It is just over a month until the book I am co-authoring with Anne Kennedy “Global Search Engine Marketing: Getting Better International Search Engine Results” is koing to be published. The publisher Que Biz-Tech is has a D-day in this Paperback next month on the 16th of February and it looks as we are going to make it.

It’s like having a baby and I should know I have five :-)

Looks like we are getting there, finally – The book I am co-authoring with Anne Kennedy is on Amazon and the date is set. The book is published by Que Biz-Tech and is called “Global Search Engine Marketing: Getting Better International Search Engine Results“. The description is as follows:

“For companies that operate internationally, English-only, U.S.-centric search programs leave far too many customers behind. Marketing through search engines to non-English-speaking customers outside North America has become essential, but it presents complex and unfamiliar challenges.

Now, for the first time, there’s a complete and practical guide to succeeding with global search marketing. In Global Search Engine Marketing, two leading experts bring together proven solutions to all the issues marketers will encounter – from culture and communication to technology and law. The authors cover all this, and much more:

” Understanding key cultural and behavioral differences, including the surprising local differences in how people search ” Crafting online marketing campaigns that reflect local cultures ” Selecting the right search media in each market – including markets where Google doesn’t dominate ” Achieving higher rankings in search engines around the world ” Organizing effective global pay-per-click search marketing campaigns ” Optimizing online press releases and other content for global search media ” Leveraging non-U.S. social media tools and platforms ” Optimizing mobile sites and apps for worldwide audiences ” Using web analytics to track key performance indicators (KPIs) in multilingual/multicultural campaigns – even if you don’t speak the language”

I will be speaking at the ‘Multilingual International Internet Marketing and Comms’ session as part of the Gulltaggen 2011 Internet Marketing conference, to be held between 12th and 14th April.

Gulltaggen is the Nordic countries’ and Norway’s most important event for digital marketing, communication, innovation, leadership and creativity, and is by far the best arena for sharing competence, knowledge and networking.

During my session, I will talk about online marketing and public relations in a multilingual environment and illustrate my points using case studies, site audits and best practices based on my 10 years’ consulting experience.

Approaching foreign markets is not as easy as ABC and understanding that your target markets have different cultures and ways of looking at web sites make it so a general approach is not likely to get you full impact of your online campaign.

Also speaking at the session will be Nils M. Apeland. Apeland will speak about the benefits and importance of building and maintaining a strong reputation. He will address how corporate reputations are built, protected and restored online and offline – and illustrate that the one dimension does not exclude the other. Corporate actions and words have never been scrutinized more closely than today and reputation management is more important than ever.

I hope you see some of you there!

Five Ways to Avoid Norwegian Prayer Syndrome

1. Make sure your content is relevant to your ad (ie. Are you  speaking the same language literally and figuratively on your site as in  your ad?)

2. Use your keywords on the page when possible

3. Keep your keywords in the main content of the page when using them

4. Make sure your page loads quickly

5. Show signs of trust on the landing page

What is it, this Norwegian Prayer Syndrom (or problem as some would call it)

Read about it here

Speaking at SES NYnext week  on Social Media and Gulltaggen Oslo on the 12th of April on Multilingual Internet Marketing. Both events have some fantastic speakers and I am looking forward taking part. At the SES in New York I am speaking on a session called “Search, PR and the Social Butterfly” with Mel Carson, Microsoft Advertising Community Manager, Microsoft Advertising and Lisa Buyer, President & CEO, The Buyer Group. The session is being moderated by Greg Jarboe, President & Co-Founder, SEO-PR.

The Session Description:

“RT this. Take social media to the boardroom! Social media continues to spread its wings with the advent of Google Social Search, Bing, Twitter Search and Yahoo’s Twitter-like moves. With the demise of traditional media outlets and the rise of search and social, PR firms have also gotten a big lift and muscled in on the territory once ruled by advertising agencies. Time to eighty-six the anachronistic press kits and media lists and hand over the keyword rich online status updates and Twitter feeds. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear firsthand from online PR/social media pros that bridge the best of both worlds while influencing SEO via Profiles, Fans, Tweets, Friends and Follows.”

In Norway I am speaking at Gulltagged (The Golden Tag), this is THE biggest event in Norway and I am sure it is one of the biggest (if not the boggest) on Nordic countries. There I am speaking with great speakers like Avinash Kaushik and Brian Eisenberg. Inluding me, Avinash and Eisenberg there are some 15 to 20 more.

My session is called “Multilingual International Internet Marketing and Comms” and with me I have a guest lecturer from First House in Norway, Mr. Nils Apeland.

The Session Description:

“Approaching foreign markets is not as easy as ABC and understanding that your target markets have different cultures and ways of looking at web sites make it so a general approach is not likely to get you full impact of your online campaign.

Kristjan Mar specializes in multilingual internet marketing and has worked with organizations ranging from very small companies to some of the largest in the world ranging from house hold travel brands like HostelBookers and Orbitz to banks and pharmaceutical companies such as Actavis and Santander using everything from social media networks to PPC and everything between.

He will talk about online marketing and public relations in a multilingual environment and illustrate his point using case studies, site audits and best practices based on over 10 years’ consulting experience.

Expect to walk away full of ideas and knowledge with hands on tips to amend your international marketing efforts.”

As often is January is the month we make resolutions, when you look back and make resolutions. Here you can find a great article written by Anne Kennedy called “Great resolutions to help you reach a Global Market by Anne Kennedy“.

“What has been coming for a long time is globalization, in particular, globalization in web marketing. The Internet has made country borders irrelevant. Indeed, you can reach halfway around the world to attract visitors to your website, and engage them to respond, that is, if you make the effort to relate to them in their own culture.”

If you’re only targeting certain countries in Eastern Europe and Asia this might come as a great news, you can create a longer text ad in Google now. These longer text ads are supported when targeting countries like Russia, Japan and China.

• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• South Korea
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Ukraine
• Uzbekistan

Longer text ads can contain up to 30 characters in the title and 76 characters in the rest of the ad text. For the display URL, standard character limits still apply.

You can create a longer text ad from the Ads tab if if you target only locations listed above.

According to www.travelmole.com, the second global travel survey, 85 percent of travel companies are due to increase or maintain the same online marketing budgets for 2010, which promises to be a highly competitive year in the travel industry for internet marketing.

27 percent of the participated 227 companies including hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators and airlines expect online budgets to increase by up to 50 percent, as securing online bookings pushes for more advertising.The Travel Mole study revealed that overall 54 percent of the travel companies will be increasing their budgets to promote themselves online for 2010, while only 15 percent will be investing less. 84 percent believe that the role of SEO will be more than ever, the number one priority for 2010, in order to maintain or declare company presence on the ever increasing online community.

Social media marketing, as well as the use of original content translated into different languages to capture a wider market, is a top priority for more than half of the companies involved in the survey.

At Nordic eMarketing, one of our big goals right now is help even more companies to increase and strengthen their presence on the Scandinavian markets. We are therefore really excited about the latest report on digital media consumer behavior and trends in the Nordic and Baltic countries, from one of Scandinavia’s largest telecom providers, Telia Sonera.

The report divides digital media consumers up into four different categories, “tech parents”, “iToddlers”, “infomaniacs” and “IT high society”. The latest group is defined as the most important and influential one. The report even appoints the “IT high society” as the new “upper class” of digital media consumers.

The common denominator for this group of consumers is that they consider constant access to Internet connectivity through a computer and/or mobile phone as essential for their social life. They consider the time spent online as an investment in nurturing relationships, creating new ones and building a social identity. They see the opportunities of constant connectivity offered by mobile technology as a natural extension of themselves in a social context. Sixty percent use their mobile devices to surf the Internet regularly and seventeen percent goes online with their mobile phone every day. Almost 40 percent even use the mobile phone in bed.

Almost half of the IT high society population read blogs regularly, compared to one third of the population in general.

What differs the IT high society most from all of the other consumer categories in the report is that it is the strive for social connection and communication that drives curiousness for exploring new technology rather than strive for search of information.

The IT high society consists of a fifth of the adult population in the surveyed countries. A majority of them are women (60 percent) and one third are 25 years of age or younger.

Even though the IT high society can still be considered an elite, it is expected to grow in a rapid pace and to have increased considerably in size by the end of 2009. The report also points out that even though this group is ahead in using digital media and the Internet, the remaining parts of the population in the surveyed countries are in no way an “under class” in digital media consumption. It is rather to be considered as a mainstream “middle class” of users with a relatively small but growing knowledge and interest for the social aspects offered by digital technology.

To successfully create a dialogue with this growing group of demanding and fastidious consumers will be a requirement for many companies that target Scandinavia with their Internet marketing. At Nordic eMarketing, we feel confident that our knowledge of Scandinavian market landscapes and our holistic approach to digital marketing makes us well equipped to help companies continue to achieve success in Scandinavia.

Despite trends in former recessions of decreased marketing, there are signs that many companies might keep their marketing efforts unchanged or even increased this time around.

For the airline industry which is traditionally very recession sensitive, this might be particularly true. The flight industry magazine, Airline Business, in its latest issue publishes the results of a survey conducted among 22 top level airline executives. The surveyed focuses on the airlines marketing directions and size of their marketing budgets for 2009. Interestingly, as much as 60 percent of the participating airlines claim that it is important to invest more in marketing during a recession, to stimulate demand.

Compared to last year, only 15 percent of the contributing airlines plan to decrease their marketing budget. 45 percent plan to keep the size of their marketing budgets unchanged while 30 percent of the airlines plan to spend more and 10 percent plans to spend “significantly” more. Birkir Holm Gudnason of Icelandair says in the article that his company intends to spend 10 to 20 percent more on marketing this year, compared to last, adding that Icelandair conducted a similar marketing effort as a direct response to the markets reaction of the 9/11 incidents.

In terms of marketing strategy, 81 percent of the responding airlines viewed the Internet as being very important to their marketing strategies. 57 percent responded that they would spend more money on Internet marketing this year compared to last and a further 29 percent said that they would spend “significantly” more. 75 percent of the airlines recognized optimization of their websites as a “very” important cornerstone of Internet marketing while the remaining 25 percent graded it as “important”. Search engine optimization and focus on achieving high organic search results was graded “important” or “very” important by 75 percent of the airlines.

Among the vast majority of respondents that valued Internet marketing, many mentioned social networking forums such as Facebook as interesting opportunities to look into. Some of the responding airlines are further ahead than others in exploring Internet marketing strategies. One of the Internet marketing front runners among airlines is Icelandair. Its CEO Birkir Holm Gudnason interestingly enough says that they have tried social network marketing in recent years but are going back to focus on visibility through search engine optimization as it has generated the best ROI for them so far.

Although we at Nordic eMarketing are very pleased that more and more companies are realizing the impact and strength of search engine optimization in the long term perspective we are devoted to all types of Internet marketing methods, not the least social networking. We are even happier that we keep hearing about companies and industries which will keep the size of their marketing efforts unchanged and maintain or even strengthen their brand communication during the coming years of recession. We are convinced that the players who spend their money wisely and a large part of it on Internet marketing will come out as the strongest on the other side of the recession.