Why Click Fraud Is A Problem For You
Click fraud is a bigger problem than many paid search firms will lead you to believe. In fact, many firms do not even bother to track click fraud and that is a fatal mistake.
Click fraud exists when advertisers maliciously click on the ads of other advertisers in order to drive up advertising expenses. Does it happen? You bet it does and it happens often. It is probably underreported, even by the search engine companies that provide paid search opportunities.
If you don’t track click fraud then you’ll end up paying a lot more for your paid search campaigns than is necessary. It will cost you money and it could land you with a negative ROI.
Reciprocal Consulting keep a constant eye on potential click fraud. We don’t want you to spend any more on your paid search campaigns than is absolutely necessary and we want you to make money on those campaigns because if you return a profit then we believe you’ll come back and use our services more.
In order to keep you away from danger areas, we do not use click fraud hotbeds like content matching. Instead, we focus on developing and targeting effective keyword groups so that you can make the most of your paid search management opportunities. As a result, our click fraud issues are significantly less than the click fraud problems that other paid search providers have.
3 Web Design Mistakes To Avoid
Web design is not as easy as it looks. There are specific mistakes and pitfalls to avoid and specific web design elements that will almost always be preferred over others. Here are 3 bona fide mistakes to avoid when designing your next website.
- Irrelevant information, or information overload – This is a fairly common mistake. You design your website and it looks pretty, but you have put too much information in your site. As a result, it is difficult to read and visitors do not want to spend the time it takes to read every word. Sometimes, less is more. Only say what is absolutely necessary to get the business. Get in, close the sale.
- Lack of visual elements – A web page with nothing but text is boring. Break up the text with images, videos, and other multimedia graphics. Make your pages look interesting and people will stick around longer.
- Complicated navigation structures – Navigation is one of the most important aspects of web design. Make your site easy to navigate and the information easy to find. Otherwise, you’ll lose your visitors.
If you avoid these 3 web design mistakes then you’ll go a long way to improving your website and increasing your chances of closing the sale.
Competitive SEO Intelligence
Competitive intelligence used to deal primarily with market research and product positioning. If you could ascertain your competition’s product launch plans, product and service offering strengths, and their marketing strategies then you could learn enough about the competitive landscape to work out your own product and marketing plans. These days, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Search engine optimization has become its own competitive arena. You can place that within the marketing realm, but you could just as easily place it within its own domain too
Regardless how you see it, though, you need intelligence on your competition’s SEO initiatives. Here’s what that intelligence entails, in a nutshell:
- Number of web pages
- Number and strength of inbound links
- Keywords targeting
- Search engine rankings per keyword
- Web hosting relationships
- Page load speeds
- Code-to-text ratios
- Unique SEO strategies implemented
- Movements within search rankings
That’s just to name a few. You can drill down deep in the SEO landscape to find out more about your competition or keep it simple. It’s entirely up to you. But I recommend that you learn as much as you can about your competition’s SEO strategies, both those planned and implemented, as you plan your own campaigns.
If you want to compete online, competitive SEO intelligence is an absolute necessity.
What Is A Full Service Internet Marketing Company?
A phrase that gets used a lot in many industries is “full service.” But what does that mean, exactly?
In terms of Internet marketing, if you find a full service Internet marketing company then that implies several things.
- First and foremost, it implies that the company cares about you as a customer. You are more than just a number. You are someone to be served.
- The company provides more than one type of service within the domain of its niche. By “full service”, we mean we run the gamut from PPC, SEO, and social media marketing to video production and web design. We offer a full range of services.
- Another thing that “full service” implies is a robust customer service initiative. You don’t just get told what will be done for you. You are shown powerful ways which the best Internet marketing strategies can make your company stand out. And then it is proven.
A full service Internet marketing company is one that puts you first, will do anything (as long as it is legal and ethical) to help you reach your online marketing goals, and has a wide array of services to offer with qualified technical personnel ready and able to carry them out. In essence, you can trust the service.
Develop Your Own Tweet Button
You know those Twitter Tweet and Retweet buttons? Did you know you can develop your own using Twitter’s API? It’s true. Twitter now has its own Tweet button and you can take it right off the shelf or develop your own. Get details here.
Mashable first broke this news a couple of weeks ago.
The good news here is that you can have your tweets and retweets counted by Twitter itself and not some third-party plug-in or application. There’s nothing wrong with those third-party applications, of course. But if you can get the same deal from the primary source itself, wouldn’t you like to have that deal? I would.
I think you may, over time, see some of those third-party tweet buttons go by the way side. As more users start to notice Twitter’s own Tweet button then I can see more users opting for it over the other applications. And there’s a good reason why.
What do you think? Is Twitter beginning its rise to dominance over social media marketing with its own Tweet button or this just much hype over nothing?
SEO, SEM: What’s The Difference?
Do you know the difference between SEO and SEM? They seem to be synonymous terms, don’t they? Actually, there is a difference.
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SEO = Search Engine Optimization;
SEM = Search Engine Marketing
There’s where the similarity ends – or begins, I might say. Now let’s move on to definitions.
Search engine optimization is the practice of using keywords, links, and other on-page and off-page factors to rank a web page in the search engines.
So what is search engine marketing? Well, it’s a bit broader term. It can encompass SEO, but it also encompasses pay per click marketing and any other form of marketing that directly relates to marketing through the search engines.
The key to marketing online is to get your search engine marketing to collaborate with your other marketing initiatives. Your PPC, SEO, social media marketing, display advertising, affiliate marketing, and any other marketing you do online should work together to brand your company and lead to more effective search engine positioning all around. If you do that well then you’ll go a long way to achieving a high impact reputation enhancing marketing drive. That’s what you want, isn’t it?
Online marketing is just another channel for your business. It’s not the only channel, but it’s an important. It will behoove you to learn the principles and then work them to your, and your customers’, advantage.
Why Hire A Search Engine Marketing Consultant?
What can a search engine marketing consultant do for you? For starters, he can improve your current SEM plan just by analyzing what you are currently doing and making a few suggestions. But that’s not all. There are specific benefits to hiring a consulting firm to help you improve your search engine marketing efforts.
Here are a few of the benefits to hiring a search engine marketing consulting firm:
- You get a month-to-month contract, not a long-term contract. If it isn’t working for you, end the relationship and go your own way.
- Agency level support on all search engines.
- You also get access to all Beta programs. As an individual doing your own PPC, you may not get that privilege.
- Your marketing will be less expensive than using your in-house team. When you add in salary and benefits plus time off for sick days, etc., we’re way cheaper.
- We’re trained in all aspects of SEM. You get a full crew that can handle all your needs from PPC to SEO.
- A search engine marketing consultant is trained to understand each search engine’s unique specifications and operate within those guidelines.
- There are no sick days or vacations. When you call, someone will always be available.
Search engine marketing is one of the most important channels for marketing your business today. Hire a specialist who knows the game in and out.
Questions To Ask Your Internet Marketing Company
Before you hire a company to handle your Internet marketing, whether you want them to do your SEO, you PPC, or social media marketing, ask these questions (and make sure you get responsible answers):
- How do you budget Adwords to simultaneously maximize the number of clicks and minimize cost?
- How do you know which keywords to optimize for natural search and which ones are best left to the “bubble chasers?”
- Which search engines have the lowest incidence of click fraud?
- How do you set up a tracking phone number? Why should you?
- How do you track and handle leads when they come in to your firm?
- Is it better to have a lot of ad copy on a landing page or a lot of bullet points?
- How do you write your ad copy so people will fill out your contact form or call you?
- Where should the phone number be on a page? Which pages should have them?
- How do you fix a “page highjack?”
- Is there a penalty for putting too many keywords in your meta-tags?
- What are the benefits of a “content management system?” What are the drawbacks?
- How do you know when to use a broad match, phrase match or exact match in a Google Adwords campaign?
Internet marketing is not rocket science, but I wouldn’t say that anyone can do it either. The truth is, a professional company will look out for your bests interests. They’ll develop a useful strategy for marketing your company to your intended clientele. And it will make sense that they do the things that they do.
What’s A Rank Report?
A Rank Report is a report you receive that details how search engine optimization efforts have affected your keyword rankings. It is generally composed of your list of keywords and how they rank at the top search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
The keyword ranking report has a start date and an end date for comparison purposes. If you know, for instance, that your most important keyword was ranked at No. 10 in Google, No. 5 in Bing, and No. 20 in Yahoo! on such-and-such date then you can judge your progress on another date three or six months later. That’s the benefit of a Rank Report.
The Rank Report tells you your current position for each keyword in each of the search engines, the previous ranking, the difference in the change, what page of the search results for each search engine the landing page for that keyword appears on, and your best ranking during the report period. That’s a lot of information, but all of it is necessary in order to judge your SEOs effectiveness.
Click the following link to see a sample Rank Report in PDF format. To learn more about how search engine optimization can improve your online marketing efforts, visit Reciprocal Consulting’s main website.
PPC Call Tracking
One of the benefits to running a pay per click (pay per call) campaign is that you can track your phone calls to see where they are coming from. Call tracking results in the following benefits:
- Fewer missed calls – When a caller calls she gets an automated e-mail and the call is stored in our internal database. You can get an on-demand call report at any time.
- Call blocking – Receive only the calls you want to receive based on area code or state.
- ROI tracking – Know for sure how much money your PPC campaign is making.
- Call recording – Record every call for monitoring purposes and to better train your employees.
- Get a local, toll free or international number – Use the phone number that best makes sense for your marketing and customer service purposes.
- No additional charges – One monthly fee and no extra charges.
Track your calls to see how effective your PPC – pay per call – campaigns are. Get actionable intelligence and act intelligently upon it.
A 12-Step Program For Increasing Profits Through PPC
Visit our case studies page and you’ll learn how we’ve helped some clients save money on expenses while increasing revenues. We saved one client 47% on expenses and increased profits by 14%. How did we do this? With these 12 steps:
- Shifted content matching to serve targeted sites only
- Identified broad match keywords with low conversion rates and drilled down to exact referring keywords
- Rewrote ads and split tested to determine maximum click-through rates
- Started a keyword campaign based on competitor names
- Reduced image files to increase page load speeds
- Added a script to highlight referring keywords
- Improved shopping cart usability and lowered abandon rates
- Improved website’s internal search features
- Retargeted previous visitors to increase return rates at a fraction of the cost of PPC click-through rates
- Made navigation menus easier to read
- Regrouped keywords into tighter groups and rewrote landing pages to improve quality score
- Used special offer pages more effectively
We did all of this in 40 days. We’re sure we can help you improve the efficiency of your PPC campaigns as well. It doesn’t cost anything for an initial consultation.
Is Quora Just Another Answer Site?
You’ve likely heard of Yahoo! Answers. Thousands of people flock to the site every day to ask, and to answer, questions. For the answerer, it’s a great way to make oneself an authority on a subject. You answer questions and people respond with their own answers.
Quora is another question and answer site just like Yahoo! Answers. One of the best parts of Quora is that people can vote on your answers. The more people who vote for your answer the more likely you are to increase your reputations. Answers with the most votes rise to the top of the heap and the answerer gets a boost in reputation.
I think Quora is also a more attractive looking site than Yahoo! Answers. But there aren’t as many people using it yet. Nevertheless, it presents another chance for you to make your mark in a particular industry and be seen as an expert in your field.
Question and answer sites like Quora and Yahoo! Answers present a great way for people like you to make themselves a perceived authority. All it takes is a few minutes a day.
How Google TV Will Change Video Marketing
Yesterday we talked a little bit about Google TV and how it will change Internet marketing in general. Today I’d like to narrow it down a little bit. Specifically, Google TV promises to make big changes to video marketing. But how?
I think the most obvious way that Google TV will change video marketing is in giving video marketers more options. Currently, you have a few online video directories – like Hulu and YouTube – where you can upload your videos.
All the video directories have their own unique spins and ways to profit from video marketing. YouTube is the most popular. Google TV promises is to make those video channels available to more people. It is no stretch of imagination to consider that people who are not currently on the Internet will have access to it through Google TV.
Another way video marketing will change with Google TV is with distribution. I don’t know if anyone has considered this yet, but can you imagine uploading your videos directly from your TV, VCR, or DVD player to an online directory like YouTube or MetaCafe? It might not seem possible now, but I think it could be possible in just a few years to convert analog video like VCR recordings into digital in a few clicks – and you’ll likely be able to do that on your TV.
A third way Google TV will change video marketing is by making the videos a higher quality.
If this seems like science fiction, it is. But the technology is available to make it happen so it isn’t far fetched. In what ways do you think Google TV will change video marketing?
Why Google TV Is On The Brink Of Taking The Web To Another Level
About every two or three years a new development in Web technology takes the Internet – and Internet marketing – to a new level. In 1995, Yahoo! offered us a web directory that made finding websites a whole lot easier. In 1998, Google arrived on the scene with its interesting new algorithms.
Shortly after that, pay per click advertising was introduced. PPC, however, would not really take off until around 2001.
By 2003, it was clear that social bookmarking was going to be a big part of Internet marketing. In 2005, YouTube made us all video marketers. Then, just a couple of years ago we all started getting into Facebook and Twitter. Social networking was a necessity for anyone trying to market themselves online.
Mobile technology is just taking off. But I think Google TV will surpass all of these previous technologies and will make the Internet even more ubiquitous than it is today.
Google TV was introduced just this year so it hasn’t really caught on yet, but I think it’s only a matter of two or three years before the popular conscience sees it as a useful tool. Then, everyone will want it. And when everyone wants it then it will be hard for serious Internet marketers to ignore. I think it will happen before 2013. Google TV will transform Internet marketing into a full multimedia experience. Now is the time to start preparing for that inevitability.
Should You Start With Paid Search Or Natural Search?
One question we get asked a lot is, “Should I start with paid search or natural search?” It’s a good question, and we have a ready answer.
We recommend that you start with paid search. There are some very definite reasons why. No. 1 on the list is paid search gives you an opportunity to test your keywords quickly. If you focus first on natural search you could spend a year or more testing keywords and still not come away with a definitive list of keywords that will help you reach the right market. It’s a much slower process in terms of seeing results.
Paid search, on the other hand, will give you plenty of opportunities to test your market and your keywords to see which ones are most effective for your marketing campaigns. And you can do it relatively quickly.
How quickly? You can have a good starting list of keywords and know which ones have the most profit potential in a week or less. That’s how quickly.
See now why we recommend starting with paid search and moving on from there? It’s not that natural search isn’t effective. It is. But you can get the answers you need right now much faster with paid search.
Is Facebook Good For Marketing?
AllFacebook shows some interesting statistics about how Americans are using the Internet. Get this:
- Americans spend 23% of their time online.
- Facebook is 85% of that.
- 36% of the time online is spent communicating through social networks, blogs, personal e-mail and instant messaging.
So what are we to make of all of this? Facebook is the shiznit?
Actually, people go to Facebook to socialize, to hang out with their friends. They aren’t there to be marketed to. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t engage with people in a powerful way about your brand.
While it’s an important marketing principle to go where the people are, it’s also important that you not intrude or you’ll be seen as rude and undesirable to do business with. For that reason, I recommend the following principles when marketing yourself through Facebook.
- Less is more. Don’t be too aggressive.
- Engage your followers with dialogue about important principles related to what you do. For instance, you might ask what your followers’ favorite kind of dance shoe is (if you are a dance instructor).
- Don’t assume your followers are there to see you talk about yourself and your business all the time.
- Get to know people – like at a party. Just schmooze. Ask them what they’ve got going on. Let people see that you are a real person.
- Don’t spend all your time there. You’ll never get any work done.
Facebook is like any other marketing channel, only it’s different. The strategy is different than traditional marketing channels like direct mail and TV. Still, when you get right down to it, people are motivated a lot by the same dynamics online as they are off line.
Learn more about optimizing for Facebook.
How Do You Choose The Right Keywords?
Whether you are conducting a pay-per-click campaign, search engine optimization or social media marketing, you need to do some keyword research and pick the right keywords for your marketing efforts. But how should you go about doing that?
Of course, even if you’re just building your website then keyword research is in order.
First, study your competition. What are they doing? Write down any keywords you find on your competition’s websites. Analyze those keywords with regard to your differences and similarities to your competition. Does anything stick out?
That should help you narrow down your keywords to a niche that you fill within your industry. Now look for some synonyms. Using a tool like Google’s keyword research tool, enter your keywords and look for related keywords that might help you.
Now search for those keywords in Google and Bing and see what the competition is like. Are there a lot of websites targeting those keywords? That can be both good and bad. It’s bad because the more websites targeting those keywords the tougher your competition; it’s good because if there are a lot of websites targeting a keyword then it’s because that keyword is valuable.
After you’ve done all your keyword research, pick the ones that are best for your business. Those are the keywords that you’d expect a searcher to type into Google’s search box when they are trying to find the products and services you offer.
Don’t cut corners on keyword research. It’s an important part of your online marketing plan.
5 Customer Testimonials
Testimonials are a very important part of any business. Make people happy and they’ll tell you about it. They may even tell their friends.
Well, Reciprocal Consulting has some great customers and we’re proud to announce that we’ve made them very happy. Here are 5 customer testimonials just for your eyes:
RP is the only company we’ve found that we can trust managing our PPC. Their intensive and consistent work building and maintaining our account stands out from the numerous providers we’ve wasted time and money with.
Thanks, Michael. And now here’s one from 3D Video Ultrasound:
“Jacob,
You are dominating my industry in Southern CA on Google. I could not be any happier! We are creating a banner that will state anyone driving over 40 miles to our facility will receive an automatic 25% off any package. That should help with the further clicks. Great job Jacob…Thanks again”
3D Video Ultrasound, PPC Lead Generation
Of course, we do more than PPC and video marketing consulting. Let’s hear from an SEO client:
“…the day we signed our contract with Reciprocal Consulting the leads started comming in. They know what they are doing and they care about our bottom line. What else can you ask from an Internet Marketing Company?”
Real Estate Agency, PPC & SEO Lead Generation
And website development:
“Hey Jacob:
You did it. I got a nice couples lead today and will be seeing them this evening. GREAT JOB….keep tweaking whatever you are tweaking. Hoping I get more over the weekend.”
Marriage Therapist, PPC Lead Generation & Website Development
And we’re capable of helping people in any industry, even travel:
“Hi Dan:
Yes, things this month are great – and I like the most that the overall cost is down – thus far I am at $2400+/- and last month this time I was already over $3000 – keep up the good work!!! Thanks for checking in!”
Travel Website, PPC Lead Generation
Check out more great customer testimonials on our website. We love our customers.
Google Starts Small Business Blog
Google’s blogs seem like they get a fresh start every day. From PPC and analytics to Google AdSense, Google has something to say about all kinds of things. The latest topic is small business.
The Google Small Business Blog will address the following topics of interest to small business owners:
- AdSense
- AdWords
- Apps
- Gmail
- Analytics
- Google Docs
- Google Places
- YouTube
- Upcoming events
- And other small business topics
It seems that the small business blog will cover a lot of topics that are already covered on other Google blogs except that you’ll be able to get a lot of the same information under one umbrella. It also looks like a way for Google to promote all of its offerings targeted toward small business owners. So is it safe to say it’s self serving?
I’d say that’s an unfair statement. It’s about as self serving as any other small business blog. The difference is, this one’s published by Google. So what does that mean? Two things, I think:
- The information will come from a credible source
- And the information will be naturally biased toward Google’s products
Both of those are a positive. But I wouldn’t stop reading your other Internet marketing blogs.
Where Do You Drive Your Social Media Prospects?
Social media marketing is like a microcosm of marketing in general. In the sense that you can drive traffic to where you want it using the proper social media marketing channels, you can run an effective marketing campaign in just a few hours a week. But how does the traffic flow?
We recommend that you use social networking like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the many other social networking sites online to drive traffic to your blog. You then use your blog to attract opt-in subscribers to your e-mail list. And you use your e-mail marketing campaigns to drive traffic to your sales pages.
If you use this model you will find that your sales pages will receive the most conversions. Your e-mail blasts will receive a fair number of conversions but not as many as your sales landing pages. Your blog will also receive a decent number of conversions but not as many as your e-mail campaigns. Your social networking profiles will receive the fewest conversions, but they will be a primary driver of traffic to your blog.
This is called a sales funnel. Establish your sales funnel and then work it to achieve the results you want to achieve. You can do that with social media as well as anything else.
Whose Reputation Are You Managing?
Reputation management is a type of marketing that can either be handled proactively 24/7 or it can be forgotten until you need it. I don’t recommend the latter course. It’s too important to leave to chance or fate.
But I do believe that everyone is involved in reputation management to some degree. You may not know it, but you are managing someone’s reputation even if not your own. Care to know what I mean?
As it goes, every activity you perform online helps someone. It might even hurt someone. Search engine optimization, social media, pay per click advertising, you name it, all of it is benefiting someone. And if you approach your online marketing initiatives in the wrong way, you could just be benefiting the wrong people.
For instance, let’s say you are chatting it up with some friends on your favorite social network. Someone says something and you retort. Unfortunately, you didn’t think about what you were about to say in time and you make an embarrassing comment. You can’t take it back. Your competition could have just scored a point.
That’s how serious this game of reputation management is. One little slip up could cost you in terms of potential business, mass perception or in other small ways.
You can’t afford to be nonchalant about your reputation. Manage it well and it will help you. Mismanage it and it might haunt you forever.
How Often Do You Check Your PPC Campaigns?
If you run pay per click marketing campaigns and you aren’t checking in on them every single day (or more often) then you are probably losing money. You cannot run a PPC campaign and just let it sit.
Managing a PPC campaign is time consuming. You can’t just allocate money for your campaigns, select your keywords, write your ads and then forget about it. It requires constant monitoring.
To manage a PPC campaign effectively you’ve got to narrow down your keywords and see which ones are working for you. You can’t do that if you aren’t checking in. You should check your campaigns at least once daily. Find out which keywords are most profitable, which ones are getting the click-throughs and which ones are leading to sales. In essence, you want to know which PPC campaigns are most profitable for you.
Until you know these things, you cannot be effective in pay per click advertising. It’s not a set-and-forget deal.
Internet Marketing Is Not A ‘Jump In’ Sport
If you are considering jumping into Internet marketing to see if it might work or to satisfy your curiosity then you might want to reconsider.
I don’t mean to discourage you, but Internet marketing has grown into its own little niche profession. It’s not like in the old days when you could throw up a website in a couple of hours, write a few articles and distribute them around the web and then just sit back and watch the money flow in. Even then, there was more work involved than your typical guru will lead you to believe.
Today, however, there is a lot more work involved. You need to have a solid plan before you even begin.
There are so many different Internet marketing strategies to choose from that you will not likely employ them all. At least, you likely won’t employ them all on your first go at it. In fact, I would recommend focusing on a few strategies to start then adding others as you become more familiar with Internet marketing as a whole. You can make money online, but you have to work hard and study long.
5 Steps To Better Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence is one of the most important aspects of doing business online. If you don’t know your competition then chances are you can’t beat them. You might win a few terminal successes along the way, but you won’t win the competitive rat race in the long run. You can’t be No. 1 in the marketplace unless you know the competition.
But how do you get there?
Competitive intelligence is a process. You’ve got to outline the process and work it strategically if you expect to excel. Here are five steps you can follow to better competitive intelligence in any industry.
- Decide which areas of market intelligence are most important to your strategic positioning.
- Make a list of companies in your industry that excel in those functions or that have an upper hand to your business – these should be companies that you want to know more about and/or that you want to study for the purpose of beating in the marketplace.
- Collect information on each company regarding those areas of market intelligence you identified in step 1; compile information from the SEC, press releases, trade journals, articles in the media, credit reports, clients, the companies themselves, trade associations, government offices and anywhere else you can get information on the companies that is legal and ethical.
- Start a file on each company and keep all compiled information on each company in their respective files.
- Rank the companies in order of most proficient for each market intelligence category you are tracking then rank your own company for each of those same tracking metrics to know where you stand against the competition.
The whole idea behind competitive intelligence is to know where you stand against the competition. If you are not No. 1 then you should target your efforts to overcome obstacles and challenges that prevent you from besting the competition. But it starts with knowing who you’re up against.
Google Places Allows Responses To Reviews
Google has announced that businesses with Google Place pages can now respond to reviews about their business if they have a verified account. This is actually good for businesses and can serve as a reputation management tool of the highest order.
Already, if you are listed in Google Places with a link back to your website then you have a much better chance of achieving high rankings for your keywords than if you don’t have a Google Places page. The reviews will further make optimization for your keywords and company brand an important part of doing business online, especially for local businesses.
I share Frank Reed’s concern about responses to reviews on third-party sites:
From what I can gather this response mechanism is for reviews that are done in Google Maps only (I am willing to be wrong here if someone from Google would like to let me know). This would limit the ability for the business owner to truly manage his / her online reputation completely but it is a very good step in the right direction to make the Google Place Page an even more important part of every local business’s online presence.
On the other hand, the reviews are not there necessarily for the benefit of reputation management. Business reviews serve multiple purposes, but generally they are to help consumers get an idea of what to expect from doing business with a company based on what other consumers are saying. Allowing a business to respond to reviews simply gives potential customers more to go on in making a decision.
For instance, a business’s response to a review can tell a consumer whether the business takes feedback from customers seriously. It can also allow the business to provide more information to a particular case so that potential consumers can determine the true value of the complaint (after all, not all negative reviews have equal merit).
So while I share the concern for opportunities in reputation management that Frank Reed mentions, I’m also aware that businesses have that opportunity even without the ability to respond to reviews on third-party sites. Maybe not as much, but it’s there. Still, this is a good move by Google Places.
Can Reputation Management Services Erase Negative Reviews?
An article on BusinessWeek’s website asks if online reputation management services work. It’s a legitimate question and one worth considering. Just what does a reputation management company do and does it work?
First, you need to understand that if someone goes online and makes a negative comment about your business that you can’t make it disappear. Once it is online then it is a permanent record. Period.
Having said that, there are some things you can do to help diminish the impact of negative information about you online. One of the things you can do is try to use search engine optimization to push negative results down further and to increase the exposure of positive information about your company. Honestly, though, that’s not a perfect solution and it’s getting harder and harder to accomplish.
Another thing you can do is respond to information about you that you feel may be unfair to you. This is typically the response of companies that have grown in stature and want to be viewed as reputable.
It’s almost inevitable, once you grow to a certain size then you’ll encounter negative reviews of your company. It used to be that information spread by word of mouth and you had no way to control or monitor it. Now, it quickly makes its way online, which is a benefit to a business owner because you can actually read what people are saying about you and not just hear the rumors. That make it easier to respond to.
Online reputation management is not a cure-all panacea for every negative information you find about yourself. It is part SEO and part PR. But its purpose is to aid you in telling your story in a positive manner.
Are Social Gaming And Real World Commerce About To Marry?
You have to hand it to the companies that create these applications for Facebook where you can play games, send gifts and enjoy the company of friends in far away places right across your Internet connection. Zynga is one of those companies that has truly made a name for itself in social gaming.
Virtual gifts through these gaming applications has really caught on. But what if you could send real world gifts through these games, would you? If you could make real world purchases through social games, would you do that?
32% of social gamers said they would.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s enough of a market that social gaming creators could introduce the opportunities and see what happens. Here’s a quick example of numbers:
Let’s say your social gaming application has 100,000 users. If you create an opportunity for them to make a real world purchase through the game and 32,000 of them do so within the first year. If you make just $1 profit off of each of those gamers then that’s a nice increase in your bottom line. Grow your application by 10%-15% per year and in just a few years you’ll have a pretty nice income from one real world purchase opportunity. Diversify and, well, you know ….
What’s your take? Do you think social gaming and real world commerce have a chance? Is this the new wave of social media optimization?
Why Are Google And Yelp Fighting Over Local Search?
It seems that Google Places has moved in on Yelp’s turf. And Yelp isn’t happy about it.
Specifically, Google’s strong moves into local with their new Places push seem to be going right at Yelp’s core. Sure’s it’s potentially about more than just local venue reviews, but that’s a huge part of it. And that’s what Yelp is all about.
So, Google and Yelp had a deal. Then Yelp pulled out of it. It seems that Google thinks it doesn’t need a deal after all. Perhaps that is why they introduced Google Places. Perhaps Google feels it can do local reviews better than Yelp. But it’s using Yelp content to draw in searchers. Is it sending traffic back to Yelp?
I can’t imagine that Yelp isn’t getting any new traffic from Google Places. It may not be as much new traffic as they’d like to get, but Google has far more users than Yelp has and not everyone who searches for local businesses knows about Yelp. That equates to a good thing. So I’m not sure what this is about really.
Is it just me or is Yelp over reacting? Perhaps they just need to focus on quality search engine optimization.
Is The World Soon To Be All Mobile?
Android … iPhone … iPad … we could go on. Mobile phones, text messages, Twitter. It seems the whole world is going mobile. Or is it?
Well, it might seem that way to some people. And the increase in mobile apps certainly does nothing to quell that impression. However, all things said and done, mobile marketing is not necessarily the Holy Grail many online marketers thought it would be. Sure, there are opportunities to reach new markets (and to stay in touch with old markets) through mobile marketing, but I still think the best opportunities for most marketers is online. Laptops, social networks, search engines, etc.
This isn’t a proclamation so much as an observation. Mobile marketing has its place and I do believe it can be used successfully. But for most small businesses – even local businesses – it could just be a channel that you’ll want to monitor but not sink too many dollars into.
The bottom line, really, on any type of marketing is whether or not you have a reasonable expectation to reach the right market. If so, give it a try. If not then don’t bother. Only you know your business and your customers. What do you think?