Being a consumer today allows for many different perks than it did 20 years ago. Today, consumers have the ability to voice their opinions about businesses in the online space, for the whole world to see.  As a business owner, it is uncomfortable not being able to reply back to these comments.  Well, the tables have turned. Google rolled out an update that allows business owners to respond to reviews posted to Google Place Pages of Google Maps.

The means of online communication today are very transparent and emphasize connectivity, so this feature seems like a great supplement for business owners. But at the same time, these business owners should be cautious with responses and consider listening to the conversations before jumping right in. These comments have a lengthy shelf life, so you can imagine the weight they hold. Let the chatter begin!

The third seminar in the 2010 Seminar Series focuses on Return on Investment. The seminar will cover how to set the right goals, use a variety of analytical tools, measure returns across an assortment of marketing channels and turn a company’s marketing budget into a powerful revenue generator.

The seminar will be on Thursday, July 29 from 8:30am – 12:00pm at Risdall Marketing Group in New Brighton. The agenda includes sessions in goal setting and forecasting, website analytics, tactical ROI and marketing ROI.

Cost to register is $250. For more information and to register, please visit http://risdall.com/seminarseries.

With all of the current regulations, governance’s and laws, how can anyone in a regulated industry engage in social media?  Risdall Marketing Group’s President of Integration, Jared Roy, is featured in Duets Blog where he discusses Social Media Engagement in Regulated Industries.  In this post, Jared enlightens readers on ways Health-care, pharmaceuticals, banking, insurance, spirits and publicly traded companies can not only tame, but leverage the beast we are all becoming very familiar with, Social Media.  Enjoy!

In the month of June, RMG has been doing a series of radio broadcasts on Search Marketing. Below is a script of my interview with Jim Poole on June 19 covering keyword research. This is a longer version than what you heard on WCCO as we had to cut down on the length in studio, but I thought you would want to see the whole recording.

Jim Poole: Last week you talked about keyword research and its importance to organic search. What would you say are the best keywords for SEO?
Jennifer Risdall: The best keywords are, of course, different for every website. But they do have some factors in common. Let’s look at some of those common factors.

1. Those terms or phrases that your audiences are using to find your products, services, company, or you. So, for instance, you want to think like your audiences. Do your users use industry jargon or common words when looking for your company or products or services?

2. Those terms that are relevant to a page on your website. These may be extremely targeted terms, such as red high top tennis shoes or very general terms such as tennis shoes. Most sites have a mix of both.

3. Those terms that help you to achieve your website goals. That’s right. There are certain terms that convert better than others. Keeping this in mind when reviewing your terms is important.

4. And lastly, those terms that pertain to your industry. These could be industry terms in general or it could be breaking news in your market. Regardless, make sure to keep up-to-date on terms, old and emerging as your industry changes.

There are a couple of other items to consider when looking for the best keywords for your site.

1. Do Competitive Research. Look at items like:
• What keywords are your competitors found for?
• Are these phrases relevant to you?
• Do users actually search by these keyword phrases?

2. Also, conduct site research. Here you want to focus on your site statistics, such as:
• What keywords are driving traffic to your site now?
• How are these keywords converting? Are they converting?
• Also, make sure to look at and evaluate traffic patterns and paths through the site

Jim Poole: Are there certain tools you recommend to find these keyword terms?
Jennifer Risdall: There are many tools out there that you can use. We prefer a mixture of keyword research tools and those that help you think outside the box. When looking for keyword terms, you have to be creative and really dig to find the information that will afford you the best traffic and conversions. Some of our favorites are:

Wordtracker
KeywordDiscovery.com
Thesaurus.com

And a host of Google products, such as:

Google Keyword Research Tool
Google Trends
Google Analytics
Google Suggest

There are many, many other tools you can use – to find out what your competitors are doing and using, to look at synonyms, to look at industry terms. Some of your best research could be in your backyard – with sales people, customers, etc.

Jim Poole: So now you have a list of keyword terms that you want to target. How do you target these with your website?
Jennifer Risdall: Search engines look at pages based on relevancy and frequency. What this means is that the search engine is trying to determine if this page is relevant to the search term that the user has typed into its search box. How does it determine this? The search engine looks at the frequency of the keyword term within the page AND, and this is important, in the links and pages pointing to the page on your site.

Your keyword list gives you a blueprint of the content you should have on your website. When you look at it, you may say, “Whoa!” I can’t put all that on my website. That’s okay. This is your keyword universe. You need to assess what are the best terms for you to focus on from a marketing and business goals and conversion perspective and focus on these first. Then you can add content based on these keyword phrases as you have time and resources to do it.

Two tips to think about:

1. Search engines like you to update your content. So don’t think you will create the site and then let it sit there. This is a living, growing marketing tool for your company that you need to nurture often.
2. More relevant, unique content is a good thing. Search engines like it, your visitors return to see it and your new visitors will visit and realize you are the current, in-the-know expert that you are.

In the month of June, RMG has been doing a series of radio broadcasts on Search Marketing, specifically SEO. Below is a script of my interview with Jim Poole on June 5 covering how and why you drive traffic through search marketing. This is a longer version than what you heard on WCCO as we had to cut down on the length in studio, but I thought you would want to see the whole recording.

Jim Poole: Last week we talked about creating a website and tips to think about when doing this. So, now you have a website – how do you get your audiences to visit it?
Jennifer Risdall: Great question and one I hear often. First step is to know your audiences – where they are, what they do, how they find out about you and your services. I think Ted discussed this a bit. Then you look at the tools available to you.

One of my favorites is search marketing. Comscore tells us that search is still growing as people turn to online to find what they are looking for – the number of searches grew 16% in 2009 over 2008. And according to Yahoo’s ROBO study, 89% – 89%! – of consumers research products and services online. Whew! This is where your audiences are looking for your company, your products and/or your services. With search marketing, you have the opportunity to be right in front of them by ranking well in the search engines for those terms that YOUR users are searching for.

Jim Poole: How do you drive traffic through search marketing?
Jennifer Risdall: Search marketing has two primary types: paid or sponsored search and organic search. Both target keyword terms that users type in the search box. Paid search results are listed at the top or the right of the results page and to a certain degree you are able to control what your ads say and where they are placed. Organic search results are the main results on the results page and are determined by the search engine’s algorithm.

I will say that searchers do tend to prefer the organic listings to the paid – in the book, Marketing in the Age of Google, Vanessa Fox states that 85% of searchers click on organic over paid listings. The thought process is that the organic listings are not paid advertisements and are validated by a third party, Google. Whether true or not, the listing in organic results gives the site a more expert status.

Jim Poole: Is organic the way to go?
Jennifer Risdall: Both have advantages and disadvantages. Paid search is able to be up and running right away and can target hundreds, if not thousands of terms without changing your website. However, it is for the now and does not give you any long-term results. It can also be expensive. Eight to ten years ago there weren’t as many people and businesses bidding on keyword terms. As more and more companies understand the value of paid search, competition for keyword terms has increased and so has the amount per click.

Organic search has always been seen as the free way to advertise. That is really a misnomer in that you have to put in time to be ranked well within organic search results. This can be your time, an employee’s time or a search agency’s time but the time has to be put in. Google looks at millions of factors to rank web pages in its index. Your expert has to know what the factors are and how to make changes to your website, pages and links to help your site be found for the keyword terms your audiences are searching for.

It is definitely worth it. In 1996 when I first started working in this market I was constantly trying to show companies why they wanted to be on the first page in the search engines and directories. Now I don’t have to do that. Your audiences are using the search engines to find information about products and services that you offer. It is in your best interest to be where they are looking.

Well, that was my opinion up until about a month or two ago. Prior to this epiphany, I understood how Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. could be useful on both a professional and personal level… but I really wasn’t on the blog bandwagon. Why would someone want to read about my life, and take the time to read my take on things? Don’t they have their own things to worry about? Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved the online marketing world, but I just didn’t get it.

Fast forward to the present, and here I sit at Risdall, witnessing the collaborative nature between SEO, sponsored search, social media and PR everyday. It was only after I began to see how all of these elements come together in blogs that I began to be a believer in blogs.

I came to see that blogging is so much more than just writing about oneself or “eavesdropping” in on someone else’s life. Blogging is about helping people through shared experiences and opinions. It’s about sharing advice and allowing others to learn from your mistakes and negative experiences. From an SEO perspective, it’s also about linking. The more links a site has from high trafficked blogs, the higher its organic rankings will be. As you can see, blogging has a little something for everybody.

Don’t expect me to start my own personal blog soon, I’m still not convinced I have enough things to talk about, but through the wide online marketing lens I have come to understand and respect the blogging world.

Blogs, FTW!

At PubCon this week, Google guru, Matt Cutts, has shared that there is a substantial rally cry to add page load as a factor in how websites are ranked (see article at Search Engine Land). We have been saying this for years from a usability standpoint. Google agrees with us that a site that loads faster is a better user experience and that is why it wants to include it in the ranking algorithm. That is interesting…Google has always said that it wants relevant results (Google says this is, “…defined by co-founder Larry Page as something that, “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.”") Now Google wants to better its results again by adding good usability to its relevant results. Way to go, Google!

What are your thoughts on adding this new ranking factor to the algorithm? Are there any other factors you would like Google to think about?

Last week’s stack of generally uninteresting vendor mail included an “IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE” from a company in a southern MN, near my home town.  Feeling some sense of intrigue and obligation I decided to read before filing in the plastic bin at my feet.  Turns out some folks won a settlement against Yahoo! relating to Sponsored Search and Content Match ad placement.  They claim the terms of service were violated when Yahoo! allowed these ads to be displayed on spyware, domain parking pages, pop-ups/unders, and typosquatting sites.  Naughty naughty!  After years of litigation, millions of pages and hundreds of GB of documentation provided by Yahoo!, testimony from both sides, and all that shtuff, a settlement was reached.

So, what does this mean for all involved?  Here’s the breakdown.

• General public – Yahoo! agreed to develop an “Ad Placement Option” (name subject to change blah blah blah), whereby customers can specify that ads purchased may only be displayed on Yahoo! owned properties or “Premium” distribution partners.  The timetable for the launch of this new option is “as early as the first quarter of 2010, but in no event later than September 30, 2010″, and they agree to maintain the option for at least two years from the launch … or (almost forgot about this part) until the agreement with Microsoft is finalized.  So, in theory, and legally, it may never materialize.  Yahoo! also agreed to post more information about where ads may appear on the Traffic Quality portion of it’s site.
• Class Members still in business – nothing in particular.  It’s not about the money though, it’s the principle.
• Class Members out of business – a $20 refund – the cost of a stamp.  Yahoo! indeed.
• Class Representatives – these three (also referred to as “several”, not the more precise “few”, in the IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE) will be awarded $10,000 each.
• Class Counsel – $4,170,000 plus expenses totaling about $100,000.  Remember, it’s not just about the money.  It’s about the principal and the resulting interest, dividends, and taxes.
• Yahoo! – total estimated outlay is $4.3 million plus the $20 payments to class members now out of business.

Learn more about the case and the settlement at www.inreyahoosettlement.com.

Great post by Adam Kleinberg at iMedia.

1) Mass collaboration is powering the new economy
Companies are taking advantage of a new collaborative world to foster innovation and grow their enterprises.

2) Constant connectivity in an on-demand world
I’m wired almost every minute of every day and so are your customers and prospects. People expect you as a company to be “on” 24/7.

3) Globalization: Making the world a smaller place
Technology has made geography irrelevant. Businesses around the world are doing business with one another and will continue to do so.

4) Pervasive distrust in big corporations
The impending financial doom this country faced a year ago had a tremendous impact on consumer confidence in America, but even greater damage was done to consumer trust.

5) A global sense of urgency to fix the problems of a modern world
Being green is a minimum standard.

5 marketing megatrends you can’t ignore

Trust has become the factor for brands, large and small. In this ever-changing economy and marketplace, trust is what brands are built on. Without the trust of its audiences – vendors, customers, distributors/dealers, partners, etc. – companies will fail. Business Week just ran an article called, The Great Trust Offensive, talking about three big brands and how they are working to establish greater trust with their customers. I would go one further and say that all your audiences must trust you and that trust is absolutely necessary to succeed. You may have a short-lived success with a new, catchy widget or service but if you can’t live up to expectations, you kill that trust with your audiences.

Trust can be built through each interaction that a brand has with its audiences. From ads to lead nurturing to SEM to delivery of products/services to customer service to social networks, a brand has many touchpoints with its audiences and thereby, many opportunities to establish trust. Here are six simple rules to follow in all your communications/conversations around your brand:
1. Be true to your brand. Create a brand that stands for something and stick to it.
2. Set expectations and make sure that you can live up to them.
3. Live up to them.
4. Engage your audiences to find out if you are living up to them and to get input.
5. Act on that input. This may require a change in product or how you do business or it may involve taking what you started with and expanding on it. Regardless, you have received valuable input and now you can build trust by responding to it and acting on it.
6. Continue to do all of the above. This is an ongoing process and conversation, not just a one-time occurrence. It is the ongoing trust relationship that you are building that will keep your audiences coming back to you time and again.