Category Archives: Internet Marketing - Page 2

Global SEM: Turn Right at Reykjavik – How to Reach Europe’s Biggest Markets

Posted by on July 27, 2012 No comments

Kristjan Mar Hauksson speaking at the SES in San Francisco on Global Search Engine Marketing with Anne Kennedy as my co-speaker and Michael Bonfils as the moderator.

Session name:
Turn Right at Reykjavik – How to Reach Europe’s Biggest Markets

Session Description:
Aiming for Europe? It’s not as easy as you might think. Though allied under the EU, European countries are each unique, with diverse cultures, languages, and searcher behavior. Google owns nearly all the search market share across Western Europe, which simplifies search marketing platform issues, However, helping Google bot understand just which market you are after is more complex, especially when languages cross borders, as do German and French. Read more »

Online Advertising and Attribution Reporting

Posted by on May 14, 2012 No comments

Before the advent of sophisticated digital and online technologies, tracking of marketing campaigns was easier. Television, newspapers, magazines and radio were primary media channels and when consumers came directly to a store or ordered from a catalogue, it was simple to trace their purchase path. With a proliferation of technologies, customers now reach sellers through a myriad of sources – organic search, PPC, social media, email campaigns, media partner sites, QR codes, TV ads, group buying sites and display ads. In this era, therefore, attribution reporting is used by marketers to comprehend the miscellaneous touch points that customers have with their brand.

Instead of focusing on the last click – the click that brings conversions, such as a customer signing up for newsletters or finalizing a shopping cart purchase – attribution reporting assigns partial values to various and overlapping marketing touch points that customers interact with during the sales process as they move from awareness through to conversion. While statistics show that paid search advertising and search engine optimization still have a major share of online marketing budgets, customers also get influenced by a combination of social mentions, display ads, offline marketing, promo codes and traditional marketing channels, such as TV and Radio. Read more »

Microsoft’s Phil Greenwood talks at RIMC 2012

Posted by on March 9, 2012 No comments

Here’s a video of Phil Greenwood at RIMC 2012.

Matt Neal speaks at RIMC 2012

Posted by on March 9, 2012 No comments

Matt Neal from Bright Sparx speaks at RIMC 2012.

Charles Dowd speaks at RIMC 2012

Posted by on March 9, 2012 No comments

Charles Dowd interviewed at RIMC 2012.

Integration of Marketing Channels

Posted by on December 8, 2011 1 comment

I recently wrote a post on State of Search about the Integration of Marketing Channels - Here is a shorter version for you to read over.

With the technology changing by the minute, consumers today have a wide range of options when it comes to gaining information and purchasing the products and services that they need. No doubt the Internet is the latest and at present the most popular and convenient medium for marketing, advertising and even purchasing products. From placing an order for food from a restaurant to booking an airline ticket, there are multifarious products and services that are bought online every day. At the same time there are customers who still prefer more conventional methods when it comes to their purchases. They may prefer to call a company or simply visit a brick and mortar store to buy products. To connect with these characteristically ‘offline customers’ a business may have to use channels such as TV, newspapers, Yellow Pages and direct mail for advertising and marketing. Read more »

Information Filter Bubble – The Limitations for Search Results on the Internet

Posted by on November 22, 2011 No comments

Filter Bubble is a concept developed by Internet activist Eli Pariser in his book by the same name. This was used to describe the phenomenon in which websites use algorithms to selectively guess what information a particular user might like to see based on the information pertaining to the user such as location, past click behavior, and search history.

Facebook displays things you ‘Like’ or prefer to read on friends’ pages, Google personally tailors your search queries, and Yahoo News and Google News customize the news for you. Read more »

Basic: More Content Brings More Leads

Posted by on September 5, 2011 No comments

Just checked a recent survey conducted by Hubspot for over 4000 companies!  The results from a marketing perspective make quite a compelling case that more is better when it comes to creation of content for websites. We know that blogs, landing pages and indexed pages are critical pieces of inbound marketing methodologies and Hubspot data shows that the online pages with more content generated more leads and traffic back in return.

Some interesting revelations of the data include these facts:

  • Businesses that blogged 20 or more times in a month got the maximum return in traffic and leads
  • Businesses with more than 400 indexed pages generated the most traffic and leads
  • Businesses with more than 31 landing pages generated the most leads

The obvious conclusion that ‘more is better’ can cause some organizations to think that they should pad up their websites, start splintering the pages and post small blogs 4 times a day! But this notion should be counter balanced by the brawny inbound theory that content has to be unique and valuable to visitors to be truly effective. The ‘return in traffic and leads’ would only be possible for websites that have content worthy of being read. And what does the ‘splinter strategy’ bring for your website? Only some sparse descriptions, inconclusive arguments and vague lead conversion paths!

So how does a business climb uphill for bigger blog, indexed page and landing page totals while also ascertaining that content is fresh, interesting and adequately productive? Let’s check a few points that can be taken care of:

Write about every angle of your business

The topics that are crucial to your business and industry should be talked about as much as possible. The need for a product/service, its uses and advantages, the tips for selecting a certain product or service, latest news and trends in the industry, posts with encouraging questions and comments make your page interesting and provide informative content fodder to the readers. Even the negative angles of your business offerings make an interesting read for some of the online visitors. But why would you include that in your blog? Obviously, to prove the criticism wrong! So write about the perceptible ‘disadvantages of your products/services’ and then subtly spin the content back in your favor with a conclusion that strongly supports their worth and advantages. You can double your blogging output without being trapped in the ‘writers block’.

And remember – do not go for tricky short cuts in order to beef up your content pool. Use of article spinners and duplicating the content will not help. It might also be tempting to split exiting posts into multiple blogs but all you will get in the end is a poor quality, parched website that does not deliver productive user experience.

Use multiple landing pages to let more customers reach you

You do need to have more landing pages to generate more leads – probably a different one for each set of target audience and more landing pages imply that your business has more to offer. The landing pages look livelier when they have meaningful offers for the page visitors. Here are a few tips that can be used to create and add oomph to landing pages:

  • Set the purpose of each landing page before actually developing it. Decide what you want the visitor to do when he/she visits the page
  • Send the user to the pages that load quickly – do not use many pop-ups and do not link to pages that were disabled. Do not make your page visitors wait for too long!
  • On each landing page, highlight the specific benefits that your products/services offer
  • While designing web landing pages, try to enter your prospects’ mind and answer the questions that could be asked by them.

All it takes is to just examine your keywords and adgroups to determine what the user (who uses those search terms) really wants. Then deliver them to the offer page as seamlessly and with as few steps as possible

Sending all the traffic in a campaign to the same landing page is always a big mistake. The keywords that the users employ for a search already describe their aims. Each step in the landing page process can make you lose customers if you do not directly send them to the destination they are searching for. Why bother your customers through a complete website maze when they can take a detour to land on the exact spot?

Get more pages of your website indexed by search engines

Do you have different web pages for all regions, cities, or states that you service or work in? If they are in any way different, shouldn’t they ideally have separate web pages? You do comprehend the significance of product differentiation for marketing success in various areas. A quick audit can help you to discover some opportunities that you may be missing in the online scenario. For increasing your site’s number of indexed pages, take a few minutes to establish an inventory of what you already possess. Read more »

Icelandic Media sites in contrast to International sites

Posted by on September 1, 2011 No comments

Every media company knows that if they are not appearing on page 1 of search engine results for their news specific keywords, they are likely to be missing out on thousands of targeted visitors and potential ad revenue, whilst competitors benefit.

However, research from Majestic SEO highlight that some of Iceland’s top media organisations are failing to market themselves online, restricting their online brand reputation and visibility.

(Buzz table below is updated daily)

Only 6 out of the 8 major media organisations tested currently appear in the Majestic Million, a Buzz table, of internet sites which ranks the top million global websites according to their connections from other sites. Read more »

Google confuses Iceland and Japan

Posted by on May 19, 2011 1 comment

Sometimes you see strangest things on Google,like the screen shots I am showing here. When searching Iceland news on Google I found some good sites but in the advertising column Google was as they often do suggesting related results. In this case some material on Japan, the similarity between Iceland and Japan is however not much. We both like Whale meat and both countries are Islands.

We are used to Google confusing Iceland to Ireland, but Japan (personally I love the country) that is a stretch.

Switch to our mobile site