This is a controversial topic and has been around on the web for a while now.
Let’s have a deeper look at what social media publishers are saying about it…
Social Media Optimization - Optimizing Your Brand
This is a presentation I did for a course called Technomadic Markets at UCT GSB on Social Media Optimization. Almost two years ago Rohit Bhargava introduced us to Social Media Optimization (SMO) and the 5 rules, which were also expanded …
Take the help of social media optimization for better results
Social media optimization is a new technique to advertise one’s product and services through social networking sites.
Social Media Optimization and the Brand/Reputation Management
This article is about how to put the brand positioning (brand awareness and brand recognition) in the context of online reputation management and social media optimization activities. In addition, there is the separation of SMO …
Social Media Optimization - New Trend In SEO
In the earlier days SEO was all about optimizing the various pages of a site. Social media sites have taken this concept to a whole new level. The way social media optimization works is that it helps propagate a website more effectively …
Recharge Your Website traffic Through Social Media Optimization
Social Media websites are used to increase the traffic movement in a website. Find out how.
The web 2.0 expo is happening right now in San Francisco. If you live in the Bay Area then you might want to jump into the car and check it out yourself.
If you can’t afford to buy a ticket right now and leave everything behind to get on a plane and get yourself in the middle of one of the biggest web2 events of the year, then just simply visit the links below and check out what other visitors have to say about this huge event.
Web 2.0 Expo: Start-Up Metrics 101
In picking my session for the afternoon today at Web 2.0 Expo, I was torn between three. Two were more interesting to me personally, but I thought Profy readers would be most interested in the Startup Metrics 101 session with Dave …
Web 2.0 Expo: The First Day
Greetings from very chilly San Francisco where the 2nd edition of the SF Web 2.0 Expo, organized by O’Reilly and Techweb, is going strong. Yesterday was the kick-off to the geeky celebration of all things surrounding social computing, …
Web 2.0 Expo 2008: Do You Know What's Missing?
The photo is of a selection of stickers which Web 2.0 Expo is handing out to all attendees as you register, the intention is to personalize your badges with the phrases and sentences that describe what you are looking for, who you hope …
Web 2.0: The Expo
Today I’ll be heading across the Bay to attend Web 2.0 Expo. I don’t have a ticket. I don’t attend to buy one. It’s not that I’m cheap (although I generally am) so much as I don’t have three days for this. …
Web 2.0 Expo - Social Media Optimization
My first post from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco is the second half of “Free Traffic: SEO/SMO 101 (Search Engine & Social Media Optimization) with Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts and Muhammad Saleem of Advantage Consulting Services. …
Web 2.0 Expo - Day 2 Session Planning
10:50am Consumer 2.0: How Web 2.0 is Changing Moods, Metrics, & Monetization Rafe Needleman (CNET), Konrad Feldman (Quantcast), Erin Hunter (comScore, Inc.), Garrick Schmitt (Avenue A | Razorfish), Murtaza Hussain (Peanut …
If you know those acronyms, you have no doubt wondered if and/or how they fit together. Let me explain… But first, a quick nod to the noobs:
PPC
Pay-per-click essentially refers to Google AdWords. Although Yahoo and Microsoft both have version of this marketing technique, AdWords is KING. Google AdWords allows for quick and easy search engine marketing. You create a short message, this gets displayed on a search engine results page with all the other results and, theoretically, you get “clicks”… visitors to your site. You pay for each click… pay - per - click… got it?
SEO
Search engine optimization is the art of making a web site “friendly” to the search engines. This involves adding “behind-the-scenes” code, structuring the content in specific ways or creating hyperlinks to/from particular pages to make the collection of pages comprising the web site more “valuable” to the robots that rank each page of content on the Internet.
SMM
Social Media Marketing (or Social Marketing) is the latest addition to the world of online marketing but is, in many ways, the easiest to understand. Social marketing can be simply described as “online word of mouth”. Wherever you find a relevant conversation about your niche/product or service, you join the conversation. Don’t let the simple definition fool you however, this easier said than done. There is even more of an art to social marketing. That said, the question most people have is how do these 3 pillars of online marketing fit together? As the title suggests, start with PPC.
Why Start With PPC?
To answer this question, let me ask you a series of questions… Try to answer these with quick direct answers.
1. What is your web site’s (blog’s) purpose?
2. What are you selling? (which will fund the hours you will spend working on your web site)
3. What do you tell your visitors to get them to buy?
The first question is easy, right? In fact, some, if not most, of you reading this post have been blogging or online marketing for a while and assumed the purpose of you blog was to sell your product(s). Sorry, but that just doesn’t cut it anymore. The purpose of any website, especially a blog, should be to create a rapport with potential clients, customer and buyers.
So, question #2, was it simple to answer? Probably, but is your offer (what you are selling) actually, well… selling? If not, then it may be time to sell something else. If you are like most bloggers, you are working for free. And, when someone asks you why you work for free, you say something like “because I enjoy giving, I enjoy sharing, I love my niche, I have a passion for…”. if that is true, that’s great! But my experience with online marketing clients tells me that you would be thrilled to make sales too and will stop “sharing” pretty quickly if you don’t.
I am guessing that question #3 is almost impossible for you to answer. I know this because, without some serious research, it is. There is no way to know what words (in text, audio or video format) will persuade your visitors to buy. You may be in tune with your niche but your frequency might be very different than the majority. Finding the “message that makes money” requires testing & tracking.
Good News…
There is a simple and cheap way to find the (almost) perfect answer to all 3 questions above… It is called PPC. With a few simple pay-per-click campaigns you can learn enough about your potential visitors to foster a quick rapport, create an offer/product they actually want, and compile the words they want you to use to sell it to them.
Bad News…
Most people will completely ignore this advice because a good PPC campaign will cost $20 - 50 and some thinking. 99% will plow ahead with this foundational step and “hope” to figure out what their market wants later. I know this because I did it too, and now my clients do it. We all naturally think everyone else is like us. We assume we know what people want and how they want it but this is simply not true, trust me.
What To Do First
Regardless of whether you have a blog that is brand new or months, even years old, you probably need to begin the process of identifying & creating strong relationships with your buyers. In Part II you’ll get a sneak peek into a PPC campaign I recently conducted to see if, where and how much interest there is in a product I’m developing. This info is unique in that what I discovered basically showed that there is NOT significant interest to move forward and that my product needed to be adjusted. It is a screen capture video inside my AdWords account with tips and pointers on how to conduct a quick, cheap and easy PPC “research” campaign. Now, you may be wondering when the SEO and SMM stuff is coming… I assure you, we will get to that but, more importantly, the next article builds on the this PPC “research” campaign and explains how to get your customers to teach you the message that would mesmerize the wallets from their pockets. A link to Part II of “PPC, SEO and SMM - In That Order” will be posted here when its ready…
Related Posts On Other Great Blogs
PPC or SEO? You Tell Us
PPC - SEO Continuum
PPC Or Article Marketing?
How to ruin a PPC Campaign
Pay-per-Click Search Engine Optimization
Which Is Better - PPC or SEO? How One Company Increased Traffic 60 …
Some of you have emailed about the features on our new theme so I did a quick “take a look under the hood” video.
Inside Our SEO’d Wordpress Theme
We were seeing so many “me-too” bloggers in the social marketing & online marketing space that we felt it was time to get serious about Web2Center’s look.
Since we are directly linked to NetsmartMedia and Social Power Linking, two major online marketing businesses, we thought we’d better dress up a bit and shop for a custom WP theme designer.
We looked into custom, completely from scratch, designers but at $3K on average we decided to take a look at premium themes… and we liked what we saw.
We settled on the FlashNews theme from Adii Freelancer at Premium News but there were other solid choices that made the decision harder than we thought it would be.
It came down to the following four, check them out if you are ready to upgrade your blog.
The Fantastic Four
Revolution themes
iThemes
Premium Press
Adii’s Premium News
NOTE: If you are a theme designer or have custom templates for sale, let us know and we will feature you on this page (assuming your themes rock!)
Thursday, April 24, 2008
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