http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com en-US Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:04:42 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Using-SEO-for-Reputation-Management SEO can do a lot more than simply create visibility on the search engines and reputation management is one thing that can be done with the right SEO strategy. This article explains how you can use SEO for reputation management by driving bad press down in the search engine result pages. The most important steps to this method is identifying the keywords related to the bad press, and then, to counteract the negative press, build links to optimize brand and product names, because, as the article says, “SEO has a pivotal role in reputation management, as it can remove negatives and enhance positives on the first page of results, which is usually the only page that matters. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:03:07 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/The-Illustrated-Guide-to-Duplicate-Content-in-the-Search-Engines This guide explains how Google deals with duplicate content and what it might mean for your website. While snippets of text that are copied and reused will not cause problems if they are part of a larger text with plenty of unique content, a web page consisting of duplicate content only will probably end up in the supplemental search result listings unless Google decides that this page is the original (even though it might not be). Worst case scenario means getting black listed for plagiarism! Only Google knows the exact percentage of a web site that has to be unique to avoid being penalised. However, this article provides a few hints at things to worry or not worry about that may help you determine if you are on the right path. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:01:35 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Image-Search-in-the-SEO-Picture Image search is playing an increasingly important role in search engine optimization, and SEOs should, according to Eric Enge, develop strategies for optimizing a web site to receive this type of traffic. Not least in light of the statistics stating that 15-16% of all web searches are for images, is this article on image search quite interesting. Users are also more likely to click an image link than a textlink, and finally it is becoming more and more important to be able to be found in Google's image search, among other things due to universal search. Of course, this means you also have to optimise your images for the search engines, and as luck would have it, this article also talks about strategies to do exactly that. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:00:12 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Using-Google-Trends-to-Research-your-Brand You may think you know everything there is to know about your brand, but what if you don’t? This short article illustrates how Google Trends can be used to find out the level of brand competition a company faces. Using the tool Google Trends can help you find out if there are other companies or products out there who use the same names you do. Google Trends shows you the geographical volume and distribution of searches for your name, which will help you find out if you need to take action against brand competition and brand confusion. With the information from Google Trends you can then go back to the search engine and do a search for your brand with regional modifiers to see who it is you're competing against. Identifying your competitors regionally can help you understand why you may have low conversion rate in these areas, as well as help you determine a suitable course of action to eliminate the brand confusion against your competitors. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:58:23 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Google’s-Sitelinks-and-Brand-Domination-through-Keyword-Ownership2 Get to know Google’s sitelink feature – the links to sub pages often listed below the regular Google listing for some companies that occupy the number one spot when searching for a brand or company. Google lists up to 8 links as well as a site specific search; needless to say that this is an enviable position on the Google search results pages. The interesting question is how Google decides who should get sitelinks and who should not. What is it that determines who achieves the sitelinks status for a specific search query? While no one but Google knows for sure, the author of this article has put together a list of factors that might influence the ability to gain sitelinks. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:51:06 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Search-Leads-to-Offline-Conversions-Too Both clients and search marketers tend to forget the impact online search campaigns often has on offline conversions. According to this article, two recent studies have shown that online research often result in offline spending. In fact, people researching online tend to spend an average of 41% more in-store than consumers who had not been exposed to online advertising. Likewise, 82% of local searchers follow up offline with an in-store visit and out of these, 61% made purchases. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:47:15 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/New-Rules-of-Marketing-and-PR-and-SEO Universal search is Google's new way of displaying search results that blends results from various vertical search engines into one list. Do a search for "Pepsi add" if you want to see an example. Universal search means we can utilise social media sites to increase visibility in the search engines as social media sites tend to have high rankings and to push competitors down in the search listings. Like the article says, why pay for paid advertising that only offers a little blue box with a little text, when you can have images, videos, and more in the organic listings? Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:45:54 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Online-Offline-Integrate! It is always a good idea to display your brick and mortar address on your website to make it easy for people who first find you online to also find you offline. But it is equally important to make it easy for people who first find you offline to also find you online. In a survey commissioned by iProspect, 67% said they had searched online for the company, product, service or ad slogan they saw in offline advertising. A different survey found that 57% of moms who responded used search engines to gather information online before making an offline purchase. Not only do shoppers use search engines before making a purchase online, they also use them before going to a brick and mortar store to make a purchase. Does your business market offline as well as online? Do you take your offline marketing campaigns into account when deciding what terms to target for search engine optimization? If not, you might want to think again… Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:43:22 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Seo-and-Client-Expectations A brief look at setting client expectations for search engine rankings and SEO success. What’s important for clients to understand? Among other things, this article explains some of the factors why professional SEO companies can not guarantee #1 spots on the search engines. Contrary to SEM (paid search) where the highest bid takes the #1 spot, SEO rankings are partly dependent on factors beyond the control of the SEO company and its clients. It also addresses what expectations a client should have to its SEO solution and provider. Not only in terms of what SEO can do for a client, but also the client’s own role in achieving success through SEO. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:42:21 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Less-people-use-1-word-phrase-in-search-engines These statistics show what kind of search phrases are most common worldwide and countrywide in some major countries. Contrary to common belief, most people search for 2-3 word phrases and the trend leans more toward longer tail search phrases. This is especially important to keep in mind when choosing key phrases for search engine optimisation. Take a look at this article if you want to know the specific percentage of searches for the 7 most used word phrases in search engines online. Read article Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:41:09 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Search-in-The-Year-2010 Seven SEO experts give their prediction on the development of search. In this part they dig into the interface on search result pages and whether search will become our own personal portal page. To a large degree the experts agree that in the future, search will be presented in a more interactive way that will include all kinds of different formats as opposed to now the simple text title and abstract and URL, and that the social nature of the web as well as personalisation of the search experience will help make search stickier. Among other interesting subjects discussed by the experts are semantic search, personalised search, and contextual search. Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:59:43 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/18.9-growth-for-online-ads,-says-report A recent report from Nielsen//Netratings (2nd April 2008) says that the online ad industry had a 18.9% growth in the US in 2007. While overall advertising grew by only 0.6%, probably reflecting the overall state of the American economy, the online ad business has sky rocketed, which hints at a shift in ad spending from the traditional channels like TV, magazines, etc. towards online channels. As a last note, this article quotes a new Hitwise report that show an incredible increase in online video streaming of 178% in 2007. Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:58:27 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Why-You-Need-to-Make-a-Facebook-Fan-Page-for-Your-Website As always when new digital opportunities arise, some marketers and companies are moving fast to be where the fun happens while most are sceptic and insecure as to the benefits of embracing this new opportunity. This article lists a number of reasons why you should want to make a Facebook Fan page for your company. Aside from the obvious benefit of branding and the ability to drive traffic to your website, you also get the opportunity to interact and communicate with your fans. Last but not least, creating a Facebook Fan page is free and its easy, and if you don’t you it, somebody else probably will, and then you won’t be in control. Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:15:07 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Six-Tips-for-blogging-in-2008 If you plan to start a company blog, this article has some great tips that'll help you get better results from your efforts. Taking a few minutes out of your schedule to familiarize yourself with the basics of blogging will pay off if you are concerned about your blog showing up on the search engines. With these tips you will be aware of possibilities you would have never thought of yourself, like making sure the URL of every post is keyword rich even though your blog post title may not be. Other tips are concerned with unique and varied content, blogging link strategies, and social networking with other bloggers. Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:02:05 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Speaking-of-Social-Media-Optimisation Gain insight into important guidelines of social media optimisation. According to the author, the concept behind SMO is to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines, and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs. The guidelines in this article are meant to ensure that you approach your social media optimisation efforts in a way that lets you get the most our of social media. Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:32:17 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Social-bookmarking-with-Delicious An easy-to-follow-video showing you how to take advantage of tagging, bookmarking and sharing with Delicious. In stead of saving bookmarks in the browser, social bookmarking sites make it easy to store, sort, and share bookmarks to interesting websites, This tutorial explains how and why to use the social bookmarking site Del.ici.ous. Not only can you access your bookmarks from any computer, but the bookmarks are also public so people can use each others resources Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:42:48 GMT http://marcom.dev.nin.netpointers.com/what-we-know/marketnews/Universal-McCann-U.S.-Trails-World-In-Social-Media-Growth Mark Walsh talks about the growth of social media in different regions of the world. It is a common belief that the U.S. is a world leader in social media penetration - perhaps because both MySpace and Facebook were launched by Americans, but surprisingly enough, according to this article, countries like Brazil, Russia, Taiwan and Mexico experience a growth in online social network membership of more than 70% compared to less than 49% in the U.S. China, for one, has long since surpassed the U.S. at 43 million vs. 26.4 million in the number of people that have their own blog. The article also comments on the levels of active engagement in social media, the age and gender gaps, and notes that the fastest growing social media categories are watching online video, downloading podcasts, and subscribing to RSS feeds.