Transworld Snow Industry Conference March 9-12, 2010

Using the Internet

Multichannel Marketing

Mike DuncanSage Island, CEO

www.sl ideshare .net /sageis land

Know your Customer

Know their Langauge

Keyword ResearchKeyword Selection is Key

Careful keyword selection is the heart of the SEO campaign.

Research KeywordsCreate a robust keyword portfolio of relevant keyword phrases that are searched on by potential customers. You’ll begin with your input on what your most important keywords are, then expand that list by cross-checking the list against the search engines’ databases of actual keyword searches. This will help target the right words - the ones that will actually deliver customers to your website.

keyworddiscovery.comwordtracker.comoverture.comGoogle Adwords Keyword Toolseobook.com

seomoz.org

Open for Business-Driving Traffic-

SEOHave a Strategy for your site and

optimize your content• Use keyword research to determine how customers search

• Inject keywords into body copy, titles, and images

• Be sure that your site is user friendly and search engine friendly. Your marketing efforts won’t help you if your website makes it difficult for users to find the information they want.

Ranking factors:www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm

On Page OptimizationOptimize Website Meta

<TITLE>Skateboards - Warehouse Skateboards Skate Shop</TITLE>

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Biggest selection of skateboards, skateboard decks, complete skateboards, skateboard wheels, skateboard trucks, skateboards delivered right to your door!">

<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="skateboards,skateboard,complete skateboards,skateboard decks,skateboard wheels,skateboard trucks,skate decks,warehouse skateboards">

Search  Engine  Op.miza.on  Best  Prac.cesh6p://www.sageisland.com/SEO-­‐best.pdf

Sitemap SubmissionGoogle WebMaster Tools - www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Bing (MSN) WebMaster Tools - www.bing.com/webmasters

Yahoo! Site Explorer - http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Create Sitemapswww.gsitecrawler.com

Create a Robots.txt file and place in the root directorywww.yourdomain.com/robots.txt

User-agent: * Disallow: /my-dirty-photos

Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

www.websitegrader.com

How does your site rank for SEO?

Local Search

Driving Relevant Traffic

Links

Quality links is what you are after.

What is a Quality link?Good Page Rank and relevant

Link Building

Driving Relevant Traffic

Paid Search

What is Pay-Per-Click?

‣ Pay  only  when  your  ad  is  clicked‣ Prices  based  on  a  bidding  system  –  posi8on  is  affected  by  keyword/ad/landing  page  quality,  bid,  and  compe88on.

‣ Daily/monthly  budgets  which  search  engines  will  not  exceed,  making  it  a  cost  effec8ve  adver8sing  strategy

‣ 10-­‐15%  of  your  overall  traffic

Driving Relevant Traffic

Shopping Networks

Driving Relevant Traffic

Social Networks

“There are now at least 1.6 billion of us connected via computer and 3 billion mobile devices that touch the Internet. The rise of "social" technologies - such as wikis, blogs, Twitter, SMS and social networks - means that the barriers to participation across the planet (in terms of the cost, access and skills required) are rapidly approaching zero”

Joshua-Michele Ross on O’Reilly Insights – March 2009

What is Social Media Marketing?Many marketers think that doing a sponsorship on

MySpace or posting a one-off campaign channel on YouTube is social media marketing

Social Media is About Socializing!

It is about:Weaving your content and messages into the social web

Joining the customer conversationMaking friends

Communicating with those friendsListening to those friends

Measuring impact

Company Blog• Free Blog software like Wordpress, Movable Type, or

Blogger.

• Add a blog on your website. This will make it easier for customers to find your blog, and improve your ranking in search engines.

• Don’t just focus on PR. Offer useful info for your readers and customers to keep them coming back.

BloggingPros

• Informs customers with industry & company news • Provides a personal voice to your website• Establishes you and your business as an authority• Benefits search engine rankings by increasing keyword-rich

contentCons

• Time consuming• Requires ideas and writing skills• Can be detrimental to brand if misused or abandoned

Building your Blog• Don’t blog from an outside website.

http://www.yourdomain.com/blog, not http://yourdomain.blogspot.com

• By placing the blog on your website, you’re placing all of the content from your blog directly on your site. Search engines love frequently updated, keyword-rich content.

• Free open source software, WordPress and blogger

• Write fresh, original content regularly (at least three times a week), and keep blog posts under 500 words each.

Promote your Blog

• Promote your blog in email signature, web site, & promotional materials.

• Connect with other bloggers by linking to them, commenting on their posts, and submitting your content to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.

• Just remember, focus on the content to keep readers coming back for more.

Blog Dos• Pay attention to headlines. Many people scan blog posts in a feed

reader like Google Reader. If the headline isn’t interesting, they won’t click through.

• Link to other blogs in your industry to get their attention and encourage them to link back to you.

• Keep blog posts under 500 words and break up large chunks of text with photos, headlines, and bullets for easier reading.

• Focus on quality content, but keep SEO in mind by favoring high traffic keywords over lower traffic phrases.

• Solicit feedback from your readers. Ask questions, include polls, and encourage community building through comments and participation.

Blog Don’ts• Never copy and paste content from other websites to fill your

blog posts. This creates duplicate content problems and violates copyright law.

• Avoid keyword stuffing. Your primary concern is quality content that interests readers. SEO should always be secondary. Use keywords only when appropriate and only if it doesn’t compromise good writing.

• Don’t expect feedback on every post. For every commenter there are nine “lurkers” who read without participating. Keep soliciting feedback and trying new ways to engage those readers, but don’t give up.

Facebook the Biggest! • 300 million active users • 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day • The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older • Average user has 130 friends on the site • 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide) • 40 million status updates each day • 10 million users become fans of Pages each day • 2 billion photos uploaded to the site each month • 14 million videos uploaded each month • 2 billion pieces of content

(web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week • 3 million events created each month • 45 million active user groups exist on the site

Profile vs. Pages

Facebook does not allow businesses to build personal profiles.

You have two options for promoting your business: • Build a business profile page

• Create a group for your business.

Use the page as a central hub for information about your business on Facebook, and use the group as a forum where fans and friends can interact with you and each other.

Remember, profiles are for people; pages are for businesses.

Reaching your fans on FB

• Keep a constant stream of fresh content on your wall by uploading photos, videos, and news.

• Create a community by building a group where members can upload their own photos and videos and discuss your brand.

• Link your Facebook page to an RSS feed for your blog.

Why Twitter for Building Your Brand?

• Twitter is 3rd largest social network after FaceBook (1st) and MySpace (2nd) – Over 6 million active Twitter users – Over 55 million monthly visitors to Twitter

• Est. 5,000 new Twitter accounts every day• Most users access via mobile• Shouldn’t you be where your customers are?

Tips for Twitter

• Initiate conversation about your industry, offer tips, listen to what people are saying about your company.

• Be proactive in responding to @ replies and direct messages.

• Offer information that customers and other people in your network will find interesting — not just marketing and PR speak.

• Don’t toot your own horn too much, bombard users with links, or repetitive marketing messages.

Twitter Strategy• Who do you want your audience to be? – Consumers, businesses, strategic partners, industry experts (including bloggers), colleagues, etc.• Will your tone be corporate or casual? – Research has shown users prefer Twitter interactions to be on a more personal level• Who will Twitter? – Hiring a Community Manager whose job is to engage in social media – Should employees Twitter?• Twitter Usernames – Claim your brand name (http://www.twitter.com/yourbrand)        –    Also popular: employee + brand names, CEO names

Twitter Do’s

• Initiate discussion around your brand

• Listen (really) what people are saying

• Keep it positive

• Respond timely to @ replies and DMs

• Keep things interesting

Twitter Don’ts

• Toot your own horn

• Bombard followers with links

• Disrespect the Twitter community

• Cavalier attitude about Twitter - it’s not a fad

• Auto-DMs and low quality @ replies

• Sound like a broken record

Build Your Follower Base

• Twitter Search | search.twitter.com/advanced – Find your audience

• We Follow | wefollow.com – User powered Twitter directory

• Just Tweet It | www.justtweetit.com – Great Twitter directory; are you listed?

• Mr. Tweet | www.mrtweet.net            –  Discover new people, get relevant followers and usage stats.

Engage Your Followers

• TwtQpon | www.twtqpon.com Create coupons for Twitter. Give incentive to follow you.

• StrawPoll | www.strawpollnow.com Poll your followers. Ask questions about your brand, get instant feedback

• TwitPic | www.twitpic.com Share interesting photos of new products, office antics, and other cool stuff

Monitor Your Brand• TweetScan | www.tweetscan.com Set up alerts for mentions of your brand and related keywords; never miss @ replies• TweetBeep Twilert | www.tweetbeep.com Like Google Alerts for Twitter• Twollow | www.twollow.com Auto-follow people that mention your brand• Twitterless | www.twittlerless.com Graphs your followers and tells you who stops following.• ow.ly | cl.ig | tr.im | adjix.com | etc.          Shrink your URLs

Viral Marketing & Social Tagging

Add social bookmarking buttons for sites like Digg, Del.ici.us, and Stumble to blog posts and other content on your site to encourage users to “vote” for it.

YouTube Optimization• Use keyword tags to tell readers and search engines what your video is

about.

• Create a compelling headline to encourage viewers to watch your video.

• Keep videos as short and engaging as possible with the most important messaging in the beginning. If viewers get bored, they won’t watch the whole thing.

• Pay attention to your thumbnail image to entice viewers to click and watch. YouTube automatically selects a thumbnail by selecting an image from about halfway through your video.

Product Reviews

• 70% of shoppers trust consumer reviews on products. (Nielson)

• Offer users the opportunity to rate products, provide reviews, to encourage consumers to trust your products/brand.

Customer Service

Track Everything!

www.sl ideshare .net /sageis land

Search Engine Optimization – Kristopher JonesGet to the top on Google – David VineyLanding Page Optimization – Tim Ash

Building Findable Websites – Aarron Walter

Mike DuncanSage Island CEO

www.SageIsland.com