mind-numbing and fever-pitched.

On day-1, there are already some brands with Google+ Pages:

• All American Rejects
• Anderson Cooper 360
• Angry Birds
• Barcelona Football Club
• Burberry
• Dallas Cowboys
• Fox News
• Good Morning America
• H&M
• Macy’s     Modelland
• The Muppets*
• Pepsi
• Phoenix Suns
• Save the Children
• Toyota
• Train
• WWE
• X Games
• Zen Bikes

Here are a few references for you as you get acquainted with Google+ for your business:

• About Google+ Pages
• Google defines Google+ Profile Pages and Google+ Business Pages differently.
• Learn how Profiles and Pages can interact with each other.
• Google+ Local Pages. Is your business a national/international brand or a local business?
• Discover Google Direct Connect
• Promote your Google+ page

I’m certain Google+ pages will evolve and become more flexible, more attractive and more tightly integrated into websites and offline advertising, too.

Contact WorldLink Marketing, an online marketing agency and consulting firm to learn more and to get your business up and running on Google+!

Local Listings & Mobile Web Traffic

Last week we discussed the importance of publishing content for the mobile web. Specifically, the post cited smartphone user’s need for quick access to your company’s contact info, location, hours of operation, etc. In contrast, smartphone users are not looking to browse your photo gallery via their mobile device.

The spike in mobile device traffic our clients are experiencing is correlates directly to the publication and syndication of their business information across search engines and local directory sites. We’ve helped dozens of our clients with local businesses or franchises list their company information on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! along with a dozen or so directory sites like YellowBook, CitySearch, MapQuest, Yelp and more.

The publication and syndication of our client’s business information across these sites is largely responsible for the increase in web traffic – especially from mobile devise users. Refer to the attached graphic as it illustrates the rise in traffic from mobile devices.

We’ve been able to achieve this increase in traffic via the integration of online local business SEO with mobile website development and off-line QR code and URL advertising.

Not convinced yet:

What’s truly compelling is that ‘conversion rates’ (coupon downloads) are higher with mobile device users than desktop website visitors. Although purely anecdotal at this point, it’s fairly safe to assume that mobile visitors are actively engaged in buy-mode while desktop site visitors are still perusing and dreaming of the possibilities with their home improvement project.

Don’t forget, call us at 717-875-3375 with any questions.

QR Codes in Marketing

QR Codes might be all the rage today, but this is a technology that’s been around for years and years. The advent and rapid adoption of smartphones have transformed this once, strictly utilitarian tool into another highly useful marketing tactic.

Learn more about QR Codes. Start with an history lesson with QR Codes at Wikipedia.

QR is short for Quick Response. While these 2-dimensional bar codes have been used in inventory management applications, they now help customers get connected to the information they seek using smartphones.

How QR Codes work with smartphones:

If you have the latest and greatest smartphone, chances are quite good that your phone has two required components:

1. A camera
2. A scanner application. Be sure to check that your scanner software can read more than UPC codes in the grocery store. If you’re not certain you can get a QR code reader – usually for free – in the iTunes Store, the Android Marketplace or by searching for a QR Code Reader. My preference is the NeoReader.

Marketers can create QR Codes for (FREE) using any one of the QR Code Generators found around the Internet. I prefer Kaywa QR Code Generator. QR Codes interact with a smartphone by telling the phone to do one of the following:

• Open the phone’s web browser and enter web page address
• Open the phone’s dialer and enter a phone number
• Send a text message to get more information
• Deliver contact information like an email address, street address, phone number, or more.

How QR Codes and Smartphones work together:

A smartphone and a QR code interact to provide information to the user. The QR code can deliver a text message, open the phone’s dialer with

Savvy marketers realize consumers are constantly on the go. They have had their mobile phones surgically attached to their hands. And, QR codes open up new opportunities for customer engagement.

Consider how various industries have utilized QR codes to connect with their customers:

QR Codes have obvious and immediate application for real estate professionals, FSBO’s, and more. For instance, potential home buyers who scan a QR code on a sign-rider might receive detailed information about a home or they might be able to schedule a viewing with one simple click.

With home builders or construction contractors, QR codes might be used to send smartphone users to a project-specific blog about with before and after photos, job stories, etc.

QR Codes can also be used in tradeshow and home shows. Rather than receive business cards or contact cards in a fishbowl, invite visitors to your booth to scan your QR Code to enter a sweepstakes, to sign up for email messaging or to request literature by mail. This process keeps contact data purely digital and eliminates transcribing handwritten forms after the event.

QR Code

QR Codes can be printed used on:

• Signs
• Billboards
• Brochures
• Business cards
• Clothing
• Temporary tattoos
• Vehicle graphics. One of our clients uses these on his van (see image at right).

An ideal application for QR Codes is to integrate them with mobile websites. An improper usage would be to connect visitors to a full website that might cause them to download large files, images, etc. Instead, send smartphone users to your mobile website where they can obtain your contact info, phone number, driving directions, hours of operation and more.

If you have questions or would like us to help you with QR Codes and a mobile website for your business, please contact us today! (Just scan the QR Code at the top of this post.)

Regards,

Mike

Why You Need a Mobile Website. Now.

There are over 300,000 smartphone activations per day; and, by some accounts, that number reached nearly 500,000 during the holiday crush of 2010. Now that 2010 has come and gone, marketers must awaken to a new reality with the connected-consumer.

Some marketers were finally coming around to the idea the Internet might be a bit more than a fad. Email marketing, pay-per-click search marketing and website search engine optimization were more than understood. These tactics actually made it into the proverbial toolboxes of some diehard marketing professionals and small business owners.

The rapid advancement of smartphone technologies has connected tens of millions of consumers to the mobile web in just the past few months alone. At the same time small business owners and marketing professionals might have been caught flatfooted.

If you own a local business or, if you are responsible for marketing in an organization that supports local dealers or franchises, you need to re-examine your use of technology in your marketing efforts.
Q: What are customers looking for when they interact with your brand via their mobile devices (smartphones or tablet computers)?
A: Visitors with mobile devices want your phone number, hours of operation, and driving directions. They do (not) want your photo gallery, product videos or product specifications.

Q: Does your site utilize Flash technology?
A: If so, you do realize, of course, that iPhones and iPads do (not) display Flash elements; therefore, the consumer experience may be interrupted from their first impression with your brand.

Q: How does your site show up in search results on mobile versions of search engines?
A: Mobile versions of popular search engines are demonstrating preference for mobile websites. If you have a mobile-friendly website, you increase your chances of connecting with prospects who use mobile versions of search engines on their smartphones.

Q: How many people have visited your site with a mobile device already? What? You haven’t looked? Or, maybe you’ve looked but didn’t know what you should do…
A: You need to look at how these mobile users interacted with your site. What was their time on site? Depth of visit? Were they single page visits?

Here’s what a mobile website can do for you:

• Display your phone number, driving directions, hours of operation, and contact info quickly and easily and in a format that’s quite similar to an iPhone/iPad app.
• Enable your customers to get in touch with you easily and efficiently.
• Position your company in mobile search results.
• Demonstrate your command of technology and the lengths you will go to provide a superior customer experience with your company.

It’s competitive enough out there; don’t turn your competitors away when it’s quite simple to design, develop and deploy mobile-friendly content that your customers and prospects alike will find useful.

Here are two example websites for you to consider:

• http://www.WorldLinkMarketing.mobi
• http://www.FlooringCary.mobi

Want a mobile website? Contact us today.

Web Analytics for Success

I’m a fan of quick-hit online marketing tactics that deliver instantaneous results. Did you know, there’s one simple web analytics metric that can improve a variety of performance indicators simultaneously?

What if you could reduce abandonment, improve Depth of Visit, Time on Site, and conversion metrics while driving up return on ad spend (ROAS), too? You might think the answer is buried under multiple layers of data sliced this way and that. Not so. The data are right out there in the open and just about any web analytics platform can provide the answer in seconds.

Landing Page Abandonment is a crucial and often overlooked metric that can do wonders for driving quick improvements in more than one key performance indicator (KPI.) This metric is often referred to as Single Page Visits. While this may seem obvious, and I believe it is, most online marketers would spend their time investigating ways to improve individual KPI’s.

Before researching methods for improving conversion rates, CLV, or CPA, I recommend peeling the onion one layer at a time. Focusing on KPI’s will certainly deliver results; however, I believe we’re only as strong as our weakest link. And, if our first customer interaction fails 65% of the time, then it seems logical to begin the process at this point.

There is, without a doubt, a cause-and-effect relationship that links the rate of single page visits to the combination of landing page design, content, and messaging to traffic source, campaign, keyword, etc.

Site traffic from paid search, organic search, email, banner ads, and social media varies greatly in terms of intent and expectations. Visitors arriving at your site from active campaigns might be more motivated and open to offers and calls-to-action on your landing pages. In contrast visits from organic search tend to be more passive. Our research has shown these visitors to be focused on gathering information, inspiration, or guidance.

The key is fine-tune your campaigns and optimize your landing pages. When you find that magic formula you’ll find that your ad dollars go further while other key metrics also improve. At this point, you can begin to turn your attention to downstream metrics such as clicks to purchase, conversion path analysis, and average order volume/size.

Learn more about WorldLink Marketing and how we might help you achieve greater success with your online marketing efforts.

PPC Search Marketing in BP Oil Spill

BP Oil Spill Search Marketing

Let’s open with this statement: this post will only discuss BP’s use of search marketing as it pertains to the Oil Spill. We all have our opinions and emotions about what’s happened, how it’s being dealt with and what might yet transpire. This post will focus on the role of search engine marketing is playing at BP in this catastrophe.

In Wake of Oil Spill, is BP “Manipulating” Search Engine Results?

A recent headline states, “BP ‘Manipulating Search Results’ On Google Following Oil Spill.” The text in the article doesn’t do much to set the record straight; however.

Without a doubt, BP is using PPC search marketing to attempt to provide BP-specific information to internet users. Their ads appear at the top of all major search engines. A quick check of natural search engine positions on high-volume search keywords reveals that BP’s website SEO efforts have not achieved great success.

The image here illustrates BP’s #1 position on the branded keyword phrase, “BP Oil Spill.” We found BP.com positioned on page-5 in Google on the non-branded term “oil spill” and page-3 for “Gulf of Mexico oil spill.” Other rankings were tough to find at all.

BP Search Marketing Results

The image above also calls-out the abundant opportunities BP has to position their web properties as part of their crisis management response plan. Notice news releases in the “one box”, real-time search, and BP’s only #1 position – on a branded keyword term, “BP oil spill.”

The phrase “manipulating search engine results” brings to mind the dark days for BMW.com following their experience with “door way pages.” Given BP’s poor SEO performance, it’s tough to imagine how someone could draw the conclusion that BP is manipulating search engine results. For example, let’s look at search results without the BP brand absent from the search phrase:

Yahoo BP Oil Spill Search Marketing

There are search marketing tactics that BP could employee to earn more and better rankings; for starters:

On-page and in-code website optimization

• Align page titles descriptions with high-volume keywords
• Label and tag images, links and headlines with relevant keywords

Although BP is utilizing social media, there’s little attempt to tag content with important keywords

• In Flickr, images are not tagged nor do they have keyword-rich captions
• In Facebook and Twitter, BP has not employed tags to make it easy to find BP related web content

There are other tactics that could be employed to help improve BP’s search engine positions, but the results and quick view of their efforts clearly indicate BP is not engaged in manipulation of natural search results.

The amount of material that has been made available already is impressive. There have been scores of people in BP and at multiple agencies deployed to manage online and offline communications surrounding this catastrophe. Online, BP is utilizing Pay-per-click search marketing, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and more. Too bad for BP website SEO isn’t getting the same attention the quick-hit tactics seem to be getting.

However, some have questioned BP’s disaster preparedness. That should lead you to question your company’s disaster preparedness and communications in crisis management mode. Is your team up-to-speed and ready to deploy your PR machine in the wake of a business interruption or disaster? Do you have that plan developed, well-communicated and accessible to the right employees?

If not, what are you doing about it?

References:

BP ‘Manipulating Search Results’ On Google Following Oil Spill as reported by:

• FoxNews.com, June 9, 2010
• UK TimesOnline, June 8, 2010

BMW Expelled from Google, Online Media Daily, February 6, 2006.

Learn more about WorldLink Marketing, online marketing consultants.

Your Unique Selling Proposition

USP 101 – Unique Selling Proposition
During our consultations and/or implementations we make the effort to get to know our clients, their products/services and their customers so we may serve as a natural extension of our client’s team.

As we discuss appropriate online marketing tactics for a given problem or opportunity, we attempt to map those tactics back to marketing strategies to help our clients achieve their objectives. At the heart of those strategies should be a crystal-clear statement that guides strategy, product and market development – the unique selling proposition (USP). That sentence or short paragraph that stakes a claim to the ground we stand on.

Surprisingly, we are all to often presented with conflicting or disjointed unique selling propositions. So, let’s take a very brief moment and walk-through a very basic formula for crafting an effective, definitive unique selling proposition. We’ll start by reviewing what the USP is and why its important. Then we’ll provide the outline that will help you assemble your unique selling proposition.

First, the unique selling proposition (USP) is the clarifying statement that outlines (1) who you are; (2) what you provide; (3) to whom those goods/services are provided to; and, (4) why they should give a damn. In other words, why they should prefer you and your goods to someone else.

If you’re not clear about these basic truths, then how can you fault your customers or prospects for choosing your competitors? Without clarity about yourself, your mission and purpose, then you’ll find yourself and your goods becoming a commodity at best.

Crafting your unique selling proposition doesn’t have to be difficult. The outline below will help you put together the basic structure for your USP. Simply answer these questions and you’ll be on your way to communicating clearly with your customers and prospects.

1. Who are you?
2. What do you provide?
3. To whom do you provide goods/services?
4. Why should this audience prefer you over someone else? (Beyond the touchy-feely, motherhood and apple pie, can you prove it? Are their advantages you hold? If so, state them here).

Frame your answers to these questions in complete, declarative sentences and then shape them into a coherent paragraph; for example:

We are ______________, a market leader in the manufacturing and marketing of ____________, _______________, and ____________. Industry professionals such as job title/role, job title/role, and job title/role have relied on our experience, dedication and precision since 19xx. Our manufacturing processes, product tolerances, and total cost of ownership are unequaled and unquestioned.

In the end, this paragraph will serve as the foundational statement that you can use to discuss internally with your team, your advisers, or your advertising agency.

Without a clear unique selling proposition, your company and products are run-of-the-mill and it will be difficult for any online marketing agency to provide long-term, sustainable success for you. If you need a hand with this exercise, give us a shout at www.worldlink-marketing.com.

Google Online Marketing Challenge

For the 2nd year in a row, Google has sponsored a global Online Marketing Challenge. Entrants from colleges and universities from around the world created online marketing programs aimed at helping small businesses grow and prosper.

Each of the participants received the equivalent of $200 USD worth of Google AdWords advertising and three weeks to develop the small business online marketing strategy before submitting to judges for evaluation. Over 2,100 teams took part in this year’s competition.

The grand prize winners, from Deakin University in Australia, were each awarded a trip to Mountain View, California for a tour of the Googleplex, and each will also receive an Apple MacBook Pro. Not bad, huh?!

Read more about the 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge and the winners.

Google-Microsoft-Yahoo… put all the politics and maneuvering aside and we can evaluate the program at its core. Is the program self-serving? Sure. But, I was impressed that the ‘strategies’ were judged – not just the interesting and creative uses of Google products.

All-to-often I see recently college grads enter the workforce without a clue as to what marketing means or how it works. All of the courses and ‘finals’ and papers and presentations in a typical bachelors degree program aren’t preparation enough to enable kids to hit the ground running. The leap from the Google competition to college graduates with marketing degrees is necessary in this context:

There is an entire generation of kids in highschool and college that understand Google AdWords Editor, Yahoo Search Marketing (to a lesser degree), and they’re certainly social media mavens; however, most don’t know marketing from advertising. If these students and graduates are to enter the workforce and assume their place in marketing departments and advertising agencies, then they should be more capable than they are after 4-years of college education.

I appreciate the Google Online Marketing Challenge for what it teaches – critical and strategic thinking in a marketing application. Its one thing to know the difference between objectives, strategies and tactics; it’s quite another to know how to develop each according to the problem at-hand. I believe that more competitions like this, possibly with other corporate sponsors, would further drive the point home that colleges and universities need to offer more courses that provide practical marketing discipline to help their graduates seamlessly enter the workplace.

PS – Three teams from Penn State were ‘Semi-Finalists’ in the Final-15 judging round. Congrats to Professor Jim Jansen and his students.

New Twitter Home Page = Creation of Market Value

AllThingsDigital revealed Twitter will unveil a new home page next week. Read the entire ATD article. In the article, Twitter divulged the major features of the new home page will include the following:

• a search box
• information on Twitter trends
• and more specific information about how to use Twitter

In her article, Kara Swisher accurately points out “users interact only with their own pages and do not use any central Twitter hub.” On the surface, it seems Twitter has realized the opportunity before them is to create a home page that offers users that central place to gather and find out what’s hot/not, etc. – a sort of Twitter zeitgeist.

With the ascent of Twitter into our collective behaviors and consciousness, we find news breaking on Twitter minutes and hours before ‘reputable’ news sources begin discussing the these topics. Twitter is talked about more in the media than even Google(1).

However, without harnessing the collective power of all of the random Tweet-based conversations, Twitter risks flaming-out as social networking addicts become exhausted from too much Facebooking, getting Linkedin and Twittering about del.ici.ous Tweets.

As Twitter launches that ‘central hub’ I believe – if done properly – this home page and adjacent web content will drive Twitter usage higher, depth of visit deeper, and propel the social networking site to new heights. I hypothesize as well that this move is more than facilitation of conversations within the community – this has as much to do with driving a sharp increase in market value for a future sale of the service.

This move is about BRANDING Twitter – creating a brand image and a value proposition that makes it easy for people to understand what the service is, how they can use it, and how they’ll benefit from it.

This move is about spiking media mentions even higher and about having a single place for newbies, veterans, and news media alike to turn to.

Today Twitter is a nebulous ‘thing’ with tweets that bounce around on the Internet only to be discovered by other Twitter users and in a few Bing search results.

With the new home page, Twitter will become a place for the mass of people to congregate when they want to know what’s going on in the world and when they want to connect with others.

If Twitter finds a way to reach the masses – to make it easy for everyone to ‘connect’ with other people – then imagine what’s possible for Twitter:

• Accelerated growth curve – might as well be a vertical line (no curve here)
• Creation of vertical segments within Twitter – as determined/created by Twitter users themselves through tag clouds
• Twitter as a search engine: I imagine a day when people use Twitter as a form of search engine where Twitter users are providing the search results – not a bot, spider or algorithm. Put in your search query and real people instantly provide the results you seek. The result would be a live, real-time search engine with the benefit of ratings and reviews and commentary directly from real people we can connect with individually and instantly.
• Instant monetization: Speculate no more. A slight modification in the home page offers almost endless possibilities for Twitter to capitalize financially. First and foremost is the threat of Twitter as a new and different search-like utility with limitless potential.

I suppose then, it’s totally conceivable for Twitter to emerge, almost overnight, as a significant threat to Google. Forget Yahoo and Microsoft.

Back to the idea that this simple ‘home page’ redesign is meant to make it easier for people to use Twitter. If any of the above happen, then Twitter forces the major players in Search and News Media to come to the table with significant and immediate offers each worthy of consideration.

Simple home page redesign? I think not.

What are your thoughts?

(1) Ref: Stan Schroeder of Mashable, July 20, 2009: Twitter Gets Even More Media Love than Google (http://mashable.com/2009/07/20/twitter-media-love/).

Quick Poll: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and your Blog – have time for all?

QUICK POLL: Twitter and your Blog – have time for both? http://twtpoll.com/zdzs7m #twtpoll

If you stay current with your blog and you have active accounts with Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and so on, you’ve probably experienced some sort of social media burn-out or fatigue, right? Yep, me too. I’m doing my best to stay engaged with each of these sites and publish fresh, relevant and timely content on this blog. But, there’s real work to be done and the bills have to be paid.

With each passing day, it seems to get more difficult to strike and maintain a healthy balance that allows for participation across each of these sites and with this blog. That got me to thinking:

• Are you experiencing social media fatigue, too?
• Have you devoted more time to one particular site (Twitter instead of Facebook, Blogging instead of Linkedin, for instance?)
• Or, have you re-dedicated yourself to maintaining your blog?

Check out the link to the poll above and view the results to-date.

Just a thought for today. Keeping an eye for research results in this area. If you’d like to chime-in, drop us a note or visit WorldLink-Marketing.com and call us up.