I hear these true stories and feel like someone just told an old joke about “two guys walk into a bar and…”

The following is just an example of how detached some people are from what it takes to generate leads or sell online.

A friend just told me about a guy who wants to do SEO. The cost of a custom web site alone turned him off. That’s fair. You have many options for web development. If you use the right tools yourself, your web site may still proclaim: “I’m not a web designer and it shows doesn’t it?” Hopefully you’ll hire a designer.

But the funnier part was the exchange between my friend and this not-yet-successful business person.

“Can I e-mail you more information about pricing?”

“I don’t have e-mail.”

“You don’t.”

“I don’t have any plans to get e-mail either.”

What more can anyone say?

Everyone, remain calm.

I’m sure some good sites suffered with the new adjustment. But it’s aimed at the unscrupulous crowd that goes overboard with SEO – innocently or on purpose. Google is cracking down more and more on web sites that get irrelevant links with the expectation that they can game search engines actually do reward good inbound links. And Google also isn’t big on keyword stuffing in your content either.

Earlier this year, Google also attacked web sites that do a poor job of including text content up high – “above the fold” as the saying goes.

Last year, Google came down hard on web sites that had a lot of duplicate content. Hint: originality helps.

What does this mean for you?

1. Don’t mess with search engines.
2. Clean up your mess if you’ve gone overboard.

So far, we’re doing just fine.

We also don’t lose sight of he fact that Google makes all sorts of smaller algorithm changes throughout the year.

We’re always making adjustments on our end to protect or improve our clients’ rankings.

One of our medical clients has a keyword phrase that’s #2 on Google right now among 11.8 million results. According to Google, there are an estimated 1 million searches a year for that phrase. Another client sells industrial equipment and is #3 for a phrase that people search for 145,000 times a year.

And guess what, the web sites are peppered with those keyword phrases. But we’ve taken great care to include them only when it sounds natural.

I’m not too worried about the Google Penguin update. Rankings rise and fall. We strive for the overall improvements with keywords and rankings. It’s all about relevance.

Hopefully your business is built on more than how well you rank on Google (industry leader Danny Sullivan has a great piece about businesses that rely too much on Google). We love it when we get leads and sales from Google. But that’s only part of an effective strategy that factors in web design, calls to action, news releases, link building, permission e-mail marketing, social media and paid search when it makes sense.

If you’re going to focus on SEO (and you should to a degree), go after the keywords that your web site can support. If you’ve tried to get on the first page of Google and fallen short, make sure you are working with the right online marketing expert. If that person or team has a good reputation, it may be time to try some different keyword phrases or work on new content or build up your social media presence or pursue links from outstanding directories, publications, blogs and other sources.

If you’re doing the right things, put the Google Penguin out of your mind and work where you can excel. Write an article for a popular industry publication. Create some compelling content on your web site that others will talk about and pass along. You have many options.

• Delivered describes how many emails were successfully sent out.
• Bounced describes how many emails weren’t delivered because it’s no longer a working email.
• Unique Views also known as Open Rate is the number of recipients that opened the email.
• Unique Clicks describes the number of recipients that clicked in the email.
• Total Clicks describes all the instances recipients who clicked in the email.
• Unsubscribes is the number of people who have unsubscribed themselves from your email marketing campaign.

So which one should you really care about?

Well the bottom line is, you can have all the subscriptions, unique views and clicks but they do not have any value unless they are making a positive impact, like driving relevant traffic to your web site or converting to a web sale or filling out a form.

Image used for one of World Synergy's permission marketing campaigns and in the image alone there are 6 calls to action.

Of course we all shoot for a high open-rate, but it goes even further than someone just opening your permission marketing email.

It is important to focus on what that recipient is clicking within the email and if they are converting.

It’s easy to get caught up on high percentages, but if someone is just opening an email and not converting by filling out a form or visiting the web site then how do you measure the success of that email?

With all this being said, it is vital for emails to have calls to action! If it’s calling a number or driving traffic to the website to fill out a form. This helps with measuring the success of your email and its positive impact.

Contact us at World Synergy if you’re interested in starting a permission marketing email campaign.

Over the past few years many businesses have jumped into social media marketing as a way to acquire new clients, forgetting about the value social media brings to customer retention.  Let’s look at 3 simple tips to use social media for customer retention:

1.  Gain respect as an expert in your field. Using social media to provide your customers with industry knowledge earns you respect as an expert in your field. Create content that your customers would appreciate.  Ideas include different ways of using your product or service, relevant health and/or safety information, tips for choosing providers, things to look out for, etc, etc.

2. Post content to encourage your customer engagement with.  By posting questions, trivia, quizzes and asking opinions, you’re staying in communication with clients without soliciting them. This natural social behavior will keep your business in the front of their mind.

3. Encourage feedback on your social media sites.  Resist the urge to delete negative comments. Instead encourage your customers to use social media platforms in order to speak truthfully about their experience with your business.  In the interview, Roman Jacubowycz quoted a statistic saying “56-70% of customers who complain to you, will do business with you again if you resolve their complaint.” Communication plays a crucial role in retaining customers, so view negative comments as opportunities to resolve complaints in order to retain customers.

Want more internet marketing tips for growing and retaining your customer base? Consider signing up for our new webinar, “Online Marketing Success Strategies for 2012,” at 1 p.m. (EST), April 19, 2012.

Watch the interview here for more tips and statistics regarding using content to retain customers.

Some businesses are already experiencing the new layout and are taking advantage of the new cover image feature.

The cover photos (851×315 pixels) appear across the top of your Facebook business page and create more of a branding impact.

Cover image ideas:

• Pictures of your business office or retail store
• Company logo
• Staff members
• Popular menu items (restaurants)
• Before and After photos (contractors, decorators)

Keep in mind there are restrictions on what can be displayed in the cover image.

Cover image can’t contain the following:

• Price or purchase information (40% off or download it at our website)
• Contact information (web address, email, mailing address or other information that is in your page’s About Section)
• Calls to action (Get it now!)
• References to user interface elements (Like or Share)

Also, all cover images are public. Anyone visiting your business page will be able to see the image you choose.

Visit World Synergy’s Facebook to see how to properly use the new Facebook cover image feature. Be sure to “like” us for all of your industry news and updates!

As World Synergy’s web strategy thought leader, I’ll be sharing the latest tips, trends and insights on SEO, paid search, social media and more. I will take a detailed look at online marketing challenges and opportunities that B2B and B2C business executives face every day.

Register today for the FREE webinar and get:

• Social media tactics that work
• Advice on how to leverage search engine optimization (SEO)
• Paid search best practices
• Fresh ideas for permission e-mail marketing

With a focus on ROI, the webinar will include real-life examples of tactics and strategies that companies use to generate more leads and sales while reinforcing their brands.

A significant number of small businesses – 70% – managed to generate more than 100 inbound links from diverse sources.

The number and quality of links can vary in their influence on keyword rankings with search engines. But it’s encouraging that the small businesses have attracted some links from web sites, directories, social media profiles, etc.

Small businesses still have a tough time ranking (62% can’t get on the first page of Google for even one keyword phrase). But the link building momentum is something that can help them over time.

Links should come from authoritative sources with relevant content. In other words, the link will have more value if the web site that provides it also has a good reputation based on the links it has received.

It never hurts to get a link from a local business organization, but companies should strive for links from online magazines, blogs and assorted publishes who like what they offer. You can get others to link to your web site if you have great tools or knowledge, such as industry guides or white papers.

Would you like to know more? Contact us online or call 440-349-4940.

Or, get our free guide: “22 Link Building Tactics to Boost Web Site Traffic.”

I recommend checking these new automated features and consider using them for those who manage multiple PPC accounts.

The automated rules will help save you time managing accounts based on conditions you select. The rules can manage your bids, budgets, or ad statuses.

And you can manage how frequent your rules are applied to the ads.

Here are some examples of different automated rules that Google AdWords offers:

• Scheduling ads for special promotions or events
• Changing keyword bids to control average position
• Pausing low-performing ads or keywords
• Adjusting budgets or scheduling budgets for certain days each week
• Raising keyword bids to ensure ads show on first page

For instructions on how to create automated rules, please visit Google AdWords.

If you’re interested in Google pay-per-click, contact us at World Synergy for more information.

If you want to guard your money and avoid some headaches, keep these simple tips in mind:

1. Does the potential consultant contact you in the middle of the night through e-mail? I doubt it’s a sign of a robist 24×7 operation.
2. What e-mail address do they use? If it’s Gmail, run fast. If they’re not even part of an established business or use Gmail to conceal their business, you don’t want to give them any thought.
3. Do they offer a guarantee? I don’t know anyone who can call in favors with search engines and land the #1 position. They’re lying or deceiving you in some way. I can get you to rank #1 for all sorts of phrases that no one will ever use. I doubt that you would like search engine rankings and no correspoinding web site visitors.
4. If you can look at their web site, what do you see? How evident is their address? Do they allow you to ask for examples of their work?
5. Finally, find out if they have any standing in the industry. Check out their blog and see whther they have produced any expert articles, guides or white papers.

Whether it is the subject line that is phrased in a different way or the time it is sent out, it’s important to test different aspects to achieve a higher click-through, conversion and open rate.

Remember to keep tests simple and don’t stop with just one.

Creating a testing procedure and schedule will help unlock improvements of a campaign.

Clickz.com provided some best practices when it comes to optimizing for open rates, click-throughs and conversions.

To optimize opens:

• Subject line
• From name
• Best time to send

To optimize click-throughs:

• Creative/layout
• Copy
• From name
• Subject lines
• Offer
• Calls to action

To optimize conversions:

• Creative/layout
• Subject lines
• Offer
• Landing pages
• Calls to action
• Copy
• From name

If you’re interested in starting a permission marketing email campaign, please contact us at World Synergy.