Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Online Marketing Training Seminars
July 1st, 2011 | 
Author: Those of you who have known me for a while might remember a website by the name of Weblearners.com. We are currently revamping the entire site to provide live internet marketing training seminars. Topics will range from SEO, SEM, Social Media to Online Marketing Strategy based concepts.
In order to do this we have converted our website from a Joomla platform to a more robust and less clunkier Concrete5. The Concrete5 conversion was an excellent step in the right direction for us. It will allow us to manage many facets of our website more easily moving forward. In return, those of you who utilize our training will have a better overall experience.
As of today we are on schedule to launch the new site by mid August. Please check back for details. Looking forward to seeing you in the training sessions.
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Using GEO targeting in your SEO campaign
Geo targeted keywords are keywords focused on a specific region.
For example:
Psychotherapy Pasadena CA or Cosmetic Dentist Buffalo, NY
Notice the Pasadena CA and Buffalo NY. This is the geo part of the these two key terms. Geo targeted keywords are generally less competitive and will convert into a lead better than non geo terms. So if you have been focusing solely on broad national or international terms, get you your head in the game and start utilizing the power of GEO targets
New Website Coming Soon
We have been busy at Zoodle, hence why there hasn’t been many blog updates lately. We will be launching our new website in the next month, so be on the lookout. The new site will cater more toward our focus on Search Marketing, and transactional Social Media. It will also reflect more of our current business model of providing our customers with a solid return on investment via some of our new processes.
Along with a new website we will be implementing a new company blog separately from mine. It will be more customer centric and focus on the everyday changes in our industry. We are excited for this change and are looking forward to providing our customers with better support and quality content. More coming soon…
Tracking Offline Advertising with Google Analytics
When we talk about tracking campaigns, it is not enough to focus only on online campaigns. We have to include the offline campaigns in our reports for complete analysis. You will need to use the Google Analytics URL Builder. In this section, I will share with you one method of tracking your offline campaigns in Google Analytics in 2 simple steps:
- In your offline ads, refer visitors to a page that is unique to the campaign; [www.store.com/computers]
- Tag all visitors to the unique page with the campaign variables [source, medium, & campaign name] set in the GA URL Builder.
How to tag all visitors to www.store.com/computers with the campaign variables?
We will assume that all visitors to the unique landing page [www.store.com/computers] are coming from a specific offline campaign lets say the ComputerUSA magazine.
How do we tag destination URLs?
- Go to the URL Builder
- Enter the following variables into the URL builder:
Website URL: http://www.store.com/computers Campaign Source: ComputerUSA Campaign Medium: Magazine Campaign Name: Holiday Promo - Add the following code to the header of landing page before the Google Analytics tracking code
<head> <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.store.com/mother” /> <meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”1;URL=http://www.store.com/?utm_source=usa-today&utm_medium=newspaper&utm_campaign=Mother’s%2BDay%202010″> </head>
Replace the url in the code above with your new url from the URL Builder.
Choosing the right Key Phrases for SEO
Key Phrases or Keywords are at the heart of every SEO campaign. However, it is commonly the most over looked piece of the SEO puzzle. In this post I am going to share some of my ideas on how to choose the best key phrases for your campaigns.
Below I have outlined the phases that you will go through when determining key phrases for your campaigns. I would recommend using a spreadsheet program such as Excel to do this effectively.
Phase 1 – 
Brainstorm
Brainstorm about 10 -20 key phrases that reflect your products or services. It’s okay to have broad terms at this point as we will narrow them down later. Examples: Sponge Candy or Crossword Puzzle Gifts. We will later add more descriptive words to these to make them more targeted. Example: Buy Sponge Candy Online
Phase 2 -Check the quality of your terms
Next we will check the quality of the terms. In order to do this, you will go into Google and type your terms in the search box. Check the results. If your competitor shows up or other related items that relate to your business, then you know that it is a quality relevant term. If it is a bunch of definitions or other mumbo jumbo that shows up, it is most likely not a good key phrase. In this case you should add words to the key phrase to make it more descriptive. Example: If you were a college and you first came up with the general term MBA and got a bunch of definitions on what an MBA is, you should consider adding more descriptive words ending up with something like this, Accelerated MBA Program . People often think in broad terms, but the truth is more targeted descriptive terms are better. Refine all of your terms so that they are good quality terms. You should now have high quality key phrases with the search volume next to it.
What about GEO targeting?
If you are Geographically targeting a certain region, now is the time to put regions in to make the keywords more descriptive. For Example: If you are a benefits company who works specifically in Buffalo NY and your original brainstormed keyword was Health Benefits you should now end up with something like this, Health Benefits Buffalo NY. The same company could do the same thing for Dental Insurance by targeting the term Dental Insurance Buffalo NY .
Phase 3 – Check Search Volume
Using the Google Adwords keyword tool, check the search volume for each of you refined quality terms. Write this number down next to each term. If there is no search volume, simply type zero. Note: Most GEO targeted terms will have little to no search volume.
Phase 4 – Check the competitiveness of your terms
Next you will check the competitiveness of each key phrase. In order to do this you will use Google in the same way that you checked quality. This time you you will write down the number in the top right of the Google results page that tells you how many results come up for that particular term. This number will determine how competitive your key phrase is and how hard it is going to be to rank for it. Example: The term staff augmentation only has 586,000 other sites that show up in the search results page. This tells us that it will be easier to rank than say, direct placement services which has 5 million results.
Phase 5 – Determine the most relevant terms
Next look through your terms and decide which ones are most relevant to your business. This is really a judgment call on your part. No one can tell you this but you. Some things to think about are: Will you feel comfortable writing about this term in your page copy? Is this term targeted toward what you do? Keep the terms that are highly relevant and get rid of the rest.
Phase 6 – Refine your terms based on the Magic formula
The last phase of refining your key phrases is kind of a balancing act. The magic formula is ” High Search volume, High Relevance, Low competitiveness. ” Go through each of your phrases using this formula and eliminate the ones that do not fit the model. Note: If your terms have low search volume but are very relevant it is worth keeping them. An example of this is GEO targets.
Good luck!
Google Apps phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6.0
Wow, I cant tell you how happy i am that I received this email. It’s about time someone said enough is enough of IE6. This is the email I received today from Google.
We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.
Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.
I actually have a .png file on my company website that doesn’t render in Internet Explorer 6.0 and I refuse to change it because browsers are free and people should update them when a new one comes out. If you use internet explorer 6.0 or lower and it is your choice, you are not a good fit customer for me. Luckily I am not in web design. LOL!
So why is Google doing this? Most likely to support HTML 5.0 technology in the future. HTML 5.0 provides some really great enhancements to the web. Check out the small list below.
Video Element: My favorite HTML 5 features yet. You can embed video without having to rely on third-party proprietary plug-ins or codec. You can embed video code with the same amount of ease as you now embed an image with the ability to manipulate videos and built-in video controls among other things.
Canvas: Canvas element lets you render graphics and images on the fly. An excellent implementation of this element was done by the developers of Mozilla lab project Bespin. Which is an extensible Web Code Editor using Canvas (among other things). You need to register to try out Bespin. You can see a much simpler implementation of canvas with this drawing board (works with FF 3.5 – Chrome – Opera). All done without having to rely on plug-in, the possibilities are endless.
Application caches: The ability to store web apps like email locally and access it without having to connect to the internet or install an external client like Outlook or Thunderbird. Google gears, which helps you access Gmail offline, is an implementation of HTML 5 specifications for Applications Cache (and much more). If you use Google Gears than you are using already using this feature. You can try out an online demonstration of this feature in the form of sticky notes here, which saves information to your local DB. Works on Safari 4 and Chrome, FF 3.5 is a bit buggy on this demo.
Geolocation: This API defines location information with high-level interface (GPS) associated with the device hosting the API. Sources of location information includes Global Positioning System (GPS) and network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. Yes, a big brother feature, but it can only be used if the user gives the application permission to use the information. You can try it online here
Of course there are some more features but these are just a few of my favorites.
Tags: Google Adwords Seminar in Buffalo
I am delivering a seminar called Mastering Google Adwords in Buffalo NY, on January 20th, 2010. This should be a great seminar. We are going to cover everything from increasing quality score to writing effective ad copy. If you are using Google Adwords to promote your business, attending this seminar should be a no-brainer.
There are only 26 seats available and we have 6 left to fill before January 20th. They are going quickly, so I am going to be doing another one around the same time at a different location. As soon as I know about the new dates I will post them. Please click the register today link below for details.
Broad VS Niche Keywords
Keywords are at the heart of every SEO campaign. But what most people do not realize is how important their keywords choices are. Most people think that broad terms are the way to go, but niche targeted terms is where it’s at.
The idea is that niche targeted keywords will produce less traffic than broad terms, but will bring in more quality traffic, hence producing more conversions. Below are a few examples that will help you identify niche targeted keywords.
Broad terms are for shoppers and niche terms are for buyers
- Let’s say we have a company who makes Liquid Absorbers for Hazardous waste spills. The first broad keyword term that comes to mind is Liquid Absorbers. This is a very broad term that could mean anything. Who knows what the searcher is looking for? A better term to target would be Hazardous waste liquid absorbers. This is a better term and will result in more conversions.
- Let’s do another one. This time we will add a geo target. This website will help families find a nanny. The first keyword that comes to mind is the broadest term, find a nanny. But usually when someone is looking for a nanny they are in a geographic location. Let’s just say that our nanny searcher is in Boston. A better keyword to target would be find a nanny Boston. Pretty simple right?
- Okay, one more. This time we have a website that caters to the tourist region of Niagara Falls USA. Of course the broad term would be Niagara Falls, but a better and more niche term would be things to do in Niagara Falls. This keyword is more relevant to the tourism industry and will produce more conversions on this site.
Summary: The whole idea is that broad keyword terms will produce a lot of traffic to your site, but niche keywords will bring in more conversions. I hope this helps you identify the proper keywords to use in your SEO campaigns.