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Welcome to the ineedhits Search Engine Marketing blog, where we share the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

We encourage you to get involved in our blog community - so share your opinions and experiences by leaving comments on our posts.

If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.

Tuesday, July 31

4 Tips to Building a Better Online Brand

Branding is all about identifying your products and services with 'a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme. A brand often includes a logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, and sound, which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality' (Wikipedia).

Band Aid is an example of a brand that has become public domain, due to the sheer popularity of its name - we generally use the words 'Band Aid' to describe any form of adhesive, sterile dressing for wounds - Band Aid is now one of the most recognizable brands in the world!

Building your brand will create credibility, implies trustworthiness, and should make your business name synonymous with the product or service that you sell. Here are just a few tips to building your brand online:

1. Website

Your branding, and design, should be consistent - online and offline! Make sure people will recognise you as the same company, whether they visit your blog, or happen to see your television advertisement - in other words make sure your online branding efforts reflect your offline branding in all aspects.

Choose your domain name very carefully! Your domain name is the name of your e-commerce store, or website, and can very effectively reflect your brand. If your company name is not available as a domain name then select a name that is easy to remember (and spell), and if possible highlight the type of product or service you provide.

Advertise your online brand offline - encourage visitors to visit your website with clever advertising, competitions, online registration for new product updates and so on.

2. Social Networking

Create a profile on every major social network from MySpace and Facebook to YouTube and Twitter. Your profile is a clever way to share essential information about you, and your company. Many sites now have customizable profiles that enable you to display a logo, colors and fonts that reflect your brand.

Network and improve your brand visibility. Get out and meet people online, join chats and groups, offer advice and answer questions, however stick to subjects and groups that are relevant to your brand, and the products or services that your offer.

Stickiness Keep people coming back to your profile, make sure they remember your brand. Make sure you keep your profiles updated, add photos or videos, competitions, tools or widgets. The more interesting your profiles, the more likely people are to come back repeatedly!

3. Blogging

Blogging is an excellent way to connect with both current and potential customers and clients, building trust and an affiliation with your brand. Problogger has just done a great article on blogging to 'sell yourself' and your brand, rather than to sell your products or services.

4. Advertising

Your online marketing efforts should carry a message that is consistent with your brand, and should be displayed on sites relevant to your area of business. If you are building a trustworthy, reliable brand image then select reputable, credible websites to display your branding message or adverts.

Apply these tips to your own business to build your online brand. To help you out further, check out the brands below and ask yourself - what have they done to make their brands synonymous with the products or services they offer? Good luck!

Google Crack Down on YouTube Copyright Infringements

Lawyers, defending Google/YouTube in Viacom's $1billion copyright infringement lawsuit against the company, have told the presiding judge that Google hopes to have 'copyright filters' installed on YouTube this fall (September to December).

Viacom's lawsuit will pave the way for further copyright cases, if Google are unable to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material onto YouTube. Google's response - recognition programming - copyright owners could place a 'digital fingerprint' onto their material, preventing illegal uploading of any of their videos. A YouTube spokesperson made the following statement to IDG News.

"We hope to have the testing completed and technology available by some time in the fall, but this is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken, and as always with cutting-edge technologies, it's difficult to forecast specific launch dates."

In the mean time, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that Google are acting within the law, removing copyright material immediately on request from Viacom and other copyright owners, and will continue to defend itself.

For avid YouTube watchers copyright filters may be the end of concert footage, your favorite music videos, mashups, comedy shows and more. While I believe that copyright infringements should be taken seriously, I find it interesting that Viacom's lawsuit (for such an excessive amount) comes so soon after Google's acquisition of YouTube. These issues were present prior to the Google YouTube merger - but who was there to sue?

Google's Latest "Unavailable After" Tag Now Live

Google have announced the release of a new "unavailable after" meta tag that will allow webmasters to inform Google when a specific webpage should no longer be indexed. Based on the Robots.txt protocol, webmasters can now effectively remove their webpage's from search results after a certain period of time.

How can it be used?
The new tag can be used in a variety of applications; here are 2 examples I've quickly put together:

You have a special deal that expires
If you want to avoid disappointing visitors by sending them to a page with an expired special offer, you can choose to have these pages removed from the index when the offer ends.

Free content becomes paid
Content that was provided free on your website goes into an archive that users must pay to access. You can remove this content from search results using the unavailable after tag.

How can I implement the tag?
From the Google blog:

To specify that an HTML page should be removed from the search results after 3pm Eastern Standard Time on 25th August 2007, simply add the following tag to the first section of the page:

<meta name="GOOGLEBOT" content="unavailable_after: 25-Aug-2007 15:00:00 EST">

The date and time is specified in the RFC 850 format.

This information is treated as a removal request: it will take about a day after the removal date passes for the page to disappear from the search results. We currently only support unavailable_after for Google web search results.

The tag is currently only supported by Google, and has been well received by the web community so far. Do you think other search engines should follow suit? Have your say with our blog comments!

Digg.com Shuns Google for Microsoft Ads

Digg.com, a user generated social news website, has axed Google as its ad provider, instead replacing them with rival Microsoft. The deal will see Microsoft providing the display and contextual ads on the site, with the changeover to start in August.

Founded in 2004, Digg.com has become a leading website for users to share and vote for the web's most popular content. According to the Microsoft press release, Digg now receives over 17 million unique visitors every month.

From the press release:

"Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web and a true innovator in user-generated content," said Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft. "We believe advertisers will welcome Microsoft and Digg's combined strengths to forge more meaningful connections online."

Digg founder, Kevin Rose posted a short blog about the change. His post assures us the changeover will not affect the user experience and will help digg to focus on new feature development:

"It's important to say that we're as focused as ever on a great user experience. So, no dancing monkey ads, and the design will remain uncluttered."

This high profile deal is sure to ruffle a few feathers at Google. Let us know how you think they will respond!

Monday, July 30

New Microsoft Gatineau Website Analytics - Sneak Preview

Over the last week, the internet news mill has been buzzing about the hotly anticipated release of Microsoft's supposed Google Analytics killer - Gatineau. With speculation of a summer beta launch and some sneak peeks of the new interface, the question everyone's asking is - will it live up to expectations?

It seems the key differentiation between Microsoft Gatineau and Google Analytics is the programs ability to segment web traffic by demographic factors such as age and gender. While demographic segmentation is definitely useful, I'm not sure it's compelling enough to drag existing users away from Google Analytics.

Source: Dave Naylor

In January 07, Ian Thomas (responsible for bringing the analytics tool to market) indicated that the Gatineau project was based on the technology acquired from Microsoft's DeepMatrix purchase in 2006. DeepMatrix is a company that has provided web stats solutions since 1992, and according to the announcement on the site, users can expect the Gatineau tool to provide:

- Click and visitor tracking
- Marketing campaign reporting
- Conversion tracking
- Demographic and geographic segmentation
- Paid and natural search analysis

Dave Naylor - who leaked the screenshots adds to this list:
- adCenter integration
- Time on site
- Funnel reporting
- Multi-report dashboards
- Path reporting
- Advanced visualizations

Whilst it sounds interesting, nothing overly ground-breaking. Dave Naylor suggests "Microsoft is going to give you reports and visualisations that you haven't seen before and data about you visitors like age and gender, seriously you just can't get that data in any other service."

What the launch does highlight is that analytics and web traffic knowledge has evolved, even for the novice website owner. While many of us have known the importance of proper web analytics for years, I'm amazed at the number of our clients that use archaic hit counters or have no stats at all. If for no other reason, here's hoping the launch of Microsoft Gatineau Analytics helps these people get a better understanding of their website success and online marketing effectiveness.

Whether Microsoft Gatineau Analytics is better than Google Analytics, time will tell, but if the screenshots are anything to go by, it'll be worth checking out. I'm just hoping they replace the project name "Gatineau" with something more relevant. To register for the beta, email Microsoft via gat-beta@microsoft.com.

Tuesday, July 24

7 Easy Steps to Attract More Local Customers!

So you operate a local business; but are you doing all you can to reach your local customers or is Mr. Smith down the street taking all of them? Unfortunately in every business there is competition and in order to get in front of your competitors one important factor is to get noticed!

Below are some of the steps I would take if I was a local business and wanted to target local customers with a minimal cost.

1. Add my business name and business address to each page of my website. By doing this your site will be picked up by search engines and rank you higher for local searches.

2. Make sure the logo or home link on each page on my website has appropriate local link text.

3. Get found in local search engines. Either submit myself or get a Local Search Listing. By being included in local search engines you instantly increase your chances of being found by your local customers searching for products and services.

4. Add locally targeted Alt tags to my images. For example, if I was a Hairdresser in Brooklyn, New York and my business name was Mousey Brown Salon I would add an Alt tag to my logo that says "Mousey Brown Salon is a hairdresser located at 732 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, New York".

5. Submit my images to photo sharing sites like Flickr. Here I can add my own tags to my images and also link these images back to my site.

6. Upload my products to Google Base in order to appear on Google Product Search.

7. I would recommend my customers write a review on my Hair Salon at review sites such as Citysearch.com and Yelp.com. Local search engines often collect reviews from these types of sites and add them to the associated local business listing.

As you can see these are some simple ways (with most being free) to help you capture your local customers.

Good luck with implementing them!

Don't have time to submit to 46 Local Search Engines? Try our Local Search Listing today!

Labels: Local Search Listing, Local Search Steps

5 Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing may be one of the easiest, and most effective, online business opportunities of today. Affiliate marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner, or affiliate. The premise is simple - the affiliate promotes the merchant's products on their site, linking to the merchant's website. In exchange the merchant pays the affiliate a commission on all sales generated from their lead.

As a website owner, you may choose to become an affiliate to supplement your sales income with an affiliate commission, or choose to focus your online activities exclusively on affiliate marketing - here are some of the benefits:

Commission
As an affiliate, you make a 'sale' when a customer clicks on an advert or link, leading them to the merchant's site, where they make a purchase. For example, as an Amazon affiliate you will make a commission if a visitor to your site clicks through to Amazon and buys a book! The more referrals made, the greater the profit for the affiliate.

No Start-up Costs
Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to consider paying any start-up costs.

No Production Costs
While, as an affiliate, the onus of generating prospect leads for the merchant lies with you, the merchant is entirely responsible for any production costs. The merchant develops, tests and produces the product / service, meaning the affiliate does not need to outlay any money on production.

Minimal Risk
As an affiliate marketer, if the product you're advertising is not performing then you have the ability to drop it and choose to advertise another product, or merchant. There are no contracts binding you to merchants that aren't making you any profit!

Range of Affiliate Marketing Programs
There are thousands of affiliate marketing programs available online. Choose advertisers that are relevant to your website, or that will enable you to target the greatest number of prospective customers, to make the most profit.

To really capitalize on an affiliate partnership you will need to work at generating leads and attracting customers who will click through to the merchant's website and make a purchase. Targeting the audience who are most likely to buy from your website advertising is critical if you want to maximise your sales revenue!

ineedhits has both an affiliate program and an SEO Wizard reseller program that offer you the chance to earn commission without lifting a finger!

Google Tips to Avoid Duplicate Content Penalties

More and more people are beginning to understand that 'content is king' as it plays a huge part in the relevance and ranking of search results. However webmasters also need to be careful of the penalties search engines place on websites that use duplicate webpage content.

Duplicate content occurs when two websites display identical or very similar content on any number of pages. This can happen when one website copies the content of a competitor or even when webmasters host the same content across a range of different domains.

Search engines penalize websites with duplicate content, as they don't want the same information appearing more than once in any search query. Nobody can be certain of the exact penalties that are applied (which can be as harsh as removal from the search index) but one thing is for sure, they will harm your rankings and traffic.

According to the Google webmaster blog, Google first looks to filter out pages with duplicate content and list only the first version, and only penalizes sites if they perceive a deliberate attempt to manipulate rankings. The Google webmaster blog shares a range of ways webmasters can proactively address duplicate content issues, some of which I will highlight below:

Block appropriately: Rather than letting search engines determine the "best" version of a document, you may wish to guide them to your preferred version. For instance, if you don't want them to index the print friendly versions of your site's articles, disallow those directories in your robots.txt file.

Use 301s: If you have restructured your site, use 301 redirects to smartly redirect users and search engine spiders.

Be consistent: Endeavor to keep your internal linking consistent; for example always link to your homepage using example.com instead of example.com/index.html

Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article.

Use the preferred domain feature of Google webmaster tools: If other sites link to yours using both the www and non-www version of your URLs, let Google know which way you prefer your site to be listed using the preferred domain feature.

As a final word, don't worry too much about sites that republish your content without permission, as it's highly unlikely that these sites can negatively impact your ranking. Take notice of these Google tips and you can be confident knowing you've taken a proactive approach to avoiding duplicate content issues.

Yahoo! Search Update Hot on Google's Heels

Last week Rene reported on the recent Google algorithm update and this week it seems Yahoo! have followed suit. Last night Yahoo! announced a rebuild of its search index was underway in what appears to be a double whammy for website owners.

From the Yahoo! Search Blog:

We've been rolling out some changes to our fresh web data and crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the last few days. We expect the update will be completed by the weekend. So, as you know, throughout this process you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index.

As per usual webmasters can expect to see some changes in ranking while the update is underway. Buzz surrounding the update suggests that Yahoo! now places more weight on the age of the domain, and authority directory listings, but as usual, Yahoo! had made no comment on the issue.

If your Yahoo! traffic or ranking has been affected, let us know via our blog comments!

Labels: Yahoo

Monday, July 23

AskEraser by Ask.com Leads The Way In Search Engine Privacy

Search engines have been under the microscope for months with regards to privacy and management of user information, and Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) has emerged to set the benchmark for search privacy control with its new AskEraser.

The IAC owned search engine is giving its searchers ultimate control over the data that Ask.com stores about their search experience. With AskEraser, users can change their privacy preferences at any time, with their status confirmed throughout the search experience on the search results pages.

"AskEraser is a great solution for those looking for an additional level of privacy when they search online," said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com through the AskEraser press release. "Anonymous user data can be very useful to enhance search products for all users, and we're committed to being open and transparent about how such information is used. But we also understand that there are some who are interested in new tools that will help protect their privacy further, and we will give them that control on Ask.com."

Ask.com has trumped the feeble attempts by other search engines to address users' privacy concerns. Google's best offering to date, is deletion of data after 18 months assuming the user has become inactive.

Users' behavioral data is a highly demanded commodity, especially when tied into contextual advertising, so it's comforting to see Ask.com placing user peace of mind ahead of the quick buck. The strategy could prove to be more lucrative to the search engine in the long term, as searchers opt for a more secure search experience.

Tuesday, July 17

Landing Pages Exposed!

Those of you that have heard about landing pages but are not quite sure what they are or for those of you already using landing pages but are wanting to make yours better then please read carefully.

A landing page is the first page a user sees when they click on one of your advertising links. Some people believe that their home page is their landing page, however this is not necessarily the best approach. A landing page should be tailored towards one of your products or services. It can be a page from your website or separate to your website, even hosted on a different domain if you like.

The main goal of a landing page is to produce a conversion, whether it is a sign up, a sale or even just a lead.

Let's say you are a real estate agent dealing in the rental and sales of houses. Imagine you have designed a Google advertising campaign tailored towards your rental properties. Would you send users to your home page, your sales page or your rentals page? Of course you would prefer people going to the rentals page as this is far more relevant to the advertising.

Have a look at this landing page http://www.ineedmoreclicks.com/advertising-new/. It was designed by ineedhits to advertise one of its services and has helped to greatly improve conversion rates. There are several key areas we consider when creating our landing pages - here's our 3 golden rules:

1. Keep it simple, straight to the point, not too cluttered.

2. Include elements of the advertising used to drive traffic to the page. For example advertising used to get them to the page was "guaranteed traffic" you would want to include these words somewhere on the page.

3. Strong call to action - Include your phone number and email address or make sure you have a form to collect users information to follow up later on.

Here are some common mistakes of landing pages - make sure to avoid these:

1. The page is too cluttered - this is distracting to users and may harm your conversion. Try to keep it to 5 main points max.

2. The page is too broad - Users must be able to see what you offer within the first 5 seconds of being on your page.

3. Too many links away from the page - don't have links to other websites and especially keep advertising to an absolute minimum.

Landing pages can be a great way for your business to grow and increase sales, however remember that a poorly designed page can also do the opposite. If you design your page carefully, keeping it simple and to the point, you may be surprised at the results that you can achieve through a highly targeted landing page.

5 Step Online Marketing Plan

At ineedhits, we offer small to medium businesses a range of online marketing services - from 'beginner' internet marketing packages and services, to expert and highly specialized, SEO solutions.
With our experience it's easy to forget that many businesses may be starting out online, and simply don't know how and where to start their marketing, so here's a quick 5 step internet marketing plan to get you started!

1. Who Are Your Customers?
In order to start any marketing campaign you need to determine who your customers are, the actual people that are likely to buy your products or services. Working out who is going to buy your products and services will give you a good indication of where you should start placing your online marketing message. About.com recommends you ask yourself the following questions as a start: What is your perfect, solid customer really like?

Is my perfect customer male or female?
Does my perfect customer work out of the home or in the home?
What is the job profile of my perfect customer - an executive, manager, worker, entrepreneur, stay-at-home parent, etc.
What is the net household income of my perfect customer?
What level of education does my perfect customer have?
Does my perfect customer have room in her spending budget for my product/service on a one time, occasional or constant basis?
How do my perfect customers use my product/service - do they buy it for themselves or as a gift?
Does my perfect customer spend a lot, some or minimal time on the Internet?
Where does my perfect customer look for my product/service? Both online and in physical locations?

2. Targeting your Customers
Targeting is all about maximizing your marketing message in the areas, or on the sites where your customers spend time. When considering where you will place advertisements take into account the quality of the website, directory, search engine or newsletter, who else is advertising in that space and what is being advertised? Also, will you receive bang for buck - what is traffic like to the site, or how many unique visitors do they receive each day?
Pay-per-click is one of the best methods of creating a targeted marketing campaign, though it may be very daunting to those new to online advertising. With Easy Search Advertising you set your online advertising budget and our SEO Specialist will create a targeted advertising campaign that sends more search engine traffic to your website.

3. Your Marketing Budget
Now that you've done some research into who you want to target, and where you should target that audience, you can set a realistic marketing budget. With a set budget in mind you'll be able to refine your campaign in order to get the greatest return for your advertising investment. What are the best advertising options to give you the most exposure and results?

4. Ads to Promote Your Specific Selling Points
More often than not you are selling more than a simple product or service - you are selling the benefit, or the 'dream'. A travel agent doesn't simply sell a seat on a plane and a hotel room - they promote the dream of adventure or the idea of a luxury holiday. Think about what your product and services are actually offering your customers - think beyond just the practical and use emotions to create a desire or need for what you are selling!

5. Tracking and Monitoring
Keep an eye on your return on investment. Are you getting your moneys' worth from your marketing campaign? If you are spending more than you are making then you may need to tweak some aspect of your advertising. It's all about testing, testing and more testing until you are seeing the results you want. However, don't forget that campaigns may take time before you see results so have a little patience before you decide to leave the internet marketing field!

If you'd like some more help and advice on the best possible online marketing solution for your business please contact our customer service team and we'll be more than happy to help. Good luck with your planning!

The New Online Advertising Solution for Small Business

As a part of our on-going enhancements at ineedhits we've just released a new and improved Easy Search Advertising service. The revamped service now offers a tiered pricing structure, enhanced reporting and free Yahoo! Clicks for some customers.

The improvements were based on extensive customer feedback, with the goal of providing better campaign flexibility and performance and delivering better returns on investment. The key improvements are explained below:

New Advertising Packages to Suit Your Needs
The new Easy Search Advertising program features a range of packages designed to suit your budget and traffic needs. The tiered pricing structure now makes the program more affordable for a wider range of businesses.

Improved Package Breakdown
As a part of the new advertising packages, we have also added more keywords and campaigns to the program to give wider advertising reach for your business. The packages are as follows:

Enhanced Campaign Reporting
Customers wanted more detailed information on campaign performance and we listened! Campaign reporting now includes the following additional data:

New campaign goals
Position of Ads
Budget Use
Screenshot of your Google / Yahoo Ad
List of keywords
Contact details for your account manager

$75 FREE Yahoo! Clicks
To kick start your advertising campaign we're giving US customers $75 FREE Yahoo! Clicks! If your clicks cost around 50c a click - that's potentially 150 qualified visitors to your website for free! *This offer is only available for Easy Search Advertising Packages that include Yahoo!

Business large and small can now enjoy the benefits of advertising on major search engines Google and Yahoo! with the improved Easy Search Advertising service. If you're keen to get started, head over to the Easy Search Advertising page and choose the traffic package to match your business!

Monday, July 16

Inside Google's Newest Algorithm Update

Buzz about another Google algorithm update started about 10 days ago when reports of serious changes to rankings surfaced. The dust should finally be settling on the update - so I've taken the opportunity to review the theories on the update.

Dave Davies was one of the first to post an analysis on the update, with his view shared by many across the internet. According to his review, three key areas were addressed in the update; namely Domain Age, Backlinks and PageRank.

Domain Age:
It appears that the Google Algorithm update has increased the importance placed on the age of a site's domain. While using domain age as a ranking factor helps to prevent spammy new websites from stealing top rankings, it tends to disadvantage legitimate sites that are just starting out. The importance of domain age should be a set-up on a sliding scale - with age becoming less important after a specified period, and other factors taking precedence.

Backlinks:
The new update seems to have unusually increased the importance on link volumes again which is ironic considering Google's public denouncement of paid links and unscrupulous linking strategies. So why then would Google reward sites with high volumes of irrelevant links? Many suspect this will be a temporary consequence, and I would expect to see a readjustment sooner rather than later.

PageRank:
It seems the little green bar and enigmatic Google PageRank score is playing a less significant role in weighting the value of links to a website. Many webmasters have become obsessed with getting high PageRank links, ignoring the importance of relevance. While the change is a good thing, it needs to be substituted with a better way of valuing links, which still isn't evident as yet. Perhaps the TrustRank measure which involves manual evaluation of core links will take its place.

All told, the latest Google update seems to have taken a step backwards as far improving the relevance of its SERPs. I'm fairly confident that any irrelevance generated from the update will be rectified by an algo tweak in the near future.

Tell us how the update has impacted your rankings and whether you think the key changes are for better or worse...