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A recent study published by Scarborough Research illustrates the importance of Working Moms and your online marketing campaign. The study utilized more than 220,000 adults nationwide and defined the term "Working Mom" as ?Women who are employed full-time and have one or more children in the household?. The study was done to establish an understanding of the Working Mom's lifestyles, including demographics, shopping habits and media behaviors.
According to the Scarborough study, there are approximately 21.6 million Working Moms in the United States. They account for roughly 9% of the adult U.S. population, and 18% of all the women in the country. 43% of women in the United States fall into the "Working Mom" category. This is a huge group of consumers, have you been focusing on earning their business online?
Who are we looking at when we discuss Working Moms? This group is largely made up of women in their 30's and early 40's, with a 4-year college degree or higher, and making, on average $81,900 per year. From the necessities of food and clothes to life's little luxuries and beyond, Working Moms are responsible for providing for their families. The Scarborough research delves into how Working Moms shop for food, clothing and technology and gives key insights into how this group takes care of their homes.( "QUICK FACT: Moms spent $3,334 on home improvements during the past year.") From how much they're spending, to which stores they're spending their money at, this research gives a great look into the mind of the Working Mom.
Working Moms carry a lot of the responsibility of shopping and providing for their families, but they also take some time to focus on themselves as well. With an exhausting lifestyle that includes a full time job, raising children, taking care of the home and more, one may assume that a day off would mean a day of rest, but that's not the case according to the Scarborough research. Many Working Moms prefer to be active when it comes to their free time. From Day Spas to Health Clubs, this is most definitely a very active group of Women.
You may have long suspected that the Working Mom is an important audience to target with your marketing. Now that you know a little more about then, let's look at how they spend their time online:
So, what does this mean for you and your business? Thanks to the Scarborough research, you now know that there is an audience of almost 22 million customers out there, with higher than average incomes, control over family and personal spending with the ability to influence the preferences of their children and spouses. That sounds like a pretty important target audience to me. You know how they are spending their time and money online, so how do you market your brand on those sites?
What can you offer the Working Mom that could improve the quality of life for her and her family? How can you market yourself as a solution to her busy lifestyle? Can you save her money or time? Do you offer a product or service that can improve the health of her family? What are you doing to promote your company through the mobile channels the Working Mom most often uses?
There are a lot of options for targeting the Working Mom online. From Social Media Marketing on active blogs and social networks, to offering discounts on popular Coupon Web sites, you have options. Have you checked your listings on the online yellow pages recently? You may need to update your information. Advertise your job openings on the important area Employment Web sites, you may find your next great employee, or at least get your brand name out there where the Working Mom is spending her time online.
Come up with new ways to reach this large demographic, and you'll be reaching an important and sometimes undervalued group of spenders. Utilize the Working Moms in your company to come up with creative ways to market your brand. Turn your attention to the online habits of these women, and you'll know how to better spend your marketing budget. Don't wait, as the school year gets underway, and the holidays are rapidly approaching, now is a great time to focus on turning Working Moms into customers.
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO, Social Marketing
Press releases have long been used to distribute news to media outlets. As technology and businesses have evolved, so has the role of the press release. With the increased popularity of online media, it is important to understand that Search Engines use press releases differently than traditional media outlets do. How do you go about creating a press release that is worth your time and money?
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO
Wikipedia defines linkbait as "any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites"*. Linkbait in my terms is anything, whether it is content, video, photo, contest or an application, which attracts viewers to your Web site. With the continued growing popularity of Social Media Web sites like Facebook, Delicious and StumbleUpon, creative linkbaiting is even more important in building your Web site's online visibility.
So now you're thinking, we?re in a boring business, so we can't utilize Social Media Web sites. You're wrong! You just need to get those creative juices flowing or enlist the help of outside sources and think outside the box.
Take BlendTec for example. BlendTec continues to have great success on YouTube with their famous "Will It Blend? series of videos in which every day items (cell phone, GPS, shoes) are shredded in one of their blenders. Their YouTube channel has over 160,000 subscribers. The average number of views for one of their videos is close to 900,000. Now that is a lot of eyeballs!
Great linkbait that creates buzz not only helps increase brand awareness but can ultimately lead to more sales. Since the start of the "Will It Blend?" series, BlendTec saw retail sales for the Total Blender grow 700% in the past 2 years. Not to mention, that with all the attention the series generates, many other Web sites link to the "Will It Blend?" Web site www.willitblend.com; which Google currently reports with over 800,000 backlinks. Backlinks generated from viral content such as this can lead to higher rankings on the search engines, especially Google.
There is an unlimited amount of linkbait opportunities to explore. Here are some of the more commonly used forms of linkbait:
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO, Social Marketing
As the year draws to a close, many people are looking back on 2008 and reflecting on SEM efforts, successes and goals. It's time to look forward to the New Year, and what 2009 will bring for you and your business.
It's no secret that we are using the Internet more and more for decision making and purchasing, and that trend is sure to continue. Consequently using Search Engine Marketing as a means to succeed in a tough economy will be a smart move for 2009.
A well-implemented SEM campaign will give you the competitive edge in the challenging economy we're facing as we ring in the New Year. Obviously in today's economy budgets are getting cut, money is being redistributed, and changes are happening.
But SEM is budget that should not be cut. In fact, you should consider increasing it. Well-implemented SEM is cost-effective, measurable, and highly successful. With the Internet growing, traditional marketing channels are losing effectiveness. As a result you need a strong presence on Google and other search engines to maintain sales and to position your business to take advantage of opportunities when the economy turns around. More than ever, people are finding companies, services and products online. Will they be able to find you in 2009?
Why do I think SEM is going to get even bigger in 2009? Just think about it...
2009 may begin with tight budgets and uncertainty, but SEM is the marketing strategy that can transcend those challenges. Don't cut SEM out of your budget or avoid a new SEM campaign in the New Year. There are many reasons why I believe SEM is going to see growth in 2009. SEM has the potential to grow your business even when the economy stinks.
The New Year is a good time to evaluate your company's online marketing potential and needs. Do you have a strong SEM campaign in place? Are you happy with the results? Have you thought about SEM before, but are hesitating on taking the next step? Now is the time. SEM will grow in 2009; your competitors will be jumping on board. Will you?
Make SEM your business' New Year's Resolution. Make sure you're happy with your current campaign, or get started on finding the right SEM solution to implement. Don't get left behind as others will implement SEM, the potential for growth is a huge one, make sure your company doesn't get left in the dust.
Labels: Google Analytics, Link Building, Organic SEO, PPC Advertising, Social Marketing
The holiday season is fast approaching, and in the current economy, it may seem even more stressful than usual. A recent study released by the Mediamark Research & Intelligence company states that more than 62 million Americans will start their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving. That means that 1 in 3 shoppers will begin making Holiday purchases this month. Will those shoppers be buying from you? According to results of the 2008 eHoliday Study, more than half of online retailers expect their holiday sales to increase at least fifteen percent over last year. Can you say the same?
The Internet has gone from being a luxury to the holiday shopper, to becoming a necessity. Referencing the 2008 Holiday Consumer Spending Survey, the number of people buying gifts online is expected to remain steady, and consumers will be dependent on the Internet like never before. As the survey stated, ?the Internet will influence 33.6 percent of holiday purchases, up from 30.2 percent last year and 28.9 percent in 2006.? Consumers are using the Internet to compare prices on hot gifts, explore stores, come up with gift ideas, and make some of their holiday purchases from the comfort of their own homes.
In a study completed by Shop.org, consumers acknowledged that it was the convenience of 24-hour shopping that is one of the main reasons why they choose to buy online. Shoppers? other top reasons for buying online instead of in stores include ?not wanting to fight crowds? (41.1%), ?easy price comparisons? (36.4%), and ?free shipping? (33.3%). Also, nearly one in four shoppers says they are spending more online due to high gas prices, more than double the number which said the same last year. So there will be plenty of consumers online, will they find you?
It is certainly no secret that search engine use has been on the rise since their inception. According to a recent report by PEW Internet, ?The percentage of Internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49%).?
Avid searchers are more likely to be the consumers you want, because they buy. A recent comScore study, illustrates the correlation between how much someone searches and how much they spend. The "Heavy searchers" group makes up just 16%of the population online, but spends a robust 35% of total dollars online. The next group, "Medium searchers,? comprises 23% of the population online and spends a significant 34 percent of total online dollars. So what does this mean for you? If your company wants to do well in the online retail market, you need to position yourself in front of the shoppers, by using the tools they use, search engines.
Search Engine Marketing is one of the most popular means of staying competitive this holiday season. The Shop.org study offers an insight into what SEM services online retailers are utilizing. 42.6% of the online retailers who participated in this survey said they were adding product videos. 32.7% were adding customer reviews and 25% said they were creating Facebook pages to promote their sites. To appeal to price-conscious customers, 27.1% said they were adding clearance sale pages to their sites, Shop.org said. Most of the online retailers who participate in the survey said they also planned to offer free shipping to attract customers, but 21.3% of them said they would raise the minimum purchase requirement this year.
You know your customers are online, and you know they?ll be using the internet and search engines this holiday season, the question is, will they find you? Search Engine Marketing will prove to be a powerful means for getting the online business your company wants, especially in the upcoming months. Though SEM is a long term strategy for getting high search results, targeted traffic, and measurable ROI, there is still time to implement some changes that could benefit your company this holiday season. Don?t lose your customers to the competition. Step up your SEM campaign now!
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO, PPC Advertising, Social Marketing
My first job out of college was at Deltak, a producer of IBM mainframe software training products. Its only competitor was Advanced Systems Inc. (ASI). Both of these companies are now long gone.
This was back in 1978, just as the nation went into an awful recession with double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation and double-digit mortgage rates. Those were brutal times!
In 1978, Deltak and ASI were running neck and neck. When the recession ended, Deltak had a commanding lead and never looked back. Deltak grew robustly during this period, growing from about $20 million in 1978 to $89 million in 1982, while ASI had minimal growth. The reason was that ASI cut back marketing and production of training products.
Just as the use of computers was growing rapidly in the late 1970s, today the Web is growing rapidly for retail shopping, industrial purchasing and just about every category of B2C and B2B marketing. Traditional print and broadcast advertising do not work as well as they once did. That is because people across demographics are turning to the Web for information and purchasing.
People use search engines to find information for purchasing. According to IT Facts, "The percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from 33% of all users in 2002, to 49% in 2008." http://www.itfacts.biz/49-of-users-use-search-engines-on-a-typical-day-in-2008/11638
You need to make decisions where to cut back, and where you cannot afford to cut back. Is search engine marketing something to cut, or expand?
You can hang your head that your business is contracting. Or you can grow your business by capturing your potential customers who are moving toward the Web and its search engines. By strengthening your marketing where your market now spends more of its time, you can grow your business in this down economy.
What are you doing to attract your buyers who are using the Web to buy? How do you stack up with your competitors on Google? If you are not addressing search engine marketing, you could end up like ASI as an also-ran.
Search engine marketing will build your market reach and visibility on Google, other search engines and across the Web. The beauty to marketers is that SEM has the tools to measure results and to calculate ROI. You then can use the data to further improve results. No more trying to figure out which half of your advertising budget is wasted. Implement search engine marketing and you will find little wasted budget. In other words, search engine marketing will stretch your advertising budget by making more of it work building business that you can measure.
Are you attracting your fair share of search engine traffic? If your competition is and you are not, then you better engage in effective search engine marketing, or you may not be around when economic expansion returns.
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO, PPC Advertising, Social Marketing
Labels: Google Analytics, Link Building, Organic SEO, PPC Advertising, Social Marketing
Google Webmaster Tools now allows you to see some of the locations of your broken backlinks. Nice! To see the new Google Webmaster Tools feature, login to your account. Assuming your Web site is verified, click on Diagnostics > Web Crawl > Not Found. To the right of each not found URL there is a link for # pages. Click that and a pop up window of locations of that broken link are shown.
Be sure to go and see how many backlinks are broken for your Web site and don?t forget to let the webmasters of the broken link Web sites know that they should update their links!!!
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO
Flickr recently added nofollow tags to most of the external links within the website. Flickr has been one of the few social sites that have allowed potential link gain from including links within the profile, comments and other areas.
Is this a surprising move? In my opinion, No. More and more social media sites are adding nofollow tags to lower the amount of spam they get hit with. You can't blame them for trying to provide clean, valuable, relevant content to their visitors / users can you? Keep in mind, you no longer can gain any link popularity from links on Flickr. However it still can generate traffic to your website. There?s a lot more benefits to using Flickr than just for links.
Labels: Link Building, Social Marketing
Many people confuse link popularity as being only the root domains popularity. More and more, internal pages link popularity is becoming the influential factor, not simply your home page. Your root domain can enjoy a great link popularity and Google PageRank, but your site won't reap the entire benefit unless your internal pages have links pointing to them too.
Internal linking contributes highly to your sites total link popularity thus search positioning especially on Google. Getting external links pointing to your internal pages has become a more determining search position factor than before.
Google's Webmaster Tools provides a good estimate of your website's link popularity both to the root and internally. You can see how well your site is externally links as well as interlinked with itself.
Finding places to link into your internal pages can be a challenge. Providing your visitors with information they are looking for and interesting content is a link building strategy itself. By using the correct avenues, internal link popularity is a great way to build search visibility, traffic and overall search positioning.
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO
Google's Webmaster Tools has provided yet another useful upgrade. Google announced the upgrade to the Anchor Text. This new feature tells you what text is being used in links pointing to your website. Since anchor text is an important part of the SEO pie, this feature shows you what keywords are being emphasized for your website.
This feature was not available on all sites, but has now been rolled out to everyone who has Google Webmaster Tools set up for their website.
Previously Google's Webmaster Tools only provided the most popular single words contained in the links, now you are provided with the full Anchor Text among variations up to 200 phrases. They have also brought back the section showing you the most common individual words contained in your websites anchor text.
I have to give my props to Google for this tool. It's a beauty!!
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO
Never underestimate the power of content with the search engines. As many SEO gurus say "Content is King". They aren't kidding. Not only do search engines reward your website when new valuable content is added to your site, the opportunity to use this content for link building has become just as important.
With the rise of Social Media, content has become even more important than before. Links from Social Networking and Bookmarking sites are extremely influential within Google's algorithms and why wouldn't they be? Social Networking and Bookmarking sites are users directly telling Google that they find a page important. It only makes sense that Google and the other search engines would reward this.
However, while writing good content is an effective component to your linking campaign don't neglect high quality directories like Yahoo, DMOZ, GoGuides and JoeAnt. These directories still have a great deal of influence with the top search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN). Traditional organic linking is still an influential piece of the pie. Quality directories and links from authoritative sites still play an important role with search engine positioning.
By offering content that is non-marketing in nature and offers valuable information to users, you are creating your own organic link campaign. You can drive traffic to your website, increase brand recognition as well as increase sales, all by providing content that is non-marketing. You're marketing by not marketing!
Labels: Link Building, Social Marketing
Earlier this month, Google released a new Link option within Google's Webmaster Tools. Google allows you to look up which websites are linking to your by using search commands like: link:www.domain.com, links: www.domain.com, plus other variations through the regular search. However, Google only allows you to see a sample of those back links.
The new Link option now provides you with a larger sample of those websites linking to you. Although you won't get to see all incoming links to your site, including those listed in Google's supplemental index, you will see a larger sample than if using the now outdated link commands. The Link option is only for your website, so you are not able to check out your competition's strategic linking programs. You will still need to use the above mentioned link commands for competitor analysis.
To use this new link option, you need to be a Google Webmaster user. Once you've verified your website, click on the My Sites screen and choose your domain. Then you will see the following tabs: Diagnostic, Statistics, Links and Sitemaps. The new Links tab allows you to see external and internal links for your website. External links are the links most people are concerned with. These are links coming from outside of your site. You can see what other sites are linking to you, whether it is the home page, or the interior pages. Internal links tell you how well your site is interlinked within itself.
The new Links tab definitely offers valuable information, plus Google also allows you to download the data into an Excel spreadsheet making management of the data much easier than before. So, why did Google decide to offer this new feature? Google spokespeople claim they decided to offer the option because of feedback from Webmasters. Google is more comfortable with the idea because the info is only going to specific site owners, rather than to everyone. Either way, I'm happy with the new tool!
Labels: Link Building, Organic SEO
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