What the Heck is Google Punch?

No, really! Does anyone actually know what the unveiled Google Punch does? Apparently Google Operating System spotted Google Punch listed in a Google Documents drop-down–within the video below. Speculation has already started as to what Google Punch could be, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

SEO Tops Digital Marketing Tactics for 2011

Here we are just past the halfway mark in 2010 and we’ve tapped into the stream of future marketing planning with our readers for 2011 with a poll. Our question? What 3 online marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2011? The number one answer? Not social media, not email marketing. The top digital [...]

Take the 2011 Digital Marketing Poll

It’s safe to say 2009 and 2010 were breakout years for social media. Our last Digital Marketing poll showed 6 of the top 10 tactics as social media complemented by search engine marketing and email.  Slimmer marketing budgets and mass media attention have inspired a rush to many types social media marketing tactics bringing a [...]

Chart: Each Google Employee Worth $1.4M

Back in 2008, we reported on the atonishing revenue Google was generating per employee: $210,000 per year! It appears that revenue has turned into a nice little stockpile of cash for the search giant. If you were to divide up all the cash Google has in its coffers, each employee would walk away with $1.4 [...]

Ask Asks If the Human Element Will Help Its Search Business

Ask has always been the red-headed stepchild of the search industry. It’s always lurking in the shadows as the #4 search engine and usually gets a mention in search share only if there was significant up or down movement. Accounting has the Big 4 but search only has the Big 3 which is soon to [...]

3 Essential Small Business Search Marketing Trends

“Qualified”, “showing intent to buy”, “high conversion rate” and many other phrases are used to describe search engine marketing.  As a $16 billion industry, Search Marketing including SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC ads (pay per click) represent a substantial opportunity for small businesses to connect with customers at the moment they are looking for [...]

Thinking Critically About Web Video

Web video is hot. Some say your chance to be a pioneer. How hot, and how much of an opportunity? Recent reports from comScore, consistently say more than 80% of the total U.S. Internet audience views online video in a given month. YouTube’s fact sheet states every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to [...]

Thank You To Our Web Hosting Sponsor VISI

For the past 3 plus years, TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has been hosted by Minneapolis based website hosting provider, VISI.  When our past host shut us down without warning for getting too much traffic, VISI and Online Marketing Blog connected and worked out a sponsorship. VISI is the only company with an ongoing “ad” on [...]

Lee Odden On SEO And The Social Web – OMS Minneapolis Keynote

Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing CEO gave the opening keynote of Online Marketing Summit Minneapolis.  Lee spoke on the intersection of SEO and social media and provided key takeaways for companies on achieving success. As the social web and search engines integrate and innovate tighter, the intersection between search and social is growing more meaningful [...]

10 Reasons Why Your Analytics Are Failing & 13 Tools To Help

Web Analytics are a key indicator to the health and performance of any website, but online marketers often get lost in the complexities and details, forgetting how important analytics actually are and why. Analytics can provide a wealth of information but marketers often look at high level indicators such as: top content, bounce rates, entrance [...]

Getting Connected at SES San Francisco

The Search Engine Strategies conference from Incisive Media has really taken an amazing turn this year for the West Coast event. Not only have organizers moved the conference from San Jose to San Francisco, but SES is now a part of an event called Connected Marketing Week that involves a coordinated effort from a number [...]

4 Steps to Social SEO Success

The sheer volume of social media marketing and search engine optimization advice posted online can make it difficult for companies to make sense out what direction they should take. There are many models and approaches to leveraging  optimized content for discovery through search and how to develop social networks to engage customers and promote content. [...]

Facebook and Twitter Integration Most Popular with E-Mail Campaigns While Mobile Lags

Although it comes as no surprise to most, the integration of e-mail campaigns and social media outlets is becoming more popular. Leading the charge are Facebook and Twitter which is probably no surprise either. What is a little surprising is just how quickly the numbers dive with regard to other options for social media integration. [...]

Colleges Get Schooled in the Art of Modern Marketing

We like to think of colleges and universities as places where learning trumps all else, but the truth of the matter is that institutions like these are still businesses, which means they need to make money. Says Rob Moore of Lipman Hearne, a marketing company specializing in non-profits: “Higher ed institutions today are facing a [...]

Content Marketing: Definitions of Curation & Context

Companies are realizing the value in “brands as publishers” and are making real commitments to the creation of content in their online marketing mix. It’s no longer enough to provide fundamental features and benefits information about products and services to succeed competitively online. Consumers and of course, business buyers, seek additional information, resources and others [...]

Win a Free Pass to Online Marketing Summit Minneapolis

It’s that time of year again and the ClickZ Online Marketing Summit will arrive shortly to the Minneapple, Friday June 25th. The conference organizer has generously donated a free pass to the 1 day workshop for us to give away here on Online Marketing Blog. The agenda covers everything from Social to SEO to B2B [...]

Smarter Ways to Get Content Ideas for B2B Blogs

One of the most common challenges of business blogging is sourcing content. The range of things that can interrupt content creation are important obstacles to overcome because without content there is little reason for readers to return.  Blogs are fairly easy to start and if you’ve been a reader of this blog, chances are pretty [...]

6 Tools For Better Blogging With An iPad

Like many others, I recently purchased an iPad out of curiosity. While my intentions were of discovery, I quickly found some productivity gains with blogging. The upside to blogging with an iPad is that it’s portable and you can easily log your thoughts on a screen that is a lot more convenient than typing into [...]

Is Your Online Marketing Agency a Dud? 23 Signals of Credibility

Hiring outside expertise to grow thought leadership, sales and market share is essential for companies that do not have the internal resources to do so. At TopRank Online Marketing, we have conversations with companies every day that have deep expertise in their fields, but when it comes to online marketing, they’ve realized the need for [...]

5 Tips on Twitter Chats Plus 8 Marketing & PR Chats to Follow

There are many tactics companies can implement as part of a smart Twitter Marketing strategy. Growing the initial following is important as is providing the budding community you’re building with something of value to keep coming back and to spread the good word to their networks. One such tactic that offers value and brings people [...]

Glam Media Moves on the Men

A few days ago, Glam Media, the number one vertical media company for women, announced that they were going to buy ad technology start-up AdPortal. The idea was that their tech would help bolster Glam Media’s GlamAdapt program which allows publishers to run their own self-service ad portals. The emphasis is on detailed demographics that [...]

Amazon and Facebook Team Up and It’s Kinda Creepy

Amazon began beta testing a new application this week that claims to be a simple gift suggestion engine for your family and friends. It all begins on the Amazon recommendation page. From there, you give Amazon permission to talk to Facebook and from there you get a page full of people matched with products. At the [...]

Mr. Zuckerberg Goes to Washington

Frank Capra’s famous movie from 1939 “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is described in IMDb as “A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn’t back down.” Yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went to Washington as well. It appears though that [...]

Using Google’s Android? That’ll Be $10 a Year, Thanks!

How are you enjoying that free Android software that powers your iPhone-competing smart phone? I hope you like it enough to reimburse Google $10 a year, because that’s what Google CEO Eric Schmidt is hoping to get out of each Android user: “If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can’t make [...]

Report: Smart Mobile Marketers Give Away Free Ice Cream

What are the latest trends in mobile marketing? Millennial Media just released their SMART (Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting) report for June and it provides insight on the habits of mobile advertisers. First, we learn that Retail and Restaurants are making a move to attract more mobile customers–with location based coupons and seasonal [...]

SEO Basics: Telephone Game & the Fresh vs. New Content Debate

There’s a game of telephone going on about a hundred different theories of Search Engine Optimization and the influences or signals that affect search visibility. One that I continue to hear revolves around the notion that search engines like fresh content. I’m sure the genesis was something like:  Someone told someone else at a conference [...]

3 Things You Should Know About the New PRWeb

As a longtime customer of PRWeb, I’ve seen many changes over the years. The oldest optimized press release I could find of mine that’s still online dates back to mid 2001 and in the years since, it’s been an evolving relationship moving from customer to consultant. From the days of talking new features as a [...]

Video: Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead

Sometimes we learn best about doing things in new and innovative ways by understanding them in terms of something we already know. Stories provide useful context and perspective and that’s exactly what David Meerman Scott has done with his latest book that’s just been announced: “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can [...]

Yahoo Japan Disses Bing, Picks Google as New Search Partner

Holy smack in the face Batman! Yahoo Japan just signed a 2-year deal with Google! Yes, with Google! Not, Bing! Before the word “mutiny” jumps to your prefrontal cortex–your “mind” for the rest of us–you need to know this: Yahoo holds only a 35% stake in Yahoo Japan, so the search engine couldn’t put its [...]

Whose Reputation is Worse Than a Member of Congress? Advertisers, Of Course!

Advertising suffers from a reputation problem. Here at Marketing Pilgrim we are very interested in online reputation management but even the best social media monitoring tools can’t help some industries. Of course, when you spend years simply ignoring how poorly you are viewed by the public in general, it doesn’t help. This is how the [...]

Study Says Location-Based Social Network Users are Small but Mighty

I’m at the bank depositing money. That’s a real tweet I saw this week and it was followed by a Foursquare link showing the exact bank. According to new research by Forrester, that tweeter was probably a young adult male with a college degree and he’s one of only 1% of online users who actually [...]

“Do Not Track” List Discussed by FTC Chairman

Don’t think that just because Facebook has managed to not completely trample people’s privacy as of late that there is not more activity around the subject. In fact, forces in Washington, this time the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), are speaking at ‘hearings’ that are looking into this issue right now with talk of a “do [...]

Old Spice Reaps Rewards of Viral Campaign

Sometimes an ad for a product is so clever that you remember the ad but not the product. Not so with Old Spice’s new “Smell Like a Man, Man,” campaign which went viral earlier this year. According to a Nielsen report which was noted in Brandweek, sales of Old Spice Body Wash have jumped 55% in the [...]

10 Social Media Marketing Questions Answered by Engage!

I’ve been familiar with Brian Solis as many have, for several years. We’ve done a few video interviews with Brian and he’s contributed to popular posts here like this one on social media marketing and this one on content curation. I have to admit that based on his early writing, I thought Brian was overly [...]

Plugin Shows You Just How Much Google is Spying on You!

Do you wear a tin foil hat whenever you browse the web? Are you worried that Google knows more about you than any fictional “big brother” ever could? Well, there’s a browser plugin that you will love–and will likely tip you from slightly paranoid to full-blown insane! Basically, once installed, Google Alarm notifies you–visually and [...]

Search Engine Strategies San Jose is No More

I have good news and bad news. First the bad news: Search Engine Strategies San Jose is no more. Sucka! That’s cos the good news is that the event has been renamed SES and the location changed to San Francisco! I so got you with that one, didn’t I? Well, there’s more. SES is now [...]

Facebook Rolling Out Questions Feature

People ask a lot of questions. It’s natural and it makes sense. It’s the only way we can acquire information that we don’t currently have. The biggest problem with any question is finding the best source to ask. We have friends and family but they can only go so far in many cases. We have [...]

Moving from Fragmented to Segmented Online Marketing

Companies today have a virtual smörgåsbord of options when it comes to marketing their products and services online. Lack of expertise, numerous tactical options, pressure for sales in a down economy and the tendency to chase shiny objects cause many online marketing efforts to be fragmented. I really doubt that a significant waste of effort and disconnect [...]

Would You Pay to Use Twitter?

Whenever research is brought forward that merits one of those “Is that right?!” responses it’s worth looking into. I guess it’s the Internet’s equivalent of riding by a car wreck, you know you shouldn’t look but you do anyway. Well, a study by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism shows that despite the immense [...]

Consumers Say Family Recommendations Are Not Enough

A new survey by Cone says that four-out-of-five consumers will go online for a recommendation when they’re interested in buying something–even after it’s been recommended to them by a friend or family member. Looks like blood isn’t thicker than water these days. Not when it comes to parting with hard earned cash. And it doesn’t have [...]

Defeat the Sultan of Spam! New "Captain Inbound" Animation [video]

The next time you are bombarded with popup ads and spam, Team Inbound will come to your rescue! With the help of Greta Get Found, Chris Convert, Annie Analyze and of course, Captain Inbound, the marketing world will be a better place!

Watch marketing hero Captain Inbound defeat the Sultan of Spam to save the day in HubSpot's new animated cartoon web series.

The Adventures of Captain Inbound: Episode One

Character Voices:

Captain Inbound:@jlopin
Greta Get Found: @repcor
Chris Convert: @OneAndOnlyCJ 
Annie Analyze: @Cortenberg
Sultan of Spam: @vleckas
Narrator: @andrewtquinn
David Meerman Scott: @dmscott (as himself)

Animated by Eric Guerin (@EricGuerin)

Did you enjoy the animation? What other marketing animations have you liked?

How to Market Your Business Like the Most Iconic Band in History

Join Bill Walton, Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott as they discuss effective marketing strategies from the Grateful Dead. Date and time: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 12pm ET Reserve your spot now!

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Facebook Questions Launches: Marketers Cheer

Facebook recently passed 500 million users and now is adding an important new feature to its platform. Today, the social networking platform released Facebook Questions. This new feature allows users to ask questions to the “entire” Facebook community. As companies like Yahoo and LinkedIn have used a Questions feature for years, this is not an unprecedented addition, but it highlights the possibility for individuals to communicate in a new way with people outside of their direct Facebook net work.

According to Mashable, Facebook Questions will allow users to do a few things:

• Photo questions: Users can post pictures of objects that they have questions about or have problems identifying and then can receive answers from other users.
• Simple Polling: This is a big one for marketers. Now that a Facebook user can quickly create a poll to answer a question, the amount of available data to mine for industry and business insight will increase.
• Tagging: Tagging is the method Facebook uses for organizing questions. The point of tagging is to allow users to easily discover new questions and answer the ones relevant to them.
• Following: Users who want to keep track of certain answers can "follow" a question to see responses as they get added.

Facebook Questions is public and will be open to everyone. The feature is currently in beta and only available to a portion of Facebook users prior to its release to all users. Brands that have Facebook pages will be allowed to answer questions.

Marketing Takeaway

Today, Facebook made its platform more valuable to marketers. Marketing on Facebook has been challenging because of privacy and a clear separation of profile and business pages. Facebook Questions provides a new way for businesses and prospects to communicate and discover one another in a relevant way. LinkedIn Questions has long been a valuable tool for B2B marketers and it is likely that Facebook will be used in similar ways but on a larger scale.

As a marketer, it is critical you understand that Facebook Questions or any other questions platform is not a place for advertisement. Instead, this new feature provides an environment for contributing value and relevance to potential customers and establishing trust between them and your business. As people start using this feature, look for questions and tags relevant to your business and provide answers to questions that you have the experience and expertise to answer.

Do you plan on adding Facebook Questi ons into you social media marketing plan?

Free Download: 2010 Facebook Marketing Guide

How should businesses create, manage, and grow their Facebook pages? Find out from industry experts and marketers!

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Survey: 0% of Internet Users Would Pay for Twitter

A recent study shows that Americans are not willing to pay for online services such as Twitter. The study was conducted by the University of Southern California at the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism.

From the research:

"Although nearly half of those polled in a new USC survey said they have used free micro-blogging sites like Twitter, 0% said that they would be willing to pay for such a service. "Such an extreme finding that produced a zero response underscores the difficulty of getting Internet users to pay for anything that they already receive for free," said Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for Digital Future at USC's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

"Twitter has no plans to charge its users, but this result illustrates, beyond any doubt, the tremendous problem of transforming free users into paying users." The survey of 1,981 Internet users also found that half "never" click on web advertising, with 70% saying they find it "annoying." However, 55% said they would rather see web advertising than pay for content."

The USC survey also examined how United States residents accessed and used the Internet. Major usage findings include:

• Percentage of U.S. on the Internet -- For the first time, the Internet is used by more than 80 percent of Americans -- now 82 percent.  

• Weekly hours online -- The average time online has now reached 19 hours per week.  Although more than two-thirds of Americans have gone online for a decade, the largest year-to-year increases in weekly online use has been reported in the two most recent Digital Future studies.
  
  
• Gaps in Internet use in age groups -- Not surprisingly, Internet use continues to increase as age decreases, with 100 percent of those under age 24 going online.  However, a surprisingly high percentage of Americans between 36 and 55 are not Internet users: among respondents age 46 to 55, 19 percent are non-users; among those 36 to 45, 15 percent are non-users.

• Low adoption of new media -- Although new media is used by large percentages of Internet users age 24 and under, overall large percentages of Internet users never go online to do instant messaging (50 percent), work on a blog (79 percent), participate in chat rooms (80 percent), or make or receive phone calls (85 percent). 

Marketing Takeaway

Expectations and usage on the Internet are different than with other forms of communication. Online, people expect a balance of free and paid information and services. As a marketer, is it important to understand how you can provide free content to drive business transactions. Additionally, as Internet usage continues to increase across all demographics, it is important to adjust your strategy and resources to improve your online marketing efforts.

Free Download: Marketing Data: 50+ Marketing Charts and Graphs

HubSpot has compiled over 50 original marketing charts and graphs on topics including Lead Generation, Blogging and Social Media, Marketing Budgets, Twitter and Facebook Download the ebook now! to have access to these charts for use in your own presentations

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4 Business Blogging Lessons From Google's Chief Blogger

Karen Wickre is a long-time business communicator, wordsmith & media specialist. Karen grew up in Washington D.C. She has worked for a variety of media and/or branding companies, including Siegel & Gale, Upside Media; the gaming company, 3DO, and of course, Google.

Karen has worked at Google since 2002, specializing in business writing and media relations. Karen first launched Google’s corporate blog back in 2004. Today the company has digital embassies for virtually every product. This armada spans dozens of blogs, Twitter profiles, YouTube and more recently, Facebook. She also developed Google’s corporate strategy using Twitter in 2009; in the first six months, @Google gained more than 2 million followers, making it one of the largest corporate Twitter accounts.

We were able to ask Karen a few key questions about business blogging as preview ahead of her participation at Connected Marketing Week:

What is the most important thing a company new to blogging should do?

Read other business, news, corporate blogs to get a feel for all that's possible. Some are personal (ie an executive writes it), some are collaborative. Some blogs are all about 'thought leadership' and others are more about customer service and best practices. The main thing to do is get familiar with a wide variety (there is no single right way to do this), and begin to consider what *you* would want to say. 

What questions do good business blog posts answer?

Posts don't literally answer questions so much as establish ground for the company. Do most posts offer useful or unique information? Do they reflect the company's values and interests? Do they demonstrate the people behind the company/products?  Collectively, these are the things a good company blog should do.

How do you get people from across the organization to contribute to a business blog?

You have to start with people who are comfortable with writing and editing on the fly, and who have an editorial sense. People who can think broadly enough about what content your blog can encompass. I often advise creating an editorial calendar that people can track and contribute to with ideas - customer stories, presentations from events, commentary, feedback, industry trends, etc. Generally, broader rather than more narrow is a good approach. Don't just wait till you have a big announcement.  However, the more often you post, the higher the demand for resources. The people who work on it day in and day out MUST be at ease. If it feels like homework or takes too many revisions, they're not the right ones to do it.

What should be the metrics for business blogging success?

Tangibles: unique visitors, length of time on page, linkbacks, etc - these are all fine to have. I would consider adding Twitter if for no other reason than to further extend the reach of your posts - tweet each new one - but of course Twitter itself is good for much more than that. Beyond that, if comments or other feedback is enabled, then be sure to mine that and respond. The more interactive questions and calls for participation will also yield metrics.

Karen will lead a special webinar as part of Connected Marketing Week. This webcast will cover the latest trends in corporate blogging, Google’s unique take on blogger messaging, and Karen will give webcast participants opportunities to ask her their most pressing blogging questions!

Free Download: Marketing Data: 50+ Marketing Charts and Graphs

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10 Steps to Effective Online Marketing For Small Businesses

The following is a guest post by Peter Rastello, the founder of Inbound Market Link, an Inbound Marketing agency specializing in helping small and medium, B2B and B2C businesses to succeed on the internet.

If you are a marketing professional in charge of your small/medium sized business’ (SMB) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Inbound marketing, you are not alone. According to Marketing Sherpa, SMBs spend roughly 20% more on staff salaries to handle SEO & internet marketing  than do large sized businesses who tend to out-source this activity. For this reason, it is critical that SMB marketers focus carefully. Here are the abbreviated 10 steps to effective marketing online:

1. The Importance of Google – with approximately 80% of all searches being conducted via Google, it is critical to primarily focus SEO effort on this search engine. Yahoo and Bing, are less important but still an important part of search engine marketing.
2. Keyword Selection – Pick keywords that are relevant to your business but also fairly easy to rank for. Look for multi-word phrases or ‘long-tail keywords’ as they are usually less competitive
3. Content is King - Prospects are more likely to buy from you if you are a thought leader, so establish yourself as one by creating extraordinarily helpful content. Take decisive action to ensure prospective customers are attracted to your site as a place to find answers.
4. Generosity is Also King – Another key part to attracting customers is your generosity in giving away information, access to tools, etc., which also earns you inbound links which improves your search engine rankings.
5. Social Media – Focus on the top three social media venues: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Remember, ‘be real’ and ‘be there’ to help the community rather than to push products.
6. Calls-to-Action – It’s important to provide something of value that solves a problem for visitors  in exchange for their contact information. Often traffic will not be ready to buy right away, but a tempting call to action will lead them down the sales funnel.
7. Landing Pages - Everything that has been done to draw qualified traffic to a site, from improving SEO, to generating great content comes to a head in the landing page. Leads should be confronted with an inescapable case for them to leave their carefully guarded personal information on the form. Having one offer, recapping benefits, and a short form are all key.
8. Lead Nurturing – follow up calls to action with a ‘thank you’ email and a lead nurturing campaign that further entices leads down the sales funnel with additional  free offerings– this is a free opportunity to keep touch with a lead.
9. Tracking Progress – Effective Inbound Marketing is all about experimentation. Select a strategy based on experience with customers and industry to get people to both visit and convert on the website. But anticipate that initial assumptions about keywords, or what it takes to get traffic to convert will not be right (or not right enough) and changes will need to be made. For this reason, it is essential to have a complete internet analysis tool-suite to help figure out what’s working and what’s not.
10. Patience & Tenacity – It’s easy to become discouraged and frustrated if Inbound Marketing is approached as a point solution. In reality, it’s a long term strategy only rewarding those who approach it with patience and tenacity

This was a condensed version of the full white paper, The Ten Essential Steps to Effective Marketing Online which you are invited to download for free.

(image by: ExtraNoise)

   

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