Free Webinar – “eStrategy Marketing: ROI Secrets Unveiled”

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Alyssa

Interested in learning how to blend your online and traditional marketing efforts into the best ROI?

Registerfor our free webinar: “eStrategy Marketing: ROI Secrets Unveiled” at 1 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, July 19.

Mike Murray, World Synergy’s web strategy thought leader, will share real-life examples of how to organize and unite your marketing efforts to generate a ROI.

The webinar will focus on defining and tracking valuable metrics and how to effectively use marketing tactics and strategies.

For SEO, Don’t Fear the Google Penguin

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Mike Murray

The SEO industry is buzzing again about Google’s latest algorithm hype – the Penguin webspam update.

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.

Internet Marketing Specialist | 3 Tips to Use Social Media for Customer Retention

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Kimberly

Recently I was interviewed for the National Strategic YouTube series, Evolve to Grow, aimed at educating business owners of the many tools available to acquire and retain more customers. This series installment was specifically about using content as a form of customer retention, and of course I was thrilled. As the Internet Marketing Specialist for World Synergy I have the great pleasure of being on a team that creates countless campaigns accomplishing this very task.

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 specialist 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.

FREE Webinar: “Online Marketing Success Strategies for 2012″

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Mike Murray

Check out our new webinar, “Online Marketing Success Strategies for 2012,” at 1 p.m. (EST), April 19, 2012 that will help marketers boost their ROI while navigating Internet marketing options.

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.

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.

Small Businesses Generate Some Inbound Links, But They Can Do Much Better

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Mike Murray

Our new study, “Small Businesses Just Don’t Get SEO,” took at close look at 200 U.S. small businesses and how they are doing with inbound links, one of the most significant factors with search engine rankings.

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.”

Web Site Design for Charlotte Home Builder

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Kimberly

World Synergy recently had the opportunity to work with The Ullman Group on several fronts.

We finished the web site design project not long ago which included the completion of a new corporate identity for the custom home builder in North Carolina and a new web site

design. Having a professional web site serves as a great reference for potential customers who want to connect with the business.

Learn more about the value of an eStrategy. Contact us today for a complimentary web marketing solutions consultation.

Does Your Business Support its Own Social Media Marketing Efforts?

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Kimberly

Too many businesses are not supporting their own social media marketing efforts while wondering why they can’t seem to capitalize on social media marketing trends. If your business has a social media presence, ask yourself these questions:

Do you display social media icons on your web site? This may seem like an obvious place to market your own social media profiles, but our recent small business SEO study revealed that 78% of small businesses have no mention of social media profiles on their web sites.
Are you using your packaging to send current customers to your social media sites? If your business has a product, your social icons should be on all packaging. Packaging your product without social icons is a way to miss out on customer feedback and increasing your fan base. Pictured here is my inspiration for today’s post, a pack of my Orbit gum and it’s no wonder Orbit gum has almost 2 million Facebook fans at the time of this post.
Does all your print advertising have a reference to your social media presence? Print advertising can include catalogs, fliers, brochures, business cards, coupons, Christmas cards and everything you order from your printer – business checks, invoices, everything. The next time you flip through coupons or your local junk mail, see how many are using their print advertisements to enhance their social marketing efforts. Pictured to the left is a coupon for Cheer detergent working together with their Facebook marketing campaign. It’s no surprise Cheer detergent has almost 70,000 Facebook fans at the time of this post.
Are you using your other forms of advertising, like television and radio, to generate a larger social media audience? Or are all your marketing efforts going in their own direction? Don’t be your own worst enemy when it comes to online marketing. Use your other advertising campaigns to help market your online presence and capture fans to engage with your brand. Read more about integrating your permission marketing email campaigns with social media in our post “Email + Social Media = Big Impact.“

To get the most out of all your advertising dollars, make sure you have properly integrated all print, packaging, email marketing, radio advertising, television commercials and your web site with your social media marketing efforts.

25 Tips for Social Media Success

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Kimberly

: 25 Tips for Social Media Success

Social media marketing can be an effective way for your business to increase web site traffic, target prospective clients, listen to real-time feedback from a community and convert activity to sales. Unfortunately, for many businesses implementing a strategy to produce results can be challenging and time consuming.

Our new guide, “25 Tips for Social Media Success,” delivers twenty-five simple, but often overlooked, techniques to effectively manage a social media strategy for your business.

Get your FREE copy of “25 Tips for Social Media Success” and start learning how to:

Take advantage of the Google Plus “Recommended links” from your G+ profile.
Save time by integrating your social media platforms.
Attract followers by incorporating keywords in specific profiles.
Use hashtags to send Twitter traffic to your web site.
And convert web site activity to web site sales!

At World Synergy, our internet marketing team can help you develop a social media strategy to help your business succeed online. Would you like to know more? Contact us today or call 440.349.4940.

World Synergy Study: U.S. Small Businesses Fail to Keep Up with SEO

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Mike Murray

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been around since the mid 1990s, but most small businesses seem to be out of touch when it comes to leveraging the online marketing opportunity.

Our new study, “Small Businesses Just Don’t Get SEO,” takes a close look at 200 diverse small businesses that typically don’t do enough to help with their search engine visibility. Who wouldn’t want to be one of the first web sites to appear on the search results page when someone conveys their product or service interest by the keyword they use on Google, Yahoo! or Bing?

Unfortunately, 62% of all small businesses don’t rank on the first page of Google for even a single keyword. And we were generous with some of the keyword rankings we tested. In quite a few cases, the phrases reflected small local cities that matched the locations of the businesses. If we had included some more competitive keyword phrases, the percentage of companies that don’t rank would be more like 80%.

Get your FREE copy of the 25-page SEO small business study today.

With Local SEO, Never Neglect Home Page or the Rest of Your Web Site

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Mike Murray

Web sites can succeed or fail on many levels – in huge or small ways.

Local search engine optimization (SEO) can be a major oversight or a minor one depending on how much you depend on the Internet to sustain sales or grow your business.

The Internet has plenty of opportunities off-site for local SEO – like Google Places (a pizza shop is just one of countless examples of small businesses that can benefit from local SEO).

But you really should start with your home page, other key pages of your web site and then look for other ways to establish your presence among search engine results:

Here are some tips for your own web site:

1. Get your full address in text on your home page. You may as well place it up high if you want people to find you.

2. Provide more details on your contact page – like a map, directions, etc.

3. Mention your address wherever it’s appropriate – like on product or service pages. Why force people to hunt for your contact page to learn how to find your business?

4. Add testimonial pages that can reference cities and communities you serve.

5. Add case studies – with or without customer names. You can always include the city where you provided your outstanding service.

6. Look for places to list an assortment of cities where you serve customers. If you’re clever, you can work in some county names and zip codes. The home page may be just one of the logical spots.
7. Be sure to link local references within your text, connecting internal pages with the links.

Would you like to know more about local SEO? Contact us today.

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