Category: Search engine marketing services

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Google, Amazon and Apple – the new Big Three?

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago there were three American companies that were referred to collectively as The Big Three. GM, Ford and Chrysler were the biggest selling automakers in the world. Recently Toyota and Honda have staked claim to positions in this grouping.

The newest Big Three sell digital information and hardware to make use of it. Google has announced to fully join this group with the announcement of the Nexus 7 tablet shortly after launching Google Play which unified its sales of software, music and other media. Amazon still leads in sales of books and its Kindle players are well regarded. The newest Kindle is the Fire which is not quite an iPad killer but established the price point that Google is matching with far superior equipment in the Nexus 7. “iPad”, of course, references Apple – the king of the hill in digital music sales and the runaway leader in smartphones and tablets.

Google is the most successful search company which provides them the opportunity to market their other goods and services very effectively. The intensity of the competition can be seen in recent events like the patent wars between Google’s Motorola Mobility division v Apple, Apple dumping Google Maps on the iPhone and Samsung v Apple lawsuits.

What all this means to businesses is that mobile is increasingly important and looks to become even more important in the post-PC era that we are entering. All the more reason to make sure that your business website is mobile-friendly and that it is showing well in mobile searches.

Mobile is a part of what search optimization by sem[c] is all about. All you need to do is click to find out more.

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Do you know what ZMOT means to you?

Do you go online to do some online research before you buy something? Would it surprise you that 70% of all Americans say that they do?
This is a new development in the purchasing sequence. This new things can be seen as a new moment of truth. The classical First Moment of Truth (FMOT) is when the consumer selects to purchase one brand over another. The second is when the brand either delivers… or doesn’t.
Jim Lecinski in his new book “ZMOT, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth” details what this predecessor to the FMOT looks like. It is online search, friends and family discussion, online comparisons, website info, online reviews and other sources that you have probably used. In fact, a study commissioned by Google said the average number of sources consulted per purchase just about doubled from 2010 to 2011. The study included purchases from very large to very small. The study also showed that the ZMOT was equally important in the purchasing decision to the older pieces of the buying sequence.
Wouldn’t a very good question be: Why was only 15% of media ad budget money spend online in 2010?
Contact us for additional information about you can use ZMOT to improve your business’ online performance.
Got questions? Call, click or Google… you’ll reach us.
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Are marketing and sales the same thing?

Answers.com says:”Marketing and sales have … a close relationship, so close in fact that many have confused the two as being the same. Marketing is the method of bringing customers to your business as well as making others aware of your business, product, and brand. Sales is selling the product your company offers.”

So marketing and sales are not the same thing. An interesting question that can arise is: If the search engine marketing (SEM) is working in getting more people to the website but there is no increase in sales what’s happening?The first reaction some people have is to think that the marketing is not working and should be ended. This is not usually a very useful interpretation. The truth is much more complex.

There are many possibilities that must be explored before thinking that there is something wrong with the search engine marketing. In fact, the marketing is clearly working because more people are visiting the site looking for keywords that make sense for the goods and/or services offered. Some of the things that may be happening are:

  • The website doesn’t make a clear call for action like “Buy Now!!!”
  • The website doesn’t make a clear case for the benefits to the client or customer of the goods/services offered.
  • The purchase path on the website gives the potential customer the feeling that it is not secure.
  • The product or service may be miscategorized with seemingly similar but lesser items. A Hyundai Accent is not a Bugatti Veyron although both are cars.
  • The most used search phrase has a hidden but fatal flaw that needs to be identified (after all, lots of people are looking but not buying which means they really didn’t find what they were looking for)

At Search Engine Marketing Chicago, Inc. we analyze the performance of our marketing to help improve your sales approach in all of the above scenarios. We perform search engine marketing from a data-driven viewpoint rather than the guesses that many providers foist off on their customers. Our work is marketing, not sales but we do everything we can to fine tune the relationship. We know that science is more effective than sleight-of-hand magic.

Contact us to discuss effective search engine marketing for your business or tell your friends that we can help their business show up in Google and the other search engines.

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Have you seen the latest feature of Google+?

Google is now including search returns that are influenced by their social network as a part of each search that you do.  What this means is that sites that are recommended by people that you know appear more prominently in Google searches. This means that your search returns are being tailored to you personally.

This makes your ability to create and promote a page on Google+ a really good idea. You can visit our page at Search Engine Marketing Chicago on Google+ to see what it looks like.  Once you create a page you can put a badge on your website to solicite +1’s from your visitors. You can see an example of one of the badges on our website Search Engine Marketing Chicago, Inc.

Bing has announced plans to make their returns influences by your social network contacts as well so this is clearly a trend in the major search engines.

Constant Contact has now made Facebook campaign tools available, too. Visit ours at Search Marketing Chicago on Facebook!
Contact us for additional information about how social networking can positively influence your business’ online marketing profile.
Got questions? Call, click or Google… you’ll reach us.
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The latest and greatest?

Groupon has become a huge phenomenon for B2C businesses. By combining old-fashioned coupons with social networking, Groupon has created a new genre by offering these businesses some great benefits: a very large audience, qualified offer recipients and a fast infusion of cash shortly after the offer runs. This doesn’t sound like it has a lot of downside, does it?
The problem can occur when all those happy Groupon customers want what they have paid for in advance all at the same time. The flood of requests can overwhelm most small to medium sized businesses. If the business can’t deliver their new Groupon customers what they’ve already bought when they want them these new customers are going to be disappointed.  Disappointed customers are not inclined to continue using a vendor who has disappointed them.

What this scenario reveals is a risk of providing a lot of goods or, more likely, services at a deep discount with a lessened possibility of a significant lifetime value that repeat customers offer a business.

The point of all this is not to avoid new opportunities like Groupon or other social networking approaches but to understand the risks so that a proper strategy that benefits your business is developed and implemented properly.

sem[c] works with its clients to harness their internal strengths to make this aspect of Internet marketing work to the business’ best advantage.

To find out more about how we work for your business, visit our website, email us, call us and tell your friends!

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How do you figure the ROI of online marketing?

If you answered “sales” you are likely to be seeing sales and marketing as being exactly the same thing. While they are definitely related they are very different. Online marketing ROI is measured in visits to your website. Sales from these visits is dependent on how well your website satisfies the needs of your visitors. This is a separate matter from marketing.

If, for example, your website does not make a clear call to action or a means to contact you all the search marketing in the world will result in little other than the visits to your website themselves.

The approach we take at sem[c] does give you a lot of information that will help you fine tune your website so that it will match up more closely with exactly how people are searching for what you offer them.

It also delivers more qualified visitors to your website. This does give you more opportunities to make sales. That’s the ROI of SEO and online marketing.

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Groupon – too much of a good thing?

Groupon has become a huge phenomenon for B2C businesses. By combining old-fashioned coupons with social networking, Groupon has created a new genre by offering these businesses some great benefits: a very large audience, qualified offer recipients and a fast infusion of cash shortly after the offer runs. This doesn’t sound like it has a lot of downside, does it?

The problem can occur when all those happy Groupon customers want what they have paid for in advance all at the same time. The flood of requests can overwhelm most small to medium sized businesses. If the business can’t deliver their new Groupon customers what they’ve already bought when they want them these new customers are going to be disappointed.  Disappointed customers are not inclined to continue using a vendor who has disappointed them.

What this scenario reveals is a risk of providing a lot of goods or, more likely, services at a deep discount with a lessened possibility of a significant lifetime value that repeat customers offer a business.

The point of all this is not to avoid new opportunities like Groupon or other social networking approaches but to understand the risks so that a proper strategy that benefits your business is developed and implemented properly.

sem[c] works with its clients to harness their internal strengths to make this aspect of Internet marketing work to the business’ best advantage.

To find out more about how we work for your business, visit our website, email us, call us and don’t forget to tell your friends!

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How does your competition affect your SEO?

It stands to reason that if your competition is highly optimized you will need to out-do them in order to achieve better results on Google and the other search engines, doesn’t it? So, don’t make the mistake one of our prospects made recently when he emphatically denied that the businesses that were currently defining his target market weren’t his competition because they didn’t do exactly what his business intended to do.

This takes us back to a recurring theme in SEO:  what you think your business is doesn’t matter as much as what your prospects are looking for. His mistake misled our prospect to think that our expertise in his actual competition wasn’t meaningful because he didn’t recognize his competition. This mistake led him to believe that anybody offering SEO was the same as anyone else. His intended audience was already finding his competition enthusiastically. This was frustrating for us because there was no way that we could help him move his project forward in the right direction. It was clear that no one could.

To make the most of your SEO budget make sure that your purveyor can help you understand your competition in search. With everyone from printing companies to off-shore non-native English speakers offering SEO services you need to have some real criteria to make a good SEO buying decision.  Understanding the competition is a very good start.

Even better is to work with someone like sem[c] for your SEO. We’ll help you compete effectively.

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Mobile marketing is becoming more important as handheld use increases

Mobile Marketing

Do you see people with smart phone and tablets everywhere? Everywhere I look on the train people are reading, texting or surfing (even, occasionally, talking). With the news that Google has entered into the handset production business mobile has moved to the front burner. They made the acquisition of Motorola in defense of the Android operating system. Google now owns thousands of patents related to mobile computing. This acquisition clearly makes the statement that Google sees itself as a mobile company. This means that mobile marketing is going to be very important

Some of the various sites that we monitor are showing over 15% of the total visits coming from mobile devices. This emphatically underscores the importance of making sure that your website is mobile-friendly. If your site relies on Flash-based navigation alone it is likely that many mobile visitors will not be able to get any of the information that they are searching for. Apple’s iOS that runs on iPhones and iPads cannot see Flash animations. This makes it very unlikely that they visitors will return to your website on their mobile devices. The good news is that the Flash can be converted to HTML5 which will preserve the functionality while, at the same time, make it accessible to all Internet-connected devices.

It should be noted here that the Web crawlers used by Google and other search engines don’t handle Flash very well either.  For SEO purposes it is a very good idea to limit Flash usage or convert it the the HTML5 alternative.

Please contact us if you have any questions about search engine optimization, social media marketing for all types of Web browsers from the desktop to your mobile handset.

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How important is an SEO-friendly website for your business?

Business owner are realizing how important their website is in producing leads. Our clients have found that a significant percentage of their new business comes from search engine traffic from companies like Google and Bing as well as social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

What we’ve found is that existing websites frequently need to be re-built by us to correct the common search-unfriendly mistakes that many website developers inadvertently build into their designs.

If you are in the process of shopping for a new website please give us a call at 773-769-SEMC to discuss building a search-friendly website right from the start. We have the expertise to produce effective websites from small business card sites to elaborate content management systems (CMS) or ecommerce sites to sell thousands of products online.

If you have us build your website you will be assured that it will be the effective business tool that you need in order to compete in today’s tough economic climate.