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Searching for sales, traffic and branding.

Below is a great article that was recently posted on emarketer.com.

According to a joint study by Econsultancy and search engine optimization (SEO) firm Guava, online marketers around the globe (particularly in the UK) are increasingly turning to search marketing tactics.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they planned to raise spending on SEO, and 45% said the same of paid search.

In addition, 31% of SEO and 32% of paid search users said they intended to maintain their budgets.

Savvy search marketers use paid search and SEO to accomplish different tasks, however.

In 2008, marketers said that the main objectives of paid search were (in order) to capture online sales, generate sales leads, drive Website traffic and enhance the brand. As for SEO, most marketers said its primary purpose was to drive traffic, create leads, generate sales and brand.

In 2009, marketers’ perceptions are in similar (but lower) proportions across the board.

With the global economy faltering, and money in short supply, search marketing is often the tool that marketers rely on to attract new customers.

“Search marketing is the best customer acquisition tool in the online space,” said eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman.

In addition, SEO offers pluses over paid search—though its advantages must be built up over time, which some marketers have little of in today’s economy.

“SEO improves organic listings, which Internet users prefer over paid search, and it is cost-effective,” said Mr. Hallerman. “Furthermore, optimization works across all search engines, and an optimized site does not drop off the first results page even when marketer spending slows or stops—as it can with paid search.”

I was reading a book on the merits (or lack thereof) of cold calling and came across some poignant points that made me stop and pause for a moment to reflect on the difference between more traditional (ok, some will say old fashioned) methods of selling and newer methods fueled by the Internet, the power of Search, and the influence of the consumer.

I will paraphrase a few of these concepts from a book written by Frank Rumbauskas …

“A certain percentage of the market is predisposed, ready, and willing to buy your product [or use your service]. Instead of wasting time [reaching out to] a bunch of people who will NEVER buy your product, you need to find and perfect ways and means of attracting the people who WANT to buy your product before they call your competitors and buy from them instead.”

That is what Search offers small businesses; a perfect way of attracting the people who WANT your product or services.  With Online Search, consumers actively search for businesses who can solve their problem or provide a service or product.   They Search for you – imagine how effective this type of advertising and marketing actually is.  You place your business in front of customers searching for you.  Local Search is even more targeted and effective since consumers are looking for a product or service in a specific location (city/town/zip code).

The secret to sales success is no longer in television, classifieds, radio, or direct mail, (although I really believe that online mixed with traditional advertising is a great way to grow businesses and I will blog on it in another post) instead the secret is to “create and enact systems to uncover people who WANT to buy your product” or service.

Online search marketing does just that .. a way to reach interested, qualified, and motivated customers searching for YOU!

Stumbled across a good read over at MediaPost…

Effective search engine optimization (SEO) can improve query rankings, but companies also need to give consumers easy-to-use Web sites to boost conversion rates and close the sale. More visitors to the site is great, but if the price of average orders drop, marketers should rethink strategies, according to panelists on a Webinar Tuesday.

Search Engine Land Executive Editor Chris Sherman moderated the Search Marketing Now Webinar, “SEO and Conversion Rates: Hand-in-hand,” sponsored by Range Online Media. Herndon Hasty, senior SEO evangelist, Range; and Chris Knoch, principal search engine marketing (SEM) consultant at Omniture, presented and fielded questions. [READ MORE]

Most experienced sales persons know this adage:

“It is easier to sell them what they want…then to make them want what you are selling…”

Imagine this scenario:

You are working the counter at a convenience store and a client walks up and asks for a Coke.

“I understand that you would like a Coke, but how about a nice Sprite?”

NO thanks just a Coke please…

“I certainly understand your need for a refreshing drink, but how about if I take 20% off the price of the Sprite?”

NO thanks just a Coke please…

“The citrus flavor of a Sprite would be more thirst quenching wouldn’t you agree?”

NO thanks just a Coke…

OR

I would like a Coke please…

“One Coke coming up…here you go…”

Every person has a personal desire or want that they have already bought off on and are fully prepared to invest in.  They will take immediate action if they believe that your product or service will provide and/or add leverage to their ability to acquire their need.

Their WANT will usually stem from the need to fulfill one of the innate instincts:

• Personal Security
• Self Esteem
• Sex Relations
• Personal Relations
• Financial Security

Each prospect’s WANT will need to be identified, and then attached to the action potential of your product or service to tap into this natural state of urgent action. So therefore let me pose a powerful supposition:

What if you could read minds?

I mean what if you could actually know what each prospect’s personal need or desire was?  How would that affect your presentation?  Pay attention to the difference in these two leads:

Bob is an owner of a Tire Shop and spends $400 per month on advertising.
Bob is an owner of a Tire Shop and spends $400 per month on advertising
He is afraid of losing and not being good enough
Having more than enough money is his primary concern
He has trust issues with fast talkers
He wants organized plans that are backed with case studies to feel safe

Which lead would you prefer to have more of?  How would the additional information change the style of your presentation?  Would you change your rate of talk speed?  Would you suddenly find yourself quoting more statistics or bringing up support material for your cause?  How would your product or service help his business win, or safely bring more money to save?

If you could provide this information satisfactorily then he would lurch to buy from you.  He has already purchased these concepts.  There is no need to sell him what he already wants.  You simply need to demonstrate that you have his deepest desires ready and waiting.

Each one of us has primary personality profiles.  These are like an emotional thumb print. It has been described many times using all different types of labels:

Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, Phlegmatics
Type A, B, C, D personalities
Red, Blue, Green, Yellow

The list goes on.  So it doesn’t really matter what you call them, just bear in mind that each of us has a merge of several of these distinct emotional patterns and typically one dominant psychological accent.  These accents have base desires and you can read them through language, rate of speech speed, posture and general physical attributes.

Once you know these by heart and can both read and speak the various languages, you will not only be able to accurately identify their base needs, but you will better proffer trust and be able to create much more powerful discovery experiences.  Friends confide in friends and when you speak the matching language of another human they simply feel more comfortable opening up.

Type 1:  The controller
Base Need:  To Win-Control-To Conquer
Language pattern:  Power words, Contest, Get on with it, I’m in charge, Dominant
Language inflection: Strong, Clear, Interrupts, Repeats, Curt when agitated
Posture attributes:  Statement cars, Studies that art of war in all activities

Type 2:  The artist
Base Need:  To play-create-imagine have fun
Language pattern:  Playful Words, Game, Slang, It’s all good, Dude where’s my car
Language inflection: Joker, Cheerful, Fast Talker, Forgetful, Sensitive
Posture attributes:  Flashy or Original Cars, Studies social style and events, Flakey, Chameleon

Type 3:  The organizer
Base Need:  To have order-to prosper social trust through systems and process
Language pattern:  Process words, Flow Chart, Program, Case Studies, Meticulous
Language inflection: Precise, Clear, High Vocabulary, Slower rate of speech speed, Intense Listener
Posture attributes:  Sensible Cars, Studies that art of economics in all life patterns

Type 4:  The healer
Base Need:  To love and be loved
Language pattern:  Sensitive Words, Love One Another, I’ll help, I’m not in charge, Submissive
Language inflection: Mild, Helpful, Never Interrupts, Apologizes, Heals Quickly and Forgiving
Posture attributes:  Non-Descript cars, Studies that purpose driven activities

Your two step process towards effective mind reading is actually quite simple:

Step 1: Use your power of observation to determine the personality profile and match their speech and posture patterns to develop and prosper trust for honest intimate discovery sharing

Step 2: Dig into Discovery and identify the actual primary instinct that is most important to them as well as their primary WANT.  Sell to this WANT and instinct.  Translate your presentation to draw a clear picture. Paint the scenario plainly so that your Prospect can easily see that your product and/or service will deliver to their main WANT.

This is just a snap shot of the primary emotional patterns of the people in our community.  There is a great book I read a long time ago called:  Personalities Plus…It was a quick read and goes into depth on how to communicate to and relate with each type.  If you know that people are different in their base needs you will sense their needs more quickly in your meeting and you will find that they will share with you.  Once you have identified who they are and what they really want then you will be able to add real momentum to your sales process.

Read their minds…sell them what they want and you will sell more often!

I recently came across this article from eMarketer.

New data provided by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), based on research conducted by Radar Research, sheds light on how search marketing dollars are being spent.

In 2008, $13.5 billion was spent on search marketing. The space was mostly made up of paid placement and search engine optimization (SEO), with a sliver going to technology providers whose software assisted in the execution of search campaigns. Paid search ads saw 88% of the total pie, SEO only 11%.

The ratio of paid placement to SEO will change in the future.

To continue reading this article click here

According to comScore, Inc., among the audience of 63.2 million people who accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, 22.4 million (35%) did so daily, more than double the size of the audience last year.

In January, 22.3 million people accessed news and information via a downloaded application. Maps are the most popular downloaded application with 8.2 million users, while search was the overwhelmingly favored use for SMS-based news and information access, with 14.1 million users. Overall, 32.4 million people used SMS to access news and information in January.

Mark Donovan, senior vice president, mobile, comScore, says “…use of mobile Internet (has) evolved from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people’s lives… This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium… to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information.”

Young males are the most avid users of mobile news and information, says the report, with half of 18 to 34-year-old males engaging in the activity. The mobile Internet is also popular among females in the 18 to 24-year-old demographic, with 40 percent accessing it at least once in January.
Donovan concludes, “…much of the growth in news and information usage is driven by the increased popularity of downloaded applications and by text-based searches… smartphones and high-end feature phones… comprise the Top 10 devices used for news and information access… 70% of those accessing mobile Internet content are using feature phones.”

Concurrently, QuickPlay Media revealed the results of its 2009 independent Market Tools survey focused on mobile TV and video consumption in the US. showing that consumers are confident in the uptake of mobile TV and video, with 78% expecting an increase in usage by 2010. Perceived cost represents the biggest barrier to adoption, with 58% indicating that it is the number one reason they have not viewed TV and video on their mobile phone.

• 55% of respondents stated they are interested in mobile TV and video.
• 46% of respondents are aware that their carrier offers a mobile TV and/or video service,  vs. the 35% percent seen in the 2008
• 49% of respondents have a monthly voice and data plan through their wireless carrier versus 38% who currently use a monthly voice-only plan
• 51% said that they would be willing to accept advertising in return for free TV and video content versus 54% in 2008

Consumers show a preference for snacking on content instead of setting aside dedicated viewing times, says the QuickPlay report. Specific findings include:

• 25% respondents view content in between daily activities, 16% while in transit (i.e. on the bus, etc.) and 11% while waiting in line.
• 66% said they would consider the ability to pause and resume content a deciding factor in whether or not they would watch longer forms of content, such as a full length movie. This number represents an increase from the 57% figure reported in the 2008 survey.
• Of those watching mobile TV and video, 45% have spent 11 to 30 minutes watching a TV show or movie on their mobile phone with 30 % having spent 31 minutes or longer doing so. Additionally, 21% are using mobile TV and video services more than once a week.

For more information from comScore, please visit here, or from QuickPlay Media, go here.

Developing a productive call center actually involves the process of developing productive people. The most important asset in the sales quiver is the team and simply seeking the best persons for the job is simply not enough.  Your leadership must be up to the task of continually developing significant growth and change in their lives.

It has been proven that money is NOT a long term motivator but rather a short term instigator.  The state of being BETTER is truly a long term purpose charged goal of all individuals, and harnessing that leverage is key to curt tailing attrition and generating more happy sales veterans.

Let’s take an inventory of your team development tools and techniques:

What are the primary needs and wants of your team?

How do you recognize if they are infected by fear?

How much time do you invest in their personal vision at work?

Are you expecting them to understand and purchase your mission?

How much time do you spend in significant change in your life?

Your team needs to be heard and understood.

Their belief is key to the selling proposition and they will only truly follow leaders that they respect and trust.  They need a mature parent that has their needs close to heart.  It is necessary to connect with them one on one, in small groups and in team gatherings to discuss what is truly important to THEM.  Let them voice their heart and translate your business decisions, policies and programs to their internal desires.  Remember, it’s easier to sell people what they want then to make them want what you are selling.

Fear is the mind killer.

Every human reacts to fear in one or more of four different ways:
Run away
Attack
Denial
Crippled Stasis
Fear will feed defects and simply stop any sales rep from truly producing.  Fear is based on two facts occurring:  They are afraid of not getting what they deserve or they are afraid of losing what is theirs.  You can not snap a human out of fear by stamping your foot.  Simply put, fear is the absence of HOPE.  So give your team a plan they can believe in.   Demonstrate your experience and saddle up next to them in the dark.  Let them know that they are safe and they will come back to confidence.  We will talk more about this subject later.

Each week talk about change.

Books, tapes, teachers and programs of significant change are necessary for them to connect with work as a purpose filled location in their lives.  They need to know that there is more than a paycheck waiting for them to feel excited about Monday.  There are many great teachers that you can invite via technology into the lecture room to help translate the work experience into an institute of learning and growth.  Meaningful lessons will create leaders that enthusiastically stay!

What is your mission and why should it be theirs?

Building a company should be about personal pride and feeling of participating in an award winning team experience.  Share your vision constantly and get everyone to understand the WHY of it. But most importantly help them connect with it on a basic level.  It must make sense to THEIR mission if you want them to purchase it.  Don’t demand or expect loyalty if you don’t help your group find their own WHY they should.

You can’t give away what you don’t have!

Those who don’t learn can NOT teach.  Watch out for leadership that feels it already knows what it needs to know.  Pride is summed up with:  I KNOW.  Humility is summed up with:  I want to KNOW.  The seeker is growing and has something to pass on.  The man who demands the world follow his plan and is not open to change and grow is no longer learning and is actually of weaker character.  The man who admits their failings and is willing to look at and change their weaknesses is actually of strong character.  Your team will sense the truth of it and will be pulled towards leadership of strong character naturally.

Change…Grow…Learn…Teach…

If work becomes an Institute of Significance, in turn your sales figures will become significant!

I have just read a very well thought through article about how to measure SEO performance. It’s written with traditional SEO done to large sites by SEO specialists but the metrics it speaks about are also relevant for the kind of large/small business SEO that we specialize in. To condense the article to it’s essentials it asks the following questions:

· Are your pages indexed by the large search engines? Ours are submitted and indexed every day

· Do you have back links pointing to your pages? We have an enormous number deployed

· Do you rank well for query term that you care about? We test and adjust to maximize this all the time

· Does your site make money? In our world that means do your marketing dollars make your phone ring….our testing indicates a resounding yes to this metric.

You should ask the same question about your website, enjoy..

March 17, 2009 · by Jill Kocher

Measuring success in search engine optimization can typically be done in four ways. “Indexation” measurements will determine if a search engine has properly identified all of your site’s pages. “Backlink” measurements will show the number of internal and external links that point to your site as a whole. “Rankings” measurements will show where in the natural search results your site appears for given search words or phrases. And “traffic and revenue” measurements will show the keywords used to find your site, revenue generated per keyword, the percentage of visitors that purchased products and so forth. This article will explore each of the measurements, which we refer to here as “metrics.”

Indexation Metrics

Indexation is the first critical step to natural search performance. Pages that aren’t indexed have zero chance of ranking in the search engines. However, more indexation isn’t necessarily better because that could indicate that identical pages in your site are duplicated in a search engine’s index, which will decrease a site’s ability to rank because the pages are, essentially, competing against themselves.

What is the “right” indexation number? Most ecommerce sites can only guesstimate based on the number of products they offer. For example, if a site offers 50,000 products but only has 5,000 pages indexed, there’s likely a barrier preventing a search engine from fully “crawling” a site. Conversely, if that same site has 500,000 pages indexed, there’s likely a duplication issue. The site will then have issues with self-competition and split-link popularity, both of which hinder a site’s ability to rank strongly.

Indexation is measured by performing a “site:” query in the major engines. For example, type [site:www.yourdomain.com] into the Google and MSN Live search boxes, without the [brackets]. For Yahoo!, just enter the URL into Yahoo! Site Explorer. These site queries measure how many URLs are indexed in each engine. Compare that number to the number of pages that should exist to determine actions required and progress made.

A complete list of the queries available in Google, some of which are also available on Yahoo! and MSN Live, can be found at http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html.

Backlink Metrics

Measuring “backlinks” will show the number of links pointing to various pages across a site. Generally, the more external links that point to your site, the higher your site will rank in natural search results. However, measuring backlinks varies among the search engines.

For Google, enter a “link:” query such as [link:www.yourdomain.com] in the search box. This is a measure of how many backlinks are coming into the entire domain. However, Google only gives the true measure of backlinks in its Webmaster Tools, which anyone can access once they have a Google account.

For Yahoo!, enter the domain into Yahoo! Site Explorer. Click on the “InLinks” tab and filter the results to show four different data sets: (1) all backlinks (internal & external), (2) only external backlinks, (3) only to the home page and (4) to the whole site.

For MSN, the “link:” query is currently disabled in MSN Live, so backlinks cannot be measured there.

How many backlinks should a site have? There is no way to estimate in the way we can for indexation, and the engines aren’t known for giving accurate, specific or detailed backlink data, unfortunately. The best advice for measuring backlinks is to watch the trend rather than be concerned about individual numbers. And more high quality links are always better.

Advanced Link Manager is a tool for scanning and reporting on backlink trends, including number and diversity of domains linking in, anchor text diversity, and a number of other reports.

Ranking Metrics

Rankings are a tricky metric to report on. Rankings (i.e. where your site appears in natural search listings) vary greatly between singular and plural versions of the same term. Moreover, personalized and blended search affect individual rankings so that no two people are likely to get the same ranking result. However, I suggest a couple of ways to attack this issue.

· Targeted. Choose a select set of keyword terms that you’ll target based on keyword research. These will probably include the trophy terms for which management aspires to rank. Use a subscription rank checker such as WebCEO or a free tool such as the Rank Checker plug in for Firefox to check the rankings for the terms you’re targeting. These tools will give you only the rankings for the terms you specify, for the domains you specify.

· Aggregate. Subscription tools like Enquisite offer the ability to track the page on which a term ranks for every keyword that drives natural search to your site. So, say that [widgets] drove 10 visits to mydomain.com. Enquisite would report which URLs on my site drove those 10 visits, and what page in the search results the rankings were on. The information can be sliced and sorted by keyword, URL, IP, date, engine, and more.

Traffic and Revenue Metrics

Natural search-referred traffic is a common measurement in most analytics programs. The “holy grail” for measuring SEO effectiveness is frequently a report combining URL, keyword, traffic, orders, and revenue. Such a report tells you which URLs are effective, and by omission, which are not. It tells you which keywords and keyword phrases drive traffic, and by omission which don’t. And it tells you which URLs and terms drive sales through natural search and which don’t.

Consider which pages were optimized and how, for which keywords. Those pages and keywords are the ones where you should expect to see growth. Only by performing large-scale programmatic optimizations, like title tags across the entire site, would you expect to see a site-wide increase in traffic. Most optimization efforts will improve performance for individual pages and keywords. Knowing which pages and keywords are most valuable to your business will guide those optimization efforts.

You can see the full article here

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1014-Measuring-SEO-Performance

According to the U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast, 2008-2013, by BIA Advisory Services and its Kelsey Group, current and foreseeable economic conditions will reduce overall local advertising spending through 2013. BIA/Kelsey forecasts U.S. local advertising revenues to decline from $155.3 billion in 2008 to $144.4 billion in 2013, representing a negative 1.4 percent compound annual growth rate.

Only the local interactive segment will show growth throughout the forecast period. All other local media will experience marginal to rapid declines in the next 18 to 36 months, says the report. A small number of traditional media will rebound with a revived economy beginning in 2011, though most traditional media will continue to decline at a slower pace.

According to the forecast, the interactive segment (mobile, Internet Yellow Pages, local search, online verticals and classifieds, voice search, e-mail marketing and other interactive revenues generated by traditional media players) will grow from $14 billion in 2008 to $32.1 billion in 2013. The traditional segment (newspapers, direct mail, television, radio, print Yellow Pages, non-digital out of home, cable TV and magazines) will decrease from $141.3 billion in 2008 to $112.4 billion in 2013.

Tom Buono, president and CEO, BIA Advisory Services, says…

“As the shift to online accelerates, and the demand for accountability metrics grows, there is an increased urgency for traditional media companies to develop and embrace new business models that incorporate digital strategies… to drive business…”

Neal Polachek, CEO, The Kelsey Group, concludes …

“the share shift… could actually be more pronounced… successful integration will require considerable attention to business models, product innovation and sales channel evolution.”