2009 December

Picking a Domain Name for Your Website

December 31st, 2009 by Kasi

In SEOmoz’s “Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009“, respondents reported that having a keyword in the domain name was of high importance in ranking for that keyword in on-page SEO factors. Most of the time, the domain of your website was picked long ago (most likely using your company name) and that’s OK. It is definitely not worth risking your current rankings and authority to have a brand new domain for your site; the same goes for buying a new one and redirecting all of the pages on your old domain to it. However, if you find yourself in the position of starting a new website, here are some tips to consider when picking the URL:

Start with Your Keyword List

If you haven’t already done your keyword research, do it now. This will help you target the keywords that will represent your business and the terms that people will find you for. A marketing and communications office who specializes in PR and wants to be found for terms such as “digital pr”, “online pr”, “online reputation”, etc. might want to play around with some of these variations to find a phrase that would also work as their domain. You can go to a place like Network Solutions to see which URLs are available to purchase.

Keep It Short

A shorter web address will be easier to fit on all of your offline marketing materials, and it will be easier for people to remember when they are searching for you online. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at top keywords bringing people to a website in Google Analytics, and there is a variation of the domain name being used, or even the actual web address typed into the search engine.

Be Descriptive

If you take my advice and start out by using your keyword list, you’ve already got this one nailed. A domain name like yellowandpurple.com would not indicate to someone that this website sells used DVDs. Something like useddvdsonline.com would be an obvious better choice. Think of picking a new domain like brainstorming your keywords: it should be terms that describe your business that people will find you for.

Shouldn’t My Domain Be My Company Name?

The whole idea behind SEO is to help the people who don’t know your business name (or may not even know you exist) find you. If you can get some help in rankings for one of your targeted terms with your domain name, why not use that to your advantage? You will still be able to be found by a search on your company name, since you have your name throughout the content of your site (and it’s not very often that you will compete for your own company name).

If the process of keyword research and the fundamentals of SEO leave you a bit befuddled, please feel free to join me for my upcoming webinar on What You Need to Know About SEO.

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Posted in Internet Marketing, Organic Search (SEO)

Positioning Your Social Media Marketing Strategy in 2010

December 30th, 2009 by Amanda

Photo credit: mukumbura

No predictions here this year but what I do want to talk about is positioning for 2010. Resolutions don’t work, so lets not set those just to watch them fall to the wayside by February.

The problem with resolutions is they are usually set too generally. The problem with a lot of goals is they are also set too high and too generally, even website and internet marketing goals:

I want to make more money
More ecommerce Sales
More traffic
Have 2,500 Twitter followers
Have thousands of blog subscribers
Rank #1 in Google, Bing and Yahoo

Goals are great but you need to set smaller milestones to map out how you are going to reach those goals.

Map Out the How

Knowing what you want to achieve is great but how you are going to get there is more important. Map out and measure ‘the How’ or the process to make sure you are working towards your milestones. This could mean setting goals in Google Analytics, tracking your email newsletter opens and click thrus better, listening to how many times your company is mentioned on social networking sites and blogs, tracking the number of calls you are getting with customer service questions et al.

Some Businesses are Leaders and Others are Followers

Either you took social media by the horns in ‘09 or you watched other companies try to figure it out. Social Media is not going away. Instead, social media is going to become more of just how we do business. If you are waiting, you are missing out on potentially reserving your name or business name on social networks and you could be playing a serious game of catch up pretty soon. If you are waiting, you could be missing out on connecting with your current and potential customers and they could be forming that relationship with someone else.

What Do Your Customers Want to Hear from You?

If you can figure out what your customers want to hear from you and using which channels (email, blog, direct mail, Facebook, Twitter, television ad), then you will have success in 2010. Honestly ask yourself and your customers (if you can) what types of things they want to know more about from you. You may be surprised at their answers. Changing our mindset from old outbound marketing and pushing our message out to as many people as possible is proving itself ineffective.

Just Try it for Three Weeks

One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, wrote a nice post on how to keep a New Year’s resolution. One of her tips was to think in terms of the next three weeks. If working social media into your business day is on your list of to do’s, make an effort to participate at least once a day for three weeks. Not just post something, but reply to someone’s content too. According to Penelope and scientific research, after three weeks your brain will take over this behavior and make the time to participate.

Leading into next year, let’s not set resolutions or make silly predictions but let’s realign our marketing objectives, tactics, milestones and tools for measuring results. I think 2010 is going to be a very interesting year for the internet and the things businesses can do to connect to their customers.

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Posted in Business Strategy, Social Network Marketing

Dec. 25 – Happy Holidays!

December 25th, 2009 by santa

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves Kasi and Amanda will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

I decided Kasi and Amanda have been VERY good girls this year so I think they deserve the day off from the Internet Marketing Advent Calendar!
Merry Christmas!
I hope you all enjoyed the calendar as much as Mrs. Claus and I did!
Santa gave Kasi and Amanda the day off

Read the rest of the Internet Marketing Advent Calendar

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Posted in Web Development

Dec. 24 – Track Santa Online!

December 24th, 2009 by Kasi

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves Kasi and Amanda will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

Back when I was a kid, the internet wasn’t around. I mean, it had been developed and all that, but it wasn’t accessible to us “regular” folks yet. So, aside from a newscast here or there about his whereabouts, I just had to believe that he would make it to my house that night. I couldn’t obsessively see where he had already visited and track his path.

Kids today are so lucky! Now, just by doing a simple search, they can find tons of Santa Trackers at their disposal! When I typed “Santa Claus” into Bing and Google, it actually suggested “Santa Claus tracker”. Check out some of these cool sites and enjoy!

Santa Update

NORAD Tracks Santa

Santa Radar

I wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Thank you so much for tuning in this month to our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar.

Read the rest of the Internet Marketing Advent Calendar