Andrew Manavi

Andrew Manavi or Eben Pagan, two of the mega-millionaire marketers who love to stir up controversy. Readers of Online Marketing Blog know I have a bent for holistic SEO and the role of content marketing across the entire brand and customer relationship (customer life cycle marketing). A lot of commentary in the SEO world over the past few years has been about moving levers via site architecture / code / server / crawler / robot / markup / feeds / microformats as well as blocking and tackling with keywords and links. There’s even been a trend in attention towards social signals and an increasing perception of value for content.

We'll get to Andrew Manavi and Eben Pagan soon, but wait a moment. Understanding something as effective and tactical as search engine optimization is more than a moving target but with the right mix of human talent, adaptive strategy, hypothesis/testing/refinement and ongoing education through credible resources and a human network, companies can do exceptionally well with SEO.

I think I just might!

It is no longer a question of IF companies should execute a social media strategy.  The question for most companies is HOW to best execute a meaningful and engaging approach that generates results.  With so many social media marketing options available, marketers must also decide best practices and what tactics to avoid.

We all make mistakes as marketers and it’s important that we not only learn from those mistakes but share  with others so that they can avoid them.  I hope that the 20 Social Media Marketing Do’s and Don’ts that I’ve provided within this article not only entertain you but make you think about your current social media strategy. Which tactics are you happy to say you’ve implemented and which mistakes will you admit to?

When most people think of search engine optimization for a company, it’s usually as a marketing function. That makes sense since SEO is such a low-cost, high impact and measurable method of attracting new customers and revenue. However, I think looking at SEO and optimizing social media solely as a marketing function is like looking only at the eyeball of your favorite portait. Take a step back and you’ll see a bigger, more interesting picture.

Think Outside the Marketing Search Box. Companies publish a variety of content besides products and services but usually rely only on people’s familiarity with the company website to find that information.  Customers, employees, partners, job seekers, news media, industry analysts and investors need a variety of information from those companies and with over 11 billion queries handled every month by Google, search is a prime channel for discovery. So is social. Facebook has over 800 million members, Twitter has over 200 million and LinkedIn over 100 million. If content has a purpose and an intended audience, why not optimize for findability and shareability?

Is your internet marketing strategy putting customers to sleep?

Compared to B2B companies, businesses that serve consumer audiences are typically focused on a much shorter sales cycle due to the cost and nature of the purchase.  They are searching for a one stop sale.  B2C companies typically target a single decision maker or customer segment instead of multiple decision makers and influencers.  As a result, the approach and internet marketing tactics mix needs to be more relevant to the consumer vs. the business buying experience.

The Holiday season gives B2C marketers plenty of reasons to improve their focus on best practices in internet marketing. Competition is tough for online buyers, so what should B2C marketers keep in mind with their Internet marketing strategy? Here are 5 essential tips for B2C marketers to get more sales online:

A few weeks ago, @aknecht and @SocialMichelleR had me on their #socialchat and as I am prone to do, I ask for questions in advance and try to answer them so when the actual Twitter chat comes, I’m ready with robust content and links instead of thinking of everything on the fly. The result is a richer experience for all I think. It’s also a source of content that one can use for a blog post. Like this one

According to Hashtracking, that #socialchat was quite active, with 523 tweets, 76 contributors, a reach of 291,000 and 3.2 million impressions. It’s amazing how much potential reach is possible through a well attended chat on Twitter.  I did a #blogchat with @mackcollier before BlogWorld LA and we posted huge numbers: 4k tweets, 800+ contributors, reach of 3+ million and over 29 million impressions.  Twitter chats are growing in popularity and such scheduled gatherings have extended to other platforms like Facebook and Google+.

Blogging is one of the top sources of online content creation for many companies. Blogs are a great vehicle for interacting and engaging with current and prospective clients.  Blogs are also an effective way for prospects to associate stories, anecdotes, and personalities with a company or brand.

Taking on a blog can be a large undertaking.  There are many things that should be considered including cost, availability of resources, strategy creation, time commitment, and measurement.  Simply creating content and expecting instant success is not realistic.  If you have recently decided that you would like to start a business blog, or have started a blog and are not seeing the success you had anticipated then the tips below are for you.

A recent study “State of Digital Marketing Report” indicated that for both B2B (57%) and B2C (41%) websites, search engine optimization was the most effective marketing tactic for lead generation over paid search advertising and social media marketing. Keep in mind, the study was sponsored by a provider of SEO services and had a conservative sample size. Despite that, the findings are consistent with what many successful SEO practitioners have known for years.

There are a number of additional studies that have supported the notion that Search Marketing (PPC and SEO) are the most effective and efficient practices for improving website traffic, leads and sales. In fact, Google has compiled a number of case studies and examples of how online search has driven substantial offline sales. Earned, Owned, Paid and Shared Media all drive search as search drives both online and offline outcomes for business.

Blogs are often rated one of the top content marketing tactics for attracting and engaging customers and eMarketer has reported blogs reach over 50% of the internet audience. But many companies fail to combine two of the most important tools for boosting relevant traffic and reach: Optimization for search engines and for social media.

Most marketers and bloggers understand the basics of a good business blog and the notion of search engine optimization but often focus more on keywords than the customers that are actually searching.  Adding keywords to blog posts is a common SEO tactic but developing a blog content plan around both search keywords and social topics that represent what customers care about can result in content that is inherently more search, social and customer media friendly.

For many people who have grown up celebrating Thanksgiving, the holiday for giving thanks has a underlying theme: Winning the wishbone. Besides the mounds of wonderful food and extended family gathered at many US households, there might be plenty of turkey to go around, but there is only one wishbone.

Believe it or not, competitive pursuit after a Thanksgiving turkey’s wishbone is a perfect metaphor for understanding better customer centric content marketing.  Prepare yourself for a Thanksgiving themed post without the tryptophan side effects.

5 Steps of A Wishbone Strategy Applied to Content Marketing
Here’s how the wishbone strategy works and how you can apply it to your content marketing strategy.

With SES Chicago over, we’re picking up our Wednesday guest posts again. This time with my friend David Meerman Scott, best-selling author of numerous books including The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Real-Time Marketing & PR and a new book called Newsjacking (Wiley) created specifically for the Amazon Kindle. David is someone who has always been a forward thinker and a few steps ahead of most marketers. This post gives some perspective and an example of newsjacking that opportunistic marketers are increasingly tapping in to due to availability of trend, buzz and social stream monitoring tools. 

With Google now indexing new content in real-time, there is a tremendous opportunity for clever people to rank at the top of the results for emerging keywords. One great way to accomplish this is to engage in what I call newsjacking.

Press Release SEO has been one of the most popular topics to attract Google search traffic here on Online Marketing Blog.  In fact, Lee told me he’s been using PRWeb (a TopRank SEO Client) to promote content in a news format since 2001. We’ve seen the ups and downs in the Public Relations industry over the years and have helped inform many Public Relations professionals on the finer arts of SEO by speaking at events like PRSA, providing training for PR agencies and corporate communications departments and writing about the topic here.

After seeing the nice write up by Adam Sherk on Ragan on how to write press releases Google will love, I decided to curate a list of our own Press Release Optimization tips and share them with you. Plus Lee’s added a few more at the end of this post.