 Rankings May Matter, Depending On Your Client
Fuel Interactive
Brian Carter throws some kerosene on the "rankings don't really matter in SEO" fire with this post, arguing that the metrics chosen by clients are the ones that should have the most weight (and get the most attention) -- be they rankings, traffic or conversions. "Every client has different needs," he says. "And every client has different key metrics."
For some clients, it may be lead generation. In that case, you'd focus on the keywords and tactics that would generate the most leads. The same goes for sales. "But if you have a client (and we have several like this) that need top 5 or even #1 rankings for particular keywords to fulfill other parts of their business strategy, then focus on rankings," Carter says.
While focusing on any one metric at the expense of a holistic SEO program may not be an ideal strategy for all clients, Carter argues that certain clients may not need soup-to-nuts SEO. "It's understandable that optimizers would want to do SEO optimally, every time," he says. "But take the bigger view: your real goal is to help your client do business optimally. So, fit SEO into their overall business objectives optimization." - Read the whole story... Is There Such A Thing As Over-Targeting?
Chief Marketer
How do you choose the right keywords for your target if you don't know precisely who your target is? For example, a recent Forbes article found that there are many different kinds of sports moms -- each with different media consumption and product purchasing habits. Hockey moms are defined by their affluence, while many basketball moms live predominately indoor lifestyles. So should you not target the former with discount ads, or the latter with sunscreen ads?
According to Stuart Larkins, targeting and demographic research is good -- but sometimes it can get out of hand. And he suggests that some search campaigns become useless through over-targeting. "As entertaining as this story is and as interesting as these nuanced differences might be, American sports moms certainly must have more commonalities than differences," he says. "Regardless of whether their kids play hockey, soccer, football or Scrabble, marketers should remember some important facts about moms in general," Larkins says.
Such facts include stats like just over a third of moms spend three or more hours online per day, three-fourths of moms spend more than an hour a day online and watching TV, and nearly all moms (98%) said that they do the grocery shopping for their household. "Marketers should not over-think the obvious," Larkins says. "So long as marketers effectively prepare for their target customers' search queries with the right keywords, ads and information, they don't need to bother with any further targeting." - Read the whole story... Quick Tips For Promoting A New Web Site
SEOptimise
Glen Allsopp offers some quick tips for promoting a new Web site. Of course, he touches on using StumbleUpon to find interesting blogs and sites within your niche, and then leaving comments on them (with a link back to your site), as well as Twitter and MyBlogLog. The most interesting tool Allsopp suggests using is creating a Gravatar.
"Gravatars are the avatars that show up next to comments on many blogs (this is increasing all the time) and is built by the same team that builds Wordpress," he says. "Gravatar works by assigning your email address to a picture, so whenever you post a comment with a certain email, your picture will appear next to it." - Read the whole story... Executive Shuffle In Microsoft's Search Division
Cnet
Microsoft is doing the executive shuffle with search, naming Yusuf Mehdi head of marketing for its MSN and search properties (i.e., Live Search). His team, which includes Brad Goldberg, general manager of the search business group, runs marketing, product management, strategic partnerships, and business development for the sites.
Mehdi will report directly to Steve Ballmer, until the company brings in someone to run the entire online services division. Meanwhile, Bill Veghte, who previously headed up the MSN and search properties, has been named senior vice president for the Windows business. Veghte will still manage the Windows Live teams, highlighting the confusing tangle of brands under Microsoft's search and online umbrella. - Read the whole story... Is Your Homepage Spontaneous Or Methodical?
Future Now
Holly Buchanan uses the homepage structures of two dating sites to show how Webmasters can cater to spontaneous or methodical visitors. She dubs spontaneous visitors as those that just want to jump in and take action. "They can get answers to their questions later," Buchanan says. Methodical visitors, on the other hand, want their questions answered before they click, join or otherwise get further engaged.
Match.com is geared toward the former, as there's just one image, one call to action, and even a special offer designed to help users jump right in. Plentyoffish.com is the complete opposite. "New visitors see a list of four points (numbered, which the methodicals loved)" -- thus "answering questions that those methodicals want answered before they take even one action on your site," Buchanan says. - Read the whole story... |
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