I'm Moving to Tumblr !

My “Online Digital Marketing Strategy” blog is migrating to tumblr. Why you ask?

• A better creative platform which also integrates Social Media.
• Better look and feel than my older first generation blog.
• Easier to post and more format/template options.

*Tumblr is not that great of platform for SEO, but that's not why I switched. I switched for Tumblr's layout, templates, and simplicity; keeps me focused on writing content. I can also post from an admin panel or a browser bookmarklet or the Dashboard from my HTC Inspire Android. I have no time to look and mess around with plugins. I just want to focus on content. The only thing that sucks, thus far is that Tumblr doesn’t natively import posts from the blogger platform. This will force me to manually add my blogger posts archive to Tumblr one at a time. This should be completed by next year! sheesh.

Please bear with me as I move my entire blog, feedburner, etc., from my old blogger account to my new tumblr site http://onlinemarketingjuice.tumblr.com

Can You Increase Traffic Without SEO ?

Yes, but it takes a lot of creativity, ingenuity and content creation.

First off, create a constant flow of good, quality content. Update your website content everyday. Include links to outside sources and use high quality graphics (.png). New revolving content is KEY. Content is king. New content updated daily will catch the search engine's attention. You must do one thing: provide a daily flow of content.

More traffic without SEO tips also include:

• Search for an aggregator within your vertical and see if they will pick up your content. Contact the editor. Get a conversation going through email. If your selling something (retail), try and get a coupon aggregator to pick you up.

• Make sure you have an RSS feed subscription. Make it easy for visitors to get your daily updates.

• If your using a WordPress (publishing platform) site, download and install a SEO plugin at the WordPress Plugin Directory. Let the plugin do all the work. You don't need to know a damn thing about SEO to install one of these plugins. This is easy and will help get you that low hanging traffic fruit. Good WordPress SEO plugins include: Meta SEO Pack, SEO Ultimate, SEO Tools, Platinum SEO Pack.

• Get users to comment and engage in some sort of discussion on your site. This generates more content and more search engine juice. If your starting out and don't have any users, create numerous dummy email accounts and post comments thru these accounts. Make sure you add/post a DIGG, Reddit, Gbuzz, StumbleUpon, Delicious, and Tweet your website and every content post.

• Submitted a site map to Google Webmaster Tools.

• Pay for online ads (Google, Facebook). This is good if your selling a product, but bad if your just promoting a content site that isn't selling anything but click-through ads. SPAM tends to gravitate towards paid online ads promoting content while trying to get paid through google ads or banner advertisement clicks so be careful. Go with PPC (if your budget permits) if you have an actual product or service to sell.

This Symbol Will Increase Your Opt-In Subscribers

Are you having trouble adding new subscribers to your opt-in newsletter/email list? Is your opt-in page design similar to that of your optimized landing page? By adding this simple lock icon below, your conversion rates will increase. This is basic opt-in marketing 101. Let me explain.

First, when someone signs up to receive your emails or newsletter, what do you think they want to know? They want to know how you will protect their email address from others and they want to know how you will guard their personal info . A "lock" is a symbol of trust, credibility, and security. This simple symbol instills confidence. This is a differentiation between spam and a credible request. It's also important that you include 1 or 2 sentences about your privacy policy near this “lock” symbol. There have been several surveys that have captured 70% of users will abandon opt-in marketing campaigns because there is an issue of trust. Its the same with an e-commerce shopping cart. A recent poll of online shoppers by the National Cyber security Alliance (NCSA) found that when they abandoned a shopping cart, 63 percent of the time it was due to concerns about the lack of a security symbol. When designing any opt-in marketing email campaign, make sure you back it up with a lock symbol.

10 Tips for Landing Page Optimization

1. Make sure the landing page loads FAST, otherwise your Google quality score goes in the tank. Page should take no more than 7.5 seconds to load. I would avoid Flash as it adds to load time.
2. Make it obvious which button to click to complete an action.
3. Make sure there is white space. This improves the user experience and makes your call to action stand out. Your call to action button (link) should be 20% larger than your logo. Place button at top of page (left). Web readers tend to track through content in a rough F-shaped pattern. So format important images flush left. Display the secondary action below the primary action.
4. Catchy headline (create a powerful hook) and few exit navigation options. Keep it simple.
5. Make sure your images are catchy, contextual, and load FAST. Optimize your images! Descriptive image file names, ALT tags, file size, Anchor text.
6. Privacy policy and sitemap at the bottom.....and put some "testimonials" or endorsements on the page if you have room. 
7. Check keyword usage. DO NOT spam keywords.
8. Remove all possible distractions. Your design layout should be very clean, crisp, and clear. Get creative. No stupid redirects. Use a single dominate image or photo.
9. If you use WordPress and have no experience in optimization, just add a WordPress optimization plug-in.
10. Concentrate on the upper 300 pixels of the page. Half of your visitors will not scroll "below the fold."

Las Vegas Social Media Review Revisit

After numerous requests, I decided to revisit and update my original "Las Vegas Hotel/Casino Social Media Review" from March 25, 2009. There were many changes in the last few years in the social media marketing side of the industry. Many more Las Vegas Hotels and Casino's have jumped on the bandwagon and even "pushed" it to the "next" level. I also received a lot of requests from "Clubs" to be a part of this update. The club side of this review is equally important in that most Las Vegas "clubs" are either owned or operated separately from the host Hotel/Casino. Some Hotels, Casinos & Clubs are not fully up to speed with the new online marketing techniques. I will be looking, in no particular order, at the following social media marketing practices:

• Facebook company pages.
• Blogs + update frequency. How many comments? Comments show some level of engagement. Trackbacks, Pageviews.
• Website. I would like to track "traffic" but I'm only interested in sales. Traffic can be misleading. As they say "Traffic is for truckers and sales are for satisfaction"
• Twitter efforts and participation. Tweet & retweet update frequency and # of friends or followers. If you only have 15 followers, but all of them take action, is that a better metric than having 150,000 followers and 200 take action? 
• LinkedIn company pages.
• Location "aware" participation i.e., foursquare, Google Places, etc.
• Mobile phone participation (Android + Apple apps, online room rate coupons, Groupon, etc.).
• Sell thru techniques using Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Groupon).
• Social Media sentiment. I may use this BUT.........it’s difficult to fully quantify. The only way to track sentiment, which I see as important in determining the effect of the message is sales, leads, and members (some sort of email sign-up). But in the end, who cares if we're devoted and passionate about the message?
• Participation in SXSW in some shape or form?

I will be contacting hotels, casino's, and nightclubs in the next 1-3 weeks. Since there are many of them in Las Vegas these days, I will ONLY review the ones that wish to be reviewed. If you respond back and do not wish to be reviewed, I will leave you out. If you DONT respond back at all, then I will take it you’re not interested and leave you out as well. I will probably contact the hotel, nightclubs, & casino's via their PR, Twitter, or contact email. I live in the SF Bay Area (Silicon Valley) so I cannot meet face-to-face (unless you fly me down). Most interviews will be done via phone, and email.

Putting together a comprehensive review like this will take time. I will post a huge spreadsheet with grades for each business. I would also like to throw in social media graphs, twitter freq graphs, website stats, etc. Anyone can reach out to me via email or twitter.com/jackpeterson

7 Product Launch Essentials for Start-Ups

If your a start-up, small business, or a one-man show, you may not have an enormous budget to launch a product like say Microsoft or Apple. Never spend more than what you can afford to lose or gain a new customer. Below are 7 essentials for a successful product launch with limited budget.

1. Social Media. Set up a refresh of your Facebook page, send out product launch tweets (schedule tweets 24 hours a day), create a LinkedIn group, create a webinar (webinars are huge right now, and they are the easiest way to connect with your audience). If your in retail, use Groupon. If you have a physical location your customers frequent, utilize geolocation tools like Foursquare or Gowalla.
2. Website refresh. Create new product-specific landing pages, feature photos (.png's), blog content, online collateral. Adjust and enhance your website meta tags/keywords to reflect new product information.
3. Review copies. Reach out to influential bloggers +online publications. Send them copies 1-2 weeks before launch with an embargo date. Make sure you have some type of "blogger relations" program at least 6 months before launch. Relationship building with bloggers is key. Get to know them, comment on their blogs, reach out to them and introduce yourself.
4. PPC campaign. Stick to one advertising platform like Google Ads, Amazon, or Facebook ads.
5. E-mail marketing. Consider offering a pre-order for your new product, exclusive only to e-mail recipients. Or, offer a sneak peek at the new product before it’s released to the public.
6. Press Release. If you have some budget, use Business Wire. A cheaper alternative is PR Newswire. These PR distribution companies now are fully automated and support Social Media + mobile (iPad, smartphone) tools.
7. Work your ass off. Rather then using a ton of money, you use time, energy and creativity.

After launch its crucial to measure your results. Go back and re-double efforts on which of the above techniques are working and abandon the ones that are not working.

SEO Visual Guide to Success

I found this great SEO visual guide layout for anyone planning a campaign for the first time. Its also a handy guide to keep on hand at all times. You can drill down the tree limbs and get more detailed and plan out milestones, etc. The guide came from Dave Chaffey at e-consultancy.

Before you begin any SEO campaign (organic or paid) its imparitive to know how search engines operate and how people interact with them. There are many guides out there where you can learn the "basics" of search engine friendly design and development (or you can hire a consultant). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is arguably THE most cost-effective digital marketing technique, but also the most challenging to get right. It can get overwhelming with keyword research, link building, usability, and tweaking content. In the end, always keep measuring and tracking the data (sucess) and build off of whats working, and whats not working. If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search - people who want what you have visiting your site. Always keep in mind not to go too overboard with content optimization or you will get labeled a "spammer" ot a "content farmer" which will designate you as a low-quality website/publisher.

Google Maps Navigation Updated

Just a quick note. Starting today, Google Maps navigation app will now automatically route you around traffic. This is a very handy feature for Android users. I just upgraded to an HTC Inspire 4G and found this new Google traffic reroute function incredibly useful (especially in the SF bay area). You don’t have to do anything to be routed around traffic; just start Navigation like you normally would, either from the Navigation app or from within Google Maps.

Mobile + Local Search = Small Business Future

Mobile is the future. Period. If your a small business and have no mobile (local search) presence on the web, you need to "get in the game". Some new staggering trends are emerging that should be a wake up call to all businesses.

• The Mobile revolution is revolutionizing commerce via location-based services (Foursquare), discounted offers (Groupon), Instant local and online price comparison sites are driving online and walk-in purchases. Huge Android (615% year/year & iPhone (86% year/year) Growth (Source: Canalys estimates).
• Mobile Growth (Smartphone, iPad, Tablet) fueled by better processing power, improved user interface, smaller form factor and low prices.
• Networks (4G) getting faster.
• Fun to use Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, etc. 50% of all total Twitter active users are on smartphones. 200M Facebook active users are mobile.
• Mobile now real-time connectivity 24x7 in palm of your hand.
• Global Mobile data (internet) traffic will grow 26x over next 5 years (Source: Cisco VNI data Forecast).

Most retail, small business, and commerce websites need to be mobile optimized. When a user is pulling up your website, all the menus pages must be viewable on the screen immediately. Highlight the address and driving directions. If you can afford it, differentiate yourself from your competitors and develop an iPhone and/or Android app that has value-add. Sign up for local search listings (Google Places, Bing Local, Yahoo mobile, YP.com) and get a Social media presence. Today's mobile phones offer a smart way for small business owners to engage their customers whether its in real time (social networks) or pushed (via online coupons/discounts).

Google adds Social Media Data to Search Rankings

Most SEO's know this bit of information already... but for the rest of you, Google uses social media data in its search engine rankings. The question is WHAT TYPE OF DATA? For any corporation or small company it is ESSENTIAL that you add social media to your marketing strategy.

Why? Precisely because Google uses these social media feeds in its SERPs. Google is constantly changing the way it evaluates social media. Most social media spam is filtered out. They use Twitter & Facebook quality links in ranking = normal useful  links.They also try to find the "reputation" of the author and only the social media profiles that can be crawled and that are public are taken into account. So if your promoting your business via social media, do not change your profile to "private". Trending items or "social buzz" are used as a quality signal. So if your "tweet" makes it in the Google real times results, your doing great! Getting reciprocal followers or adding lots of followers do not help much so dont go overboard and add everyone on the planet.

Social media links can help you speed up your website’s indexing and they are taken into account by search engines such as Google. In short, Google evaluates the quality of the post and the authority of the author. With Facebook, the shared links from Fan pages are treated similarly to Twitter links. No links from personal walls are used in rankings. Social media has become more important in the contribution of search engine rankings and it is crucial that you use it appropriately.

Bing to Index Facebook Data

Last week, Microsoft Bing (search engine) and Facebook announced a partnereship that will give search results a social media flavor. This new partnership will allow people who use Facebook to see Bing search results that incorporate information from their friends.  Bing will now be able to search your friends (likes/dislikes) and deliver you a more custom search result. This will also help you find people (using facebook data) as well as recommendations on products and services.

This could be good or bad. Good if you want a more personalized social media result. Bad is you want to be found or your personal Facebook information out in the public domain.

This new social search integration has numerous SEO opportunities for small and large businesses. This integration can also be a good tool in reputation management. Bottom line: This deal symbolized the importance of social media in search results. This is just a first step, in the future most all social media platforms (data) will be indexed by some or all of the search engines. That's why online marketing tools such as corporate twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages, etc., will become a crucial part of any online marketing strategy.

Social Media Trifecta for Small Business

If you’re like a typical "small business", you’re looking for new ways to bring in customers. My advice = Use Social Media. Most "small business" have little or no resources to hire a full time Social Media manager. If this is the case, then my recommendation would be to concentrate only on these 3 Social Media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp). Take an hour a day (or night) and network/add content to these Social Media sites.

Yelp
This is a great site and becoming a force in small business marketing. Yelp is your chance to give customers the scoop, right on your Yelp business page. Once logged into biz.yelp.com, build out a rich profile under the "Business Information" tab. You can share the history behind your business and what you do best. Also, add a little something about yourself and your employees so that Yelp users can get to know you. Let people know your business is on Yelp. Add a button (Yelp link) to your email signature file, website, and all marketing collateral

Get photos of your business up on Yelp, ASAP. If your business is a restaurant, add a picture of your menu. Own a boutique? Add a shot of your great new merchandise. It's a simple, fun and effective way to illustrate your story. Finally, ensure a photo of your storefront is included so people know what to look for when they decide to visit you offline and in person.

Twitter
Twitter is also for small business owners looking to build new local customers. To sign up for a twitter account, go here www.twitter.com. The first thing to do is set up a proper "Profile". Make sure you fill out your twitter profile to include your website URL, business phone #, and specific keywords related to your business or service that will help potential people to follow you. Follow people in your field of business such as peers, customers, and competitors. Follow your competitors followers as well. Run twitter contests, give away special online twitter discounts or offers. Always include "Add Follow Me on Twitter" in email signature file, website, and your other social media accounts.

Make sure you don't mix your twitter business account with a personal account, keep them separate as well as the messages. Engage in related business conversations. Look up conversations that will help drive customers to your twitter account using keywords in twitter search. DO NOT go overboard and follow too many people that follow you or you will risk looking like a spammer. If you have a blog on your small business website, always reference a new blog post on your twitter account. Stay with it everday and be patient, the ROI will pay off in due time. Retweet others relevant to your field or business. This helps establish credability and you will pick up more followers.

Facebook 
Get on Facebook now! Facebook pages tend to work better for businesses while Facebook "groups" do well for non-profits, interests and causes. If you’re a one-person business, rather than creating Facebook pages for your name, consider setting up a Facebook page for the company, product or service name and add keywords to it. People may be more likely to subscrbe to your Page (become a “fan”) when they see the topic that follows the company name.

Content is king for a Facebook business page. Facebook is a great place to share tips on how to do things faster or more effectively with your product or service. Post "how-to" videos or screencasts. Announce free upcoming events or webinars. Mention if you or someone from your business will be attending an event for a potential meet up. Its always a good idea (content-wise) to import your twitter feed and business blog posts.

Make sure you use Facebook to connect with your existing customers AFTER they’ve already bought from you - rather than trying to use Facebook to mine for leads. This is the path of least resistance. Since they already know you, they are more likely to interact with your page - crucial for organic growth on Facebook.

 

They Keep Stealing - Why Keep Paying?

Normally, this blog would cover an online marketing subject such as SEO, SEM, Social Media, etc., but I have been swamped lately with work, projects, and meetings. In any case, check out this great article by Dylan Ratigan over at the Huff Post regarding the underwater mortgages and the Banks. I'm a big fan of Dylans, going back to his time at CNBC. I should be back blogging soon! Excerpt below:

"Well, it is becoming time to take matters into your own hands... I suggest that you call your lender and tell them if they don't lower you mortgage by at least 20%, you are walking away. And if they don't agree, you need to consider walking away.

That is because you probably are a good person. But your mortgage is a business deal, and it is not immoral to walk away from a business deal unless you went in to the deal with the intention of defaulting.” Enough said.

Monetize Twitter Update: I called it!

Twitter Monetization Model = Promoted Tweets based on CPM. Real-Time advertising people. I called it back in July 2009. Although, a lot of people called it. Not just me ;)

Incredible statistics! Twitter has 106 Million users. Its search engine gets 600 million queries every day. Insane. What stat I would love to know is the "real time on site" for the average user. Not the "time on site" because that stat is distorted. Why? Twitter is mostly run in the background on the desktop, laptop, and mobile. Users will toggle back and forth all day. I want to know the "real time" the typical Twitter user is interacting (focused) on Twitter. Real-Time on site (in addition to search and installed user base), is another way to pitch advertisers.

The MySpace Nuclear Option

Transform MySpace into a dating site.

The signs of MySpace problems go way back but really surfaced when CEO Owen Van Natta resigned. I won’t dwell on the many reasons why MySpace is declining (declining market share, shrinking revenue, loss of key employees, etc), instead I would propose that MySpace reinvent itself and become a dating site. Yes, I said it. A dating site. The demographics are there. 50-50 male/female ratio (at least in U.S.), MySpace is huge in the 18-34 age range (very pop culture), and nearly 40% earn an estimated $30-$60k/year. Plus you have the MySpace freaks, strippers, gamers, nerds, and everything "Twilight". Most importantly, the online dating industry is worth $1.049 Billion. Customers of dating sites spend an average of $239 per year. The average visit per site time is 22 minutes. 22 Minutes! Think advertising revenue as well as pay wall revenue right from the start. International revenue (specifically China) would be HUGE. The MySpace brand (like it or not) is formidable. MySpace should integrate the Twitter API with profiles and dating ads. I could go on and on again, but the main point is that MySpace trigger that nuclear option and become a dating site. Take all that revenue away from eHarmony, Match.com, and the adult dating sites. Do this ASAP. The revenues will be terrifyingly enormous. Game over.

See breakdown below.

The Number 1 Twitter Retweet Tactic

The easiest way to get your business message across Twitter is to follow the people in your niche with below average followings and get them to retweet.

Think niche Tweeters. Go for the long tail Twitter strategy. These below average niche tweeters give you more of a chance to get "retweeted" and follow you back. It takes between 3-4 retweets to get this momentum up to a "tipping point". The problem with following MASS twitter power players & celebrities with such a huge following is that they will probably not follow you back, thus never retweeting your message. This is good whether your promoting something, selling, branding or reputation management.

Another good "best practice" is to unfollow the people that don't follow you. Pretty simple. Get rid of the deadweight.  Its a< 1% chance they will actually read and retweet messages. Do this twice a month.

Random Musings. Cisco, Dell, YouTube, Streaming.

• Is it me or does every one (platform) now have an app store?
• Cisco's huge annoucement this week was a total let down. Yes, the technology is cool, but I was hoping for an "Apple" like change the world annoucement.
• The time to kick cable TV out the door is near. Wii gets Netflix and streaming soon. YouTube gets live sports streaming. The new generation of streaming TV set-top boxes are finally going to make traction.
• Looking forward to the Dell Mini 5. Looks good on paper and the specs. Love the colors.
• I don't think Twitter is all "Tweeted out". In fact, lots more features coming. IPO in 2011?

Will HTML5 Destroy Flash?

Maybe. Too soon to tell. SEO people will prefer HTML5 rather than Flash. Flash is not SEO friendly. In fact, Flash is search engine-invisible. HTML5 will eventually do everything Flash does plus the added search engine optimizations such as Improved page segmentation, A new article tag, A new section tag, A new header tag, A new footer tag, A new nav tag.

In order for HTML5 to overtake Flash, browsers must have to support it, right? Full browser support will happen in 3-8 years? The full HTML5 spec wont be finished (probably) for another decade. Your starting to see improved support for HTML 5 elements in Opera 10.5, and possibly IE 9. Chrome and Safari do support HTML5 video. Firefox is still behind, although I think there are add-ons to Firefox to support HTML video?

HTML5 allow a standards-based pathway to busting those Flash barriers with canvas graphics, drawing video onscreen, Web Forms 2.0, and local storage for private data. So who needs Flash? The only drawback I see now in HTML5 is that it has very basic support for sound. Who will win? Who knows? This may play out in about 1-5 years (depending on who adopts HTML5). Personally, I think they can both coexist, but I would rather use HTML5 for search engine reasons.

Apple Rumor

After its shareholders meeting today, the Apple rumor of the day included possibly buying a large acquisition in the future? Apple prefers having cash to paying Dividends. If Apple were to buy say SPRINT, t-MOBILE, etc. for their iPAD + iPhone = GAME OVER. Apple has a truckload of cash. Think about it.

Is Twitter Gearing Up for an IPO?

Seems like it. All indications are now starting to point to an IPO. Step #1. They just hired Pixar's Finance Chief to become their new CFO.  IPO in 2011?