Getting into the habit of drilling down into search data as part of a marketing campaign can do much to increase website traffic, it has been suggested.
Speaking to Search Engine Land, Zvents.com marketing vice-president Paul O'Brien said that looking closely at patterns in search in the lead-up to a consumer making a purchase can reveal much about customer behaviour and intent.
He gave the example of running a TV ad involving a celebrity, which would usually result in an increase in searches for the brand and celebrity in question.
Analysing to what extent and in which pattern this occurs, as well as looking to whether personality affects demand for a certain product or brand, can help to refine search marketing campaigns to be their most effective, Mr O'Brien commented.
"With that approach to search, my greatest success is having repeatedly seen triple-digit growth in search traffic and performance," he stated.
Patricia Hursh of SmartSearch Marketing recently noted on Search Engine Land that analytics can play just as important a role in organic search campaigns as in pay-per-click advertising.... read full details »
An expert has offered advice on how to go about getting valuable links to content created to attract as much attention as possible - linkbait.
According to Tom Critchlow of the SEOmoz blog, there are a number of ways in which marketers can receive links to their linkbait aside from submitting content to major sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.
He advised submitting linkbait to more niche social media sites, as well as those in foreign language sites - something that be particularly useful for image-based content.
It is also a good idea to simply ask for links by getting in touch with bloggers who might be interested in the content in question, while sending links via email to contacts who are likely to pass on the message to others is another potentially effective method, Mr Critchlow stated.
"Even for the pieces which don't go hot on one of the social news sites there's still massive potential - after all the content is no less appealing," he said.
Linkbait can consist of content that is controversial, creative or offers useful, original data, according to Matt Cutts of Google.... read full details »
UK-based marketers are more likely to prioritise search engine marketing (SEM) during the financial downturn than those elsewhere in Europe, a new poll has suggested.
Undertaken by Efficient Frontier, the survey of 300 marketers in the UK, Germany and France found that almost eight in ten British respondents viewed SEM as a top three priority marketing strategy, reports New Media Age.
Overall, 98 per cent of marketers said they believed online marketing was a crucial tactic to turn to during a recession, while 87 per cent made the prediction that spending on internet advertising will grow at the same rate in 2009 as it has in 2008.
"It's pleasing to see these survey results reflecting a positive story during this current economic environment," stated David White, general manager at Efficient Frontier Europe.
According to eMarketer, UK online ad spending will rise by 27.1 per cent this year and 17.2 per cent in 2009.... read full details »
Footer links may not provide the boost to search engine optimisation (SEO) that marketers might believe they offer, an expert has said.
Rand Fishkin of the SEOmoz blog said that it used to be the case where using footer links for SEO held a certain amount of value.
Now they may be seen to do more harm than good - they tend to link to content that has already been linked to further up the page and could make the website exceed the maximum recommended number of links on any one page, he noted.
To make the most of such links, it is advisable to avoid keyword stuffing and take steps to ensure each links is as useful and relevant as possible, Mr Fishkin stated.
"Be smart about nofollows - nearly every footer on the web has a few links that don't need to be followed, so think about whether your terms of service and legal pages really require the link juice you're sending," he added.
According to the Quality Nonsense blog, eBay has placed a paragraph of text stuffed with keywords at the bottom of some of its website pages in an effort to boost SEO.... read full details »
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