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Archive for July, 2009
Google – Want to See My Wonder Wheel?
Friday, July 31, 2009
Google has recently rolled out some changes to their search results pages. If you are an avid Google News user most of these changes wont seem that new but to others its a whole new ball game.
Below is a screen shot of a search for the term Schipul. Much like the Google News search results you are now given a link to ‘Show options’
Clicking on that link opens up a few options on the left side of the screen
This will allow you to see recent content related to that term based on the time criteria. You can even sort by date or even related searches.
Ok, this is really cool BUT I want to check to the Wonder Wheel option.
Google Wonder Wheel
Oh sure its been out since May but it hasn’t shown up on the regular search page until this week. So what is Google Wonder Wheel? It is visual wheel image that shows you related search terms based on your term. Below is a screenshot of Schipul again.
Click on another term and you get another wheel
Google Wonder Wheel, Well So What?
I know you’re probably thinking to yourself ‘Well, Jason I really have no need for more graphs in my life so why is this important?’ Well I’m glad you didn’t really ask. If you’ve ever wondered what Google thinks about your site and its content this will give you a quick idea on that.
If you’ve built your site and you haven’t optimized your content you might be telling the search engines something completely different than you want. Run a simple search on your company and or keyterms and see what Google thinks is related to that. If you don’t show up your web presence might not be big enough or your site isn’t optimized. One way or the other you need to get that fixed.
For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – jason@schipul.com
Social Media Monitoring Tools – See What Others Are Saying About You
Friday, July 17, 2009
Let’s face it, we are in a renaissance period for the internet. Things are going great, more and more people are hoping on board and more and more businesses are realizing the value of having an online presence. Frankly this reminds me of the period shortly before the dotcom bust where everyone threw logic out the window and built insanely expensive websites that made neat techno noises. This time, instead of having $200,000 websites that had spaceships flying around logos that did nothing more than that, everyone and their Grandmothers are jumping on board by joining Social Media sites for free.
What does this mean to you?
Well for one thing each person in your audience now has the ability to easily connect with each other. That means that every person that uses your product or service now has the tools to easily influence other people about you and your brand. This is a good thing and also a bad thing. If your brand is well received you are in a position to help your raving fans turn other users into raving fans. If your brand isn’t then you’re going to need to monitor your online PR.
Neilsen reports that ’90% of consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.’
In the past you needed to engage a PR firm to see what people were saying about you and/or your brand. You’ll still need to do that but now with some cool online tools you can do it yourself, to some degree, if you have the time. There’s a lot of data out there so you might still want to engage a PR firm.
Monitoring Your Brand Online – Websites
No matter what the scenario you fall into above you’re going to want to know what people are saying about you and below are some great tools to get started
Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a great tool that allows you to receive alerts whenever your brand is mentioned in a search result. From Google ‘Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.’
Twitter Search
http://search.twitter.com If you don’t know what Twitter is you are doing it wrong. Run a search on Twitter to see what people are talking about. Plug in your name, your brand name or your keywords and see what people are saying right now.
Social Mention
This is a go-to site for me. If I need to track terms or brand names I run a search on Social Mention and I can see recent activity around the web. Much like Technorati’s search engine it gives you an overview of recent content on the web.
BlogPulse
BlogPulse is another tool you need in your arsenal. Brought to you by the folks at Nielsen BlogPulse ‘is a blog search engine that also analyzes and reports on daily activity in the blogosphere.’ It allows you to search trends and track conversations amongst other things. You need to bookmark this site, become friends with it.
Monitoring Your Brand Online – Desktop Applications
With advent of tools like Adobe’s Air you can now use desktop applications to monitor your brand or yourself online
Social Seek
This brand new app that lets you see, much like Social Mention, what is happening around the web without having to open a browser. Type in a term and a location and Social Seek will give you results from Blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Eventful.
Just download SocialSeek and search for various terms and locations to see what people are saying about you around the world. A great tool indeed!
PeopleBrowsr
This is a very robust platform so make sure you put on your big boy pants when you jump into this one. PeopleBrowsr offers a host of tools for you to use that include Live Search, Marketers, My PB, Industry Billboard, News and even a Conference tracker.
It’s a little overwhelming the amount of information you have at your finger tips with PeopleBroswer but quite frankly these kinds of things put a big smile on my face. Jump and give it a try. Sign up and click on the ‘PBAir Download’ link at the bottom of your browser. I know, I know very vague instructions but I cannot find any clear link to give you. Maybe the good folks at PeopleBrowser will read this and comment on how to easily find the desktop AIR app. Hint hint.
What Are Some Tools You Are Using?
Obviously this isn’t a complete list, there are literally tons and tons of tools to use, what are some cool ones that you have been using to monitor your site?
Drop us a comment and let us know how you are monitoring you and/or your brand online
For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – jason@schipul.com
Web Analytics Training Class
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Are you frustrated with your Web site ranking in the Search Engines? Installed Web Analytics but don’t know what to do next?
Know you need to measure traffic on your site, but not sure what you can do about it?We'll have answers to all these questions and more at the Houston Introduction to Web Analytics Training Class on Friday July 24 at 1:30 PM.
After this Analytics Training you will be able to:
- Create and install a Google Analytics account on your website
- Access reports and understand what they mean
- Set up measurable goals
- Measure top content and keywords
- Use analytics to determine how to improve your website or blog for your visitors
- Use metrics to capture more traffic to your web presence
- Print beautiful graphs and charts for your office wall! oops… that one was just for the analytical geeks.
Those are just a few things you'll be able to do, there's a lot more so come join us and get ahead of your competitors.
Seats are going quick so save your seat for the Introduction to Web Analytics Training Class today!
Our office is located at:
11757 Katy Freeway
Suite 930
Houston, TX 77079
(281) 497-6567
For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – sem@schipul.com
Forrester Predicts Interactive Ad Spending Increasing to Nearly $55 Billion
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Forrester recently released their ‘US Interactive marketing Forecast, 2009 to 2014’ and it has some very interesting numbers. Most notably is that Interactive Marketing will represent 21% of all marketing spend in 2014 up from 12% in 2009. This will represent nearly $55 Billion in market spend. They also predict that traditional media will take a hit as more and more money is spent online.
Interactive Marketing Vs. Traditional Media
Sure this is good news for companies like us but it is very good news for you as well. Traditional marketing has been hard to measure, yes you see an increase or decrease in sales based on marketing campaigns but you can’t effectively track it. You just have to believe that your print or TV campaigns actually brought people to your business and that it isn’t some sort of fluke. Of course it generally isn’t but if you’re like me you want to see some sort of tangible number or graph that makes me feel good about advertising. With Online Advertising you can. This is because online is simply the transfering of data from one point to another. These bits of data are kind of like a delivery truck. This data can carry various things like tracking code and this is the code that lets us track many many things. The beauty of tracking data is that it can tell us, among others, which page on a site was the most viewed, which site or search engine users came from before getting to your site and most importantly what keywords they used to search for your site.
Learn more about tracking your site using Web Analytics Reporting
Forrester’s prediction that spending on Interactive will increase is something we’ve all known about but we haven’t had the numbers to back it up. And there are some impressive numbers;
- Search Marketing spend will double from $15 Billion 2009 to $31 Billion in 2014.
- Mobile Marketing increases from $391 Million to $1.2 Billion
- Social Media more than quadruples from $716 Million to $3.1 Billion or 34% of all Interactive Spend
Social Media Marketing – Where Do We Go From Here?
Impressive numbers but what does this mean to you? Well, if Forrester is right Online will continue to eat away at traditional media with Social Media Marketing taking up the biggest piece of the puzzle and if you aren’t already embracing that medium you need to. Social Media, although a huge buzz term right now, is being embraced by more and more demographics and if your company isn’t in front of them in some form your competitors are.
How Do I Get Started Social Media?
That’s a great question, obviously we can help you, but if you want to get started on your own ask people around you what they are doing. We’ve all heard of Facebook and Twitter, to name a few, so take the plunge and join them. My 64 year old father is on Facebook, it is no longer that ‘college site’ you have no use for. Twitter reached it’s tipping point before Oprah picked up on it so it must serve a purpose, right?
This IS something that needs to be embraced by you and your company. Age is no longer a difference. This isn’t the same as some young kid kicking your butt in a video game. You don’t have to be young to do it, you just need passion and that is something you need to be successful in any medium or facet in your life. If you don’t have passion then it won’t work for you but realize this: Someone else will take your piece of the pie if you are not watching and Social Media will be a BIG piece of the pie.
Still Confused About Social Media?
Here’s a fun video that explains what social media is and remember July is National Ice Cream Month!
More info on Forrester
Thanks to Flickr user Bill Ward’s Brickpile for the Truck image
For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – jason@schipul.com
