The internet is an amazing resource for businesses of all sizes. It has the ability to impact ROI in a very short amount of time. Here are few ideas that can get your company visible within 24 hours or less.

1) Local search can get you listed in about 15 minutes. A local search listing that is optimized can even jump to the top of local listings within a very short amount of time. I recently worked on a small business that rose to the top of the 10 pack just after claiming their listing.

2) Social media platforms take minutes to open and optimized for your company. Search engines index social media platforms in real time and will give you results fast. I found that new twitter profiles get indexed quicker than a new domain name. When claiming your social profiles, choose vanity URLs if available and make sure you claim you add unique links to your site.

3) Paid advertising can have you up in about a couple of hours. Google, Yahoo, and Bing all allow you to pay for advertising on keywords relevant to your website. You could appear quicker but doing some keyword analysis will save you money and likely give you a better ROI on your investment.

4) Creating a blog is quick and easy. You can have a site with blog platforms like Typepad, Wordpress, and Blogger and it’s free. This won’t have you visible in 24 hours or less in search engines but will help your other mediums like pay-per-click, social media, and local search. You can expect this to change though as Google moves to real time indexing.

With all the free resources getting online is quicker than ever. Tools like social media, local search, and blogs will have you online fast and visible to your key stakeholders. Are you online? Have you found that your company was visible within in 24 hours? Are there other tools that aren’t covered here? Share with us your thoughts and insights.

If you have taken marketing or business courses then you’ve been introduced to buyer behavior and the decision process. Often times analytics gives a picture of what people are doing on your site. What is also important is getting people to your site. In search optimization it is just as important to look at what people are doing off of your site in order to get them to your site. That is where the decision process is helpful in targeting your audience and creating content based off of it.

Satisfying problem/need recognition will help create content that your audience is searching for. Why does your customer look for your product or service? If you can determine the buying behavior of your customers it will be easier to provide the information they are looking for. So take a moment and do a little research. Luggage, for example, is tied to travel. A simple real time research from Facebook and Twitter shows that people buying luggage are going to travel or have already. That’s intuitive right?

Not exactly because most of these companies aren’t looking at the needs of its consumers except Eagle Creek. (Image 1, Click to view in detail)

What I like about Eagle Creek:

1) They have the destination of consumer in mind. Images of unordinary places with product.
2) During travel the consumer is concerned about size and safety (at check in, on trip, etc…).
3) Consumer has a lot to think about, organize, and watch (Make the trip easier).

Just because Eagle Creek understands this doesn’t mean that they have information gather stage down. Because most people don’t click past the first page in search engines, Eagle Creek loses on the information side of the search. However, it is possible that they don’t do this because their marketing model is a push strategy.

Using keyword research will help you find the right verbiage in the information search. Google’s keyword research tool will give you both a rough idea of what keywords are performed in the information search. The term luggage has over 9 million searches per month. It might be a bit optimistic that a keyword like luggage may be unattainable at 34 million results. So focusing on long tail keywords, like garment bag luggage, with 22 thousand searches and 1.8 million results, will give a better opportunity to reach that first page than a single keyword.

Making use of the buyer intent and information gathering will help your search results. Do little research of your services/products to find out what the needs of your customers are. Then provide relevant content that answers the information gather stage. Keyword research tools give you an insight into the information gathering stage of your target audience. With these two parts in the buying process you will have both more visits and a better click through rate of your customers.

Have I gone off the deep end? Leave a note and tell me what you think. Follow me on Twitter

Search engines love fresh content and so do people. Like fresh food, content can be fresh and relevant and in some cases that information expires daily (i.e. news). People looking for good information related to their needs and turn to search engines. Google and other search engines try to figure out what results best match the intent of the search to return the most relevant information. Search engines then need to figure out when a website has new content. The more you update the content the more often search engines will visit and index your site. Twitter for example, content is updated by the second and as such it is indexed and listed by the second. The more content you offer the more search engines will index your site. Just make sure it is good, fresh, and relevant information.

1) Whistling for a Taxi. Why couldn’t we simply tweet “#taxi 5th & Main.” No need to raise your hand or whistle but simply tweet and soon you’re whisked away.

2) Auctions. What if instead of raising your hand during a bid you simply tweeted. 2k for the bidder @dereklive. Can I get 3k?

3) Deals. Flying deals online. Some models like Woot have a deal a day and Amazon has several. What about low priced deals offered only on Twitter in real time. First 100 products sold to those who tweet #awesomedeal.

4) Stock Quotes. Real time stock quotes that tell you stock prices as they happen. I know there is software for this but I could see people using this with a Twitter client.

5) Ordering. Why not order Take Out or Coffee on the go. A local coffee shop could set up a hashtag for people to order. A reply to the tweet will give the customer the idea that their beverage will be ready for them. To keep from getting unwarranted beverage orders simply have specific hours tweeted orders will be received or the customer has to announce they want the service.

6) Reservations. Dinner for two, Friday, at six. @favoriterestaurant

7) Radio. Why not have dual listening contests. The tenth caller receives cd and the 1st tweet #themusicrocks wins. Or they could take Twitter questions in place of phone questions. This gives a greater pool of questions for shows limited by time constraints.

My goal for 2010 is to share even more. Because of this goal I have given myself a digital resume. The reason is that within a short few years sharing has nearly become a commodity. You may not even need to create the content but merely disseminate that information. If done well, you may gain followers, friends, and maybe even fans. In fact, the old adage of “I think therefore I am” is being replaced by “I share therefore I am.” Therefore, I am sharing more. I am personally excited for this because I have just uploaded my digital resume on Slideshare.net. In 2010 I plan to continue and adding social media to my sharing venues on :

Google Profiles
Twitter
Linkedin
Flickr
YouTube
Facebook
Slideshare
& Blog

If you have a recommendation of a social platform others ought to consider or have interesting ways you use social media then send me a message.

Are you feeling fat and over weight?  Do you say I am a 24 and want to be a number 1?  Do you feel bloated and out dated?  Then simply slim down and have the search results you want!  That’s right! reduce your code bloat and get better search engine rankings.

You can help your search engine ranking by reducing code bloat.  Code Bloat is excess programming code in your website.  Search engines filter through your website content including programming code to find relevant content.  By reducing code your website content becomes more relevant and easier to index.  To find out how fat your website is just look at the programming.  Go to your website and right click View Page Source.  You don’t have to be a programmer to find out how fat your site is.  Look for content that is on your site and if you have a hard time finding it or it takes to long then you are probably bloated.  Although this is a smaller (SEO) issue, reducing code bloat will help with your page rank and load time.

What to do about Code Bloat

• Use Global Stylesheets
• Code in HTML
• Less Flash and Java Script

1) Twitter Search. Twitter is a great tool to find out in real time what people are saying. You can simply do a search at any time and get real mentions of your company.
2) Facbook Search. You can find comments that people are making about your brand.
3) Google Alerts. You can search for keywords that relate to your brand, products, or service. You can get monthly, daily, or hourly updates.
4) Yahoo Pipes. Yahoo Pipes also aggregates information with websites and with keywords you specify. You can also make your searches viewable by others and have them indexed by search engines.
5) Youtube. You can do a search for your brand, product, or services. Just know that it may not be what you are expecting.
6) Search Forums. Industry related forums is great place to get involved and find out what people are saying.

Interested in learn more about listening in social? Read Jeremiah Owyang’s Evolution: The Eight Stages of Listening.

Have tool you use or recommend? Have any comments on companies you find do this well? Share your thoughts.

Keywords: The Reading in Search Marketing

Keyword research is like the reading in search marketing.  This begins by visiting the search engines to find what my competitors rank for.  For instance, when I am looking at a term that I want to rank for I look to see the top ranked site.  There are three things that I look at when assessing my position.  The first is the title, what is it that they are targeting for keywords. The second is in the meta description which is often the call to action based off of the title tags.  Third is the meta keywords and are often placed in the code though they don’t need to be there.  These three areas help me get an idea of what I could be using or differentiating myself.

In gathering my keywords I also use Google keyword Research Tool.  Google’s free keyword tool allows you to find words and the estimated volume of searches.  Just know that you shouldn’t make keyword decisions based off of the volume because it isn’t very accurate.  Next filter this down to exact match and then export it to an excel file.  Remove, categorize, and match content that fits together which can also be done for PPC or CPC advertising.   Now that you have keywords the next step is utilizing it in your website.  This is done by optimizing your website.

Optimizaton: The Writing of Search Marketing

Search Engine Optimization could also be related to the discipline of writing content for search friendly results.   To do this you must write compelling content targeted at your customers.  The danger resides in focusing too heavily on keywords you end up with something no one wants to read.  It makes sense because you are trying to convince your customer to write quality content.  If you can, measure your keyword ratio of about  5% depending on the length of the article.  You can get away with a higher ratio with more in a shorter article. Although this number is not statistically accurate or have a lot of proof behind it does make sense from a perspective that Google does look to see if you are keyword stuffing your content.

Adding keywords to your title, anchor text, header, meta description, and alt tags will give you an additional advantage in optimizing your site for search rankings.  These tags help announce what the page is about, gives a compelling reason to read, and additional information that Google might need in order to better index your site.  I leave out the meta keywords because it really isn’t used in search engines.

Analytics: The Mathematics in Search Engine Marketing

Finally, analytics would be the mathematics in search engine marketing.   Any marketing functions ought to have metrics to maximize business efforts.  The use of analytic tools such as Google makes this easier than ever.   Rather than just seeing who is visiting you can look at things like what are your top exit page, unique visitors, and your visitor trending.  Mastering this can give you insight to what your customers are looking at to better refine your content.

A few equations to consider

Close Rate: ___ Customers/Leads= ____ x 100 = ____ % Close rate

Cost-Per Action:____ CLV x  RR= $ ____ Cost-Per-Action

Cost-Per-Lead:  $ _____ CPA x ____% Close Rate =$_____ CPL

Search Engine Marketing uses the old school adage of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Focusing on keyword research and then applying it to your content will help with site optimization.  Your tags and information will further your results in search marketing.  Measuring your work can be done through tools like Google analytics which is like arithmetic for SEO.  A firm grasp and application of these ideas will help in gaining better search results.

What do you have to say about optimizing content?

How Do I Claim my Business Listing in Google

Start by claiming your local business listing.  Every search engine has a local business listing including Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  We will focus on Google because Google is the market leader for search queries.  Claiming your listing can be done through the Local Business Listing on the bottom of Google.  Once you have created an account you will be asked for your information.  At the end you will be asked to either receive a phone call or a post card for verification.  Whatever you choose, be sure to receive the call or return the post card.

Optimizing You Listing for Better Results

In claiming your business listing you should make sure you fill out as much information as possible.  The more content you have about your business the more ways your customers can find you on local search. This includes hours of operation, payment methods, photos, coupons, and website URL.   These of course make sense however, there are many people who over look the categories section.   Instead of listing your company for one particular service or category, be sure to include as many categories as possible.  For example, if you are listing a restaurant another possible category is for catering.  Also, try not to keyword stuff your listings which may amount to no visibility.

Making Use of Your Website Footer for Local Search

Once you have claimed your listings make use of microformmating.   Microformat is HTML programming that helps computers read information while preserving human readability.  Hcard microformat allows a device to recognize the information and allows the user to add it to an addressbook or a phone.   This Hcard should be placed in your global footer with your address.   Google has guidelines on what do to insert a hcard in your footer.  If you consider the adoption of mobile devices and smartphones then you can appreciate the usability of this.   People on the go are more easily able to download information, share, and contact your business because of this formatting.

Third Party Businesses Listings

Make use of other business listings to help increase your likelihood of ranking well.  Google uses third party business listings as a way to verify your business.  Sites such as Localeze, Axciom, and InfoUSA are used by Google to help verify and identify your company.  The more business listings you appear in, such as Business.com and Yelp, help increase the veracity of your listing.  Google also searches business listings for reviews.  If you have ever clicked on a listing you will see other business listing reviews along with the ad.  Asking your customers to write a review will help with converting customers and securing that coveted spot on the ten pack.  It is these comments that give Google the confirmation that come from your customers.

Local Search and Advertising

Local search will soon advertise.  The local business ads are currently under a testing phase in California. Businesses can advertise for a small fee to have the listing appear in targeted searches.  The adoption of mobile devices and Google’s free Map Navigation will make your listings viewable in more places.  The questions do you want to pay only monthly or appear for both listings?

Conclusion to Claiming and Optimizing You Business Listing

Google Ten Pack is a coveted spot to be in.  If you think about the number of times you show up in the search results through organic, pay-per-click, and local business listing, the more times you have a chance for a business to choose your company.  So claim your listing and optimize it by including all categories, hcard formatting in your website footer, and third party listings.  Reviews also help authenticate your listing so get your customers to say something about you and watch your listing rise.

If you are looking to learn more about local search you can also read David Mihm’s blog Mihmorandom.  His insights into local search are excellent and worth reading.

Using Mobile to Connect on Facebook

Facebook’s mobile applications make it easier to socialize and connect for business.   Recently, 65 million users update their status through a mobile device.  This also allows for users to share pictures, videos, and even chat.    They even have a place where friends can find out where each other are and connect while on the move.  With a user base of over 400 million users world wide it only makes sense to compete here.  Fan pages have been a great way to connect with customers.  10 million people become a fan of a page every day.   It allows you as a company to offer something special to those who love your brand allowing them to become and advocate very easily.  You can find out their needs and concerns and communicate with them on a daily basis.

Twitter on the Go

Twitter Logo

Twitter also launched a mobile site at the request of users and can be lucrative to business.   Although the limited 140 characters may seem restrictive there has been a fairly large adoption of the platform.  According to an article published by Tech Crunch, there were over 20 million U.S. Twitter Users in June 2009.

Twitters simplicity also makes it easy update your status and engage customer.   Facebook, your website, and your blog can all have the feed appearing in each venue.  Many companies are using this to update their customers about new product lines, events, discounts, sales, contests, and giveaways.  It also gives companies the chance to connect with their followers (advocates) and listen to their interests and needs.  You also can follow what is being talked about in Twitter’s live feed.  You search based on location and keywords and then send a tweet engaging that person with discounts to entice them to buy from you.  Google also is searching Twitter constantly allowing more ways for you to appear in search results.

Google Maps, Mobile. and Your Local Listing

Google Mobile Navigation Picutre

Google Locals Listing

Google’s Map Navigation for Mobile makes it more important to have your business listing verified.  Yesterday, Google launched Map Navigation which allows mobile device users to receive turn by turn instructions while on the go for free.  This also equips the user to search for products and services that may be along the route such as attractions, hotels, restaurants, and movies.  How this effects your company is that visibility becomes more important.   If you don’t appear in search results and especially in local search thenyou will likely missed opportunities.   Especially if Google begins offeringadvertising to those who are using the turn by turn directions.  If you could imagine offering an ad at around lunch time and an easy go here now button that will redirect you to that location.  So get your company listed and get in the Local Search ten pack and watch Google to offer advertising in the near future.

Mobile Sites and Accessibility

Mobile sites will have become a necessity with the advent and adoption of smart phones.  With data plans dropping and mobile devices become easier to use it won’t be long before everyone is using them.  Have you ever searched or browsed a website on a mobile without a mobile site?  It is both cumbersome and difficult to navigate.  It won’t take long for a user to move on to the next website that does use it.  What a better way to get visibility to your potential customers when they look for you.  It is like having great location and an inviting atmosphere on the digital highway.  It is true that it may be expensive but it will become more important as mobile become common place.

Mobile Conclusions

Mobile is impacting our culture and the world.  Its ease of access to the internet demands that companies and advertisers make use of it.  Social platform such as Twitter and Facebook allow for companies to connect with customers while on the go.  Even Google’s local search will make companies consider how they are appearing in local search results.  While customers are visiting their favorite social sites to find friends and using Google to get there, it demands that business consider how they connect with their target audiences.