The Reciprocal Consulting Blog

You might get the impression, if you spend a lot of time watching the news, that because newspapers are dying off and the whole world is going online then press releases are a thing of the past. That would be wildly inaccurate. Press releases are, in fact, more important today then ever.

Rather than limit themselves to sending out press releases to local news organizations, many public relations professionals today simply submit their press releases to press release distribution outlets online.

This might be done in addition to sending press releases to pet news and media professionals at the local level or in one’s niche.

Since press release distribution is typically done online these days, it behooves a public relations professional to make sure the press release is optimized. You can’t rely on news professionals to search the press release directories to find your press release. You also want to optimize them for search engine traffic.

One reason why you want your press release optimized is because your audience doesn’t merely consist of media professionals. Anyone searching for information online can find your press release if you have optimized it correctly. And, in truth, that’s the way you want it to be.

If you’re used to doing a lot of offline marketing, or traditional marketing, then you’ve likely noticed that it has become quite expensive in the last few years. Oil prices have driven up the cost of paper and everything else. The economy taking a downturn has caused many businesses to stop advertising altogether, or diminish their marketing budgets.

But there is hope. Online marketing is less expensive and, if done right, is much more effective. That’s why so many businesses have transferred their marketing and advertising budgets to online.

Here are 5 online marketing methods that are outpacing their offline counterparts:

1. Pay Per Click – Pay per click advertising is the online equivalent to some forms of print advertising. The difference is you pay only when a desired result takes place. It can be less expensive and deliver a higher ROI.
2. Social Networking – Offline, you go to business functions. You often have to buy dinner, pay for transportation costs, business cards, and other incidentals. Online, you just show up. And talk to people. Make friends and contacts. Sell them stuff. The time commitment is higher, but it’s a lot easier on the budget.
3. Video Marketing – Liken it to TV advertising. Do you really want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on 30-second spots that disappear with the money? Instead, pay for one video and it stays live online forever.
4. Website Design – Call them online billboards. Just like outdoor advertising, you have a limited space – your prospect’s browser window. Unlike outdoor billboards, that space can be expanded. And you can build many websites for less than the cost of a handful of billboards.
5. Search Engine Optimization – Sorry, but there is no offline equivalent to search engine optimization. Yet it’s still the most effective online marketing money can buy.

Try just one or incorporate them all into your marketing plans, but online marketing is where it’s at.

When businesses go online to learn how to participate in Internet marketing campaigns that work, there is usually a lot to think about, a lot of new information to take in for those business owners and managers. The problem is how to process it all.

What I always suggest is to take it a little bite at a time. You can’t learn everything in one day. You can’t become a master of every art in your lifetime. Don’t even try.

The key is to start with the basics. Study a little bit about web design before you do anything else. What are the best practices for web design for businesses of your size and in your industry? Study the competition to see what they are doing that you like and that you don’t like. Then analyze what is effective.

Remember, you are only studying the basics at first. At some point, you have to rely on the advice of experts because you are nowhere near that status yourself.

After you have learned the basics of web design, move on to another topic such as search engine optimization or pay per click advertising. Again, take the time to learn the basics before moving on to something else.

It takes time to truly learn how to successfully manage an Internet marketing camnpaign. It’s not going to happen overnight. With the proper guide, your business can achieve a little success and move on to greater success – one step at a time.

Is SEO getting harder to achieve for everyday webmasters? I believe it is. This can be evidenced by the number of webmasters who are giving up on it entirely, or in part, and begin chasing other, less effective, channels like social media marketing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that social media marketing can be effective. But numbers don’t lie. And the number that I’m speaking about specifically right now is the 80% number. That’s the percentage of web traffic that is driven by search engines – organic search.

If 80% of your web traffic is coming from search engines (and 90% of that from Google), then that’s a channel you don’t want to ignore.

Granted, the search engines are making it harder and harder for the average webmaster to figure out how to style and write their content for the best rankings. It seems sometimes that the blackhat guys have a better chance. Don’t fret. You have as much a chance to rank your content as everyone else does – if you just pay attention to a few little details first.

• The first thing to remember is that search engines like fresh original content. Don’t use those old PLR articles. Even if you rewrite them, you’re likely to fill your website with duplicate content.
• Titles are very important. Write good ones that are effective and optimized.
• Build some inbound links to that website, but be careful where you go to get them.
• Study the competition; what are they doing right – and wrong?

Search engine optimization hasn’t changed a whole lot in 10-12 years. Sure, there have been big changes, but the core fundamentals are still the same. Don’t go chasing every new method or technique someone mentions and be sure to do a lot of testing.

More important than keyword density, more important than ensuring you put your keywords in all the right spots, and more important than inbound anchor text with a solid keyword pick is your keyword selection to begin with. Of course, I’m not talking about whether or not you choose keywords. I’m talking about making sure you choose the right keywords for your business.

Keyword selection is about more than picking the right keyword for the best search engine optimization practices. It’s just as much about choosing the right keywords for your business.

For instance, if you sell red widgets, then you would not want to optimize your web pages for the term “yellow widgets.” You would attract all the wrong customers. But I see businesses doing this all the time. More often, I see businesses targeting a generalized keyword when drilling down to a nichier, narrower keyword would deliver better targeted traffic.

Here’s another for instance. If you sell industrial construction materials, optimizing your website for the keyword phrase “construction materials” is too broad. You want to narrow it to “industrial construction materials.” This will eliminate anyone looking for construction materials to build a house. You want to attract people looking for a specific type of construction materials.

Keyword selection is very important. Make sure that you are not only optimizing your web pages for keywords related to your niche, but that they are the right keywords for your business.

An article at Marketing Pilgrim says that small business owners worry about obtaining new customers. In fact, they lay awake at night thinking about it.

Is that you? Do you lay awake at night worrying about where your next customer is coming from? Don’t. It could come from any number of sources – if you take action.

Prospecting for new clients takes time. And it is costly. More costly, in fact, than retaining the customers you already have. But if you don’t do it, what will happen? Many small businesses find out what happens when they are no longer providing a service after two to five years.

You can’t let worry freeze you. Running a small business is about taking action to attract new customers and keep the ones you have happy. Here are a few tactics that other small business owners have used to do just that:

• Built a website
• Employed search engine optimization on their website
• Drove traffic with pay per click advertising
• Produced online videos
• Engaged in e-mail marketing
• Spent time on social media

All of these tactics are effective if employed correctly. They’re not the only tactics that work, but they do work. They are much more effective than worrying. So stop worrying and start taking action.

Quora has made a name for itself as a Q&A site. Relatively new to the game, it has grown quickly and is the Q&A home of many savvy and high profile people. Originally, the site had a strict no self-promotion policy. However, recently, that has changed.

There are two ways to look at this change. You can see it as an opportunity or you can see it as a problem. If you are of the glass-half-empty variety, you could see it as the spammers are taking over. But if you think in terms of the glass being half full, then you’ll want to jump on the Quora bandwagon real quick.

In April, Google started indexing Quora in its real time search feature. That’s awesome news for marketers using Quora for traffic generation. It’s already been established that Quora posts are great for SEO.

Whether you see the glass half full or half empty, the risk is there for Quora to become another content farm under Google’s Panda rules. Quora can avert that eventuality by incorporating a few simple rules into its answers policy to combat link and content spam. But will they? The debate is on.

Until this is settled, the best thing for a social media marketer to do is to get involved in Quora and reap the benefits. If you post on Quora now, you can enjoy the benefits of excellent social media positioning and search engine optimization. Rarely do online marketers get to kill both of those birds with one stone.

I’m convinced, after years of being in this business, that an Internet marketing plan is something that every business would benefit from. In most cases, a company that has an established marketing budget can get more mileage from their marketing with less outlay if they transfer some of that budget into Internet marketing. But what does an Internet marketing plan consist of?

Of course, every business is different. Therefore, every Internet marketing plan will be different. The first step is to determine the needs of your market and approach those needs with an open mind.

Once we’ve established your priorities and the needs of your market, your Internet marketing plan could consist of any of the following special tactics:

• Pay per click marketing – PPC is a pay-as-you-go marketing tactic. You buy clicks and send them to your important landing pages. It’s very effective and costs are determined by how much you are willing to pay per click.
• Search engine optimization – SEO is the long-term tactic. We’ll help you rank your web pages in Google, Bing, and other search engines in order to attract the right customers.
• Social Media Optimization – SMO is a different kind of Internet marketing. It’s about building relationships through connections off of your website.
• Custom Web Design – Your website should be a reflection of your business and your values.
• Online Video Marketing – Online videos are the 21st century equivalent to 20th century TV advertising – only better.

When it comes to developing an Internet marketing plan, the strategies you use depend on your market, your business, and your goals. Talk to someone who has designed a custom Internet marketing plan more than a few times.

If you want to ensure that you have great content on your blog or website, there is one way to make sure that you always have great content. It’s called surveying your clients or site visitors.

If you ask the right questions, then you’ll get the right answers.

Ask your customers and/or site visitors what information they would like on a web page that discusses (fill in the blank with your topic). For instance, if you are planning a page on baseball hats, your customers might want to know the following information:

• What size are they?
• How large is the brim?
• Are they adjustable size or are they made for one size head?
• Is there a logo, writing, or a picture on the hat?
• What material is the hat made of?

These are just a few of the questions your customers and site visitors would want to know about your baseball hats.

So now you can take that information and customize it to your situation. Find out what people are looking for when they search Google or Bing on your topic. Then, write your pages to answer those questions. It’s really that simple.

When you do it this way, you’ll not only ensure great content, but you’ll also ensure your web pages are search engine optimized.

Ask anyone who has been around for 40 years or longer and you’ll find that the ways of marketing a business have changed. What worked in 1960 was different than what worked in 1980 and what worked in 1980 isn’t what worked in 2000. Even the marketing strategies used today aren’t the same as what worked in 2000.

Here are 7 online marketing strategies that work today and that will likely work ten years from now.

1. Search engine optimization – Build a website and make sure each web page is optimized for search engine traffic.
2. Pay per click marketing – Spend your money on clicks for a speedy response to your message and watch your income rise.
3. Social media marketing – Use social bookmarking and social networking to connect off of your website, then drive that traffic to your web pages.
4. Video marketing – Online video marketing has arrived in full force. Engage with your audience on YouTube and other video marketing websites.
5. Start a blog – Write to your blog every day. The search engines love the fresh daily content.
6. Article marketing – Write articles and distribute them online to websites within your niche. You’ll build your reputation and build links to your website.
7. Claim your local business listing – Each major search engine has a local business listing associated with their Maps feature. Claim your listing if you are a local business.

There is no substitute for these 7 online marketing strategies. You can do more, but I wouldn’t dare do less.

Professional directories and search engines pose a terrific opportunity for any professional to increase their search engine optimization benefits.

Such directories often allow you to add a link to your website. Sometimes you have to pay for this link, but it can still benefit you as Google often does not penalize directory listings. However, they can, so make sure you are using a reputable directory and not a spam farm.

When it comes to profession-specific directory listings, there are two types. The first type is the official old-fashioned directory where you submit your listing and it is either approved or unapproved by the directory owners.

The second type of directory really isn’t a directory at all. It’s a search engine. You don’t have to submit your website because the search engine will list it automatically.

An example of the second type of directory is MyVeterinarian.com. Their search engine is powered by Google, which means if you have a website indexed by Google, then it will appear in the profession-specific directory as well. This benefits you in two ways.

First, if someone conducts a search for a vet in a specific area at that search engine, then you could be found there. Secondly, the link to your website from the profession-specific search engine could pass on some link juice and help your website rank better for the right search term. Presto! Two benefits.

I highly recommend using profession-specific search engines. There is not a lot that can go wrong.

SEOmoz is a leading SEO blog and they recently posted a very thoughtful essay on Q&A sites and the value of SEO. I encourage you to read the entire blog post, but I’ll offer a few highlights here.

For starters, there is a general encouragement that, despite Google’s recent farmer update, Q&A sites still are a great opportunity to build your own reputation and to do some back linking. If you’re not familiar with the farmer update, let’s just say that Google introduced an algorithm that put a slap on some of those how-to sites, what are generally referred to as “content farms.”

Interestingly, many of the sites that were affected are sites that are written by average Joes. These sites are HubPages, Squidoo, and Associated Content. Even EzineArticles, the popular article directory (and a few other article directories), took a hit. But many of the Q&A sites did not. This forms the basis of Pavel Israelsky’s argument.

I’ll have to hand it to Pavel. He does a good job of outlining why Q&A sites represent a great opportunity right now. Here are his six reasons:

1. People Google more questions than generic keywords
2. Q&A sites have grown in popularity in the last year
3. Q&A pages rank high in the search results
4. They also offer great diversification opportunities for your link portfolio
5. People prefer to link to Q&A pages than to corporate-sponsored pages
6. Targeted traffic means better conversion

I can’t really argue with any of those points. Keep in mind, however, that if you use Q&A sites to target your important keywords, be sure that you find out which questions related to those keywords are being asked in the search engines. That will be key to optimizing your Q&A posts. If you answer questions that are asked, try to optimize your answers as well.

Q&A sites are a relatively recent phenomenon. If they start getting spammed with useless content, you can expect another Google slap down, so don’t go hog wild. Just see the opportunity for what it is and approach it intelligently.

Do you have a difficult time keeping up with Google’s algorithm? Do you try to follow it and make changes to your site every time a new algorithm change is announced, hoping that your changes are going to improve your search engine rankings? Here’s a word of advice: Stop doing that.

It’s a good thing that you are watching the search engines and seeing what they are doing. Keeping up with changes in the search engines and search technology is an important part of SEO and keeping your sites geared for search engine traffic, but that doesn’t mean you have to make changes to your website every time a new algorithm change is introduced.

In fact, most algorithm changes don’t require any changes at all. Instead, keep your eyes on the basics of SEO and let the search engines take care of the rest.

The search engines change their algorithms for different reasons. Sometimes they are correcting or compensating for other factors in the algorithm in order to balance out the importance of the factors being considered for ranking purposes. Other times, they are combating spam or addressing negative issues that affect the entire search community. Instead of guessing at what the algorithm means and how you should respond, focus on the basics and doing what is right.

Your first impression is a big deal. And you only get a chance to make one. That’s why your web design has to be top notch, not just good.

There are three types of web design companies:

• Search engine optimizers who also do web design
• Companies that only do web design
• Companies that design killer websites that are SEOd well

While web design is important, it’s not so important that you should forget about search engine marketing. In fact, a good web design actually takes into consideration the latest SEO techniques and tactics with search engine rankings in mind.

In truth, it’s a balancing act. You balance a beautiful image with great rankings. When you play this balancing act well, it will show in increased traffic to your website and your web pages ranking for the important content you want to rank for. It’s a two-tiered system where both parts are equal.

Web design firms that only do web design can make your site look good, but they won’t get you ranked. You’ll end up having to hire an SEO company to make it rank, and sometimes your SEO company has to make changes to the website.

If you hire an SEO to do web design, then you run the risk of a site that doesn’t leave a good impression. There’s no reason you can’t have both good SEO and awesome web design.

If you were to lift a website from ten years ago and dump it into today’s internet world, it wouldn’t cut it. Business websites of today can be complicated beasts, or at least, they may seem that way. However, a closer inspection will reveal that their anatomy is actually quite simple.

Today’s business website needs to address several factors. Get the design and mix right, and your website will be the least of your worries. So what factors does a modern website need?

Optimized for search – it goes without saying that search is still the number one source of traffic for most websites – this includes both organic, paid, and local search.

Optimized for social – optimizing for social involves a few simple modifications to a standard website. Social buttons are the first factor to consider. Allowing comments or user feedback should also be considered.

Optimized for the user - uncluttered pages, clear call-to-action triggers, easy to follow navigation, and the ability to communicate with you, the business owner, are all important user functions.

Optimized for the Internet – today’s websites need to be slick, fast, easy to follow, and fairly straightforward. Shopping baskets and checkouts need to be smooth processes that are not complicated by over form filling or confusing processes. Today’s website needs to be streamlined in the way it processes users and their data.

Optimized for information – what is the Internet all about? Information and communication. We have communication covered so all that is left is information, and for a website, that boils down to content. Relevant, unique, up-to-date, easy to read, and of value to users – content is what drives websites and its content that attracts visitors.

Does that sound too simplistic? Perhaps you are trying to over complicate what should be a straight out process. The hardest task in building a website to satisfy everything on that list is the seamless integration of each component. If your web design team can get that right, you website is ready to do business.

Facebook – to many people it’s a fad, or a place for kids and their friends to hang out. And, on both scores, they are. And that’s what makes Facebook all the more important. Yes, it’s a fad, but it’s not going away any time soon. And, yes, it is a place where kids and their friends hang out; along with their moms and dads and any other member of the extended family wanting to keep in contact.

From a business perspective, it’s a unique meeting place that has never been achieved in such numbers in the history of mankind. Think about it – where else in history have you had millions of people, all linked in one form or another, in the one place where marketers can display their wares? Nowhere, I can think off.

But does Facebook deliver? That’s the most important question on any business owners mind? According to one report, Facebook is delivering more content than YouTube. Considering YouTube is extremely popular (some say the second biggest search engine on the internet), then that is a lot of content. If you want raw numbers, Facebook delivered 24% of pageviews to YouTube’s 6.93% and Google’s somewhat paltry 4.13% – perhaps that puts the whole Facebook discussion into some perspective.

There is a simple moral to this data. Google is still king of search, but search is losing its position as king of the online world. Users are now heading to social media first, often making it the start page in their browser.  While optimizing pages for search is still important, having a strong online position on Facebook is now becoming important as well. The real danger for many businesses is similar to what we saw ten years ago in search. A lot of businesses shunned search as unimportant – look at it now. Don’t make the same mistake with social – catching up will be even harder.

It seems that web surfer habits are going to play a bigger role in determining the value passed along through outgoing links. At least, if Google implements a process outlined in a patent granted to them recently. The king of patent analysis, Bill Slawski, has an interesting in-depth look at this new patent and comes up with some interesting theories and how this will all relate to search engine optimisation.

Although outbound links have always been considered equal by search engines, web designers and web site owners have known differently for a long time. If you want a link to get the maximum exposure and the most click-throughs, you would place it in of your page;s ‘hot zones’, often considered to be the top left of your page’s content – that’s why you frequently find Adsense ads in these positions.

Web site owners also know that links placed in the footer are generally internal, linking to pages devoted to disclosures, policies, and sitemaps; or links to web page designers and hosts. Links in sidebars such as those found in blogrolls are often links to associated web sites, or links to friends and family.

Bill Slawski takes it one step further, observing that:

a link with anchor text that is bigger than a certain size may have a higher probability of being selected than links with anchor text of a smaller size. Links positioned closer to the top of a page may also be more likely to be clicked upon. If the topic of the document being pointed to is related to the topic of the page the link appears upon, it may also have a higher probability of being selected by a visitor to the page.

Whether or not Google takes this on board is another matter. Of course, for all we know they may have already. You can bet there will be a lot of testing undertaken now to determine if it is in effect. In the future it seems that the best link on a page will be one that is a font size higher, perhaps bold, and links to a page that is closely associated to the current page. Place that link near the top left hand side of your page, within related content, and you may well have created the perfect link. It would be nice if it was that easy!

When it comes to succeeding online, there are more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. In fact, you should never rely on just one way. The best Web marketing is a multi-tiered approach that focuses on the best methods and strategies for the current time.

When planning your Web marketing strategy, try to incorporate these 5 proven strategies that work today and likely will work next year and the year after too.

1. Search engine optimization – After all these years, search engine optimization is still at the top of the Web strategies that are proven and work. In fact, it works just as well today as it did ten years ago – if you know what you are doing.
2. Competitive intelligence – Gathering information about the competition and your niche is an important starting point for any Web strategy. But it’s more than just a starting point. You should collect information on an ongoing basis.
3. Pay per click marketing – Click prices are a lot higher now than they used to be. But pay per click marketing is still a good Web strategy to employ. It’s effective, results can come quickly and conversions are high if you are capable of managing a campaign that draws in traffic.
4. Social media optimization – Social media is here to stay. From Facebook to Twitter and LinkedIn to Flickr, there are opportunities to engage with your audience in powerful ways.
5. Video marketing - Video marketing is still in its infancy. The right video can go viral in a heartbeat and if you are effective in uploading the right video at the right websites then this Web marketing strategy can pay off big time.

Internet marketing has changed over the years, but it hasn’t changed that much. From SEO to video marketing, these Web strategies should be a part of every Internet marketing campaign.

When it comes to Internet marketing there are services that are worth pursuing and services that you can afford to put on the back burner for awhile. In other words, not all services are created equal. The following 7 services are services that I’d say are worth considering today and that will likely be necessary services five and ten years from now.

1. Pay Per Click Management – PPC has become a staple of online advertising. You pay for traffic and if you do it right then your traffic will be targeted and conversion ready.
2. Search Engine Optimization – The original search engine marketing. There is no reason not to pursue a search engine optimization strategy. It’s the perfect search engine marketing.
3. Online Reputation Management – Don’t wait until you need it. Incorporate reputation management into everything you do.
4. Social Media Optimization – Social media is here to stay. This is evidenced by Facebook becoming the No. 1 trafficked website online. Develop a strategy and make it work for you.
5. Competitive Intelligence – Learn everything you can about your competition, then use it against them.
6. Web Design & Development – It all starts with your hub on the Web. Web design is one of the most important things to do in your total marketing strategy. Give it some thought.
7. Video Marketing & Production - Video marketing is the Internet sleeper. It’s taken awhile to catch on, but it is catching on. This is where the money will be in the future. Count on it.

If you’re serious about Internet marketing, these 7 strategies should be a part of your plan – starting today.

Social media may be the big craze, but search engine optimization is still just as necessary today as it ever was. It may be true that the search engines are not as adept at filtering out spam and choosing the best sites for every search query as they used to be. But there are a lot more sites to index and rank today and a lot more spam. It’s a huge undertaking for the search engines to be able to do what they do.

But the lion’s share of web traffic still comes from the search engines. For most websites, the percentage is 70% or more of all web traffic comes from search engine queries. That alone should tell you that search engine optimization is important.

It is no longer a smart idea to rely on just one method of Internet marketing. The wise marketer uses multiple avenues of approach to reach his target market. That means combining search engine optimization with social media marketing, pay per click advertising, link building and even review sites. You have to be ready to close on any traffic from any source at any time.

Most importantly, don’t give up on search engine optimization just because a few other methods of marketing are starting to take on more popularity.