I subscribe to the idea of white hat SEO. Finding methods to climb the SERPS at the expense of the internet's ecosystem is very socially irresponsible. Instead I find ways to develop and promote content that rightfully should appear #1 in Google.
Most successful SEO campaigns are held up by at least 2 of these 3 pillars.
- 1. Content – Developing a high volume of at least moderate quality content is the best way to go after the low hanging fruit. This is because unique content naturally creates statistically improbably keyword combinations. These combinations are commonly called "the long tail".
- 2. Architecture – This refers to the commonly used term "onsite optimization". I prefer the term architecture because it is a little broader in scope. It also highlights the most important onsite optimization technique, your information architecture.
- 3. Links – Links are the lifeblood of SEO. Not only is this the widely agreed upon most valuable pillar, it is also the most difficult. I'm not a garbage collector when it comes to link development. I target high value social media links, which have the secondary effect of driving blog links.
These days SEM almost exclusively refers to running a PPC campaign but it is slightly broader than that. Some search sites like Yahoo and Baidu offer paid placement in a non-PPC format.
When it comes to PPC I target long tail queries with a specific intent that closely matches the intent of the connected landing page. For example, if I am selling a Cannon Rebel XTi camera I would target terms like “purchase cannon rebel xti” or “buy rebel xti” instead of “camera” or “cannon camera”.
By doing this you reduce CPC while increasing your conversion rate.
This is still on of the best ways to generate leads while improving customer relations. Investing in a quality CRM application is money well spent, I recommend SalesForce.
Here are some e-mail marketing best practices;
- 1. Capture your own leads – If you are already investing in SEO/SEM and your website is driving quality traffic then I strongly suggest adding a form to capture your own leads.
- 2. A/B test email blasts – If you have a large contact list it is a great idea to A/B test your first 20% of emails to find the best version to send to the rest of your list.
- 3. Track conversions – Whenever you send a blast track the % of conversions along with the % of people unsubscribing and plot that on a graph. This will teach you what type of emails to send and at what frequency.
Strong landing pages are absolutely vital to successful PPC campaigns. It goes beyond just having a strong sense for what works and what doesn’t. It also takes systematic A/B testing to continually improve your conversion rate.
Here are a few of my landing page best practices;
- 1. Above the Fold – It is important to keep at least one of your call-to-actions above the fold. I also suggest keeping your heading and main bullet points above the fold if possible.
- 2. Clear call-to-action – There should be absolutely no doubt what the "next step" is for your user from the moment (s)he lands on your page through the conversion.
- 3. Eliminate confusion – Any element on the page that is not required to push the user through the conversion should be eliminated. This includes heavy navigations, music, animations and random widgets.
- 4. Use Bullet Points – If not bullet points settle for short paragraphs. Always consolidate ideas into as few words as possible.
- 5. A/B Test Headers – This is probably the most effective and easiest element to test. Plus, it gives you the chance to test your copywriting skills.
I know how to analyze website metrics in order to make strategic traffic boosting changes. Stats can help in optimizing/expanding your information architecture, finding pain points, developing new content or optimizing existing content.
This is an example of the work that I have done for GamingTags
This is definitely an extremely important step in any SEO campaign. I go after high value links pointing to related interior pages using well-crafted anchor text.
Here are some of my link building sources;
- 1. Niche Blogs – Sometimes it makes sense to contact bloggers directly for links. If the blog is large enough offering to do a guest post is the way to go.
- 2. Social Media Sites – In many social websites you can create profiles, link embedded content or simply submit your tagged articles.
- 3. Charity Websites – Some charities link to websites that donate to their cause. I wouldn’t focus on this form of link building but it is a way to get some value back from supporting what you believe in.
- 4. Widgets – Offering content widgets can be a good way to drive links. You do need to be careful on this one though. If your widget isn’t embed worthy you could spend a lot of time/money building something that doesn’t drive in many links.
- 5. Directories – As much as it pains me to promote in websites that arguably add little to no value to the common user this can still be a relatively easy way to build links.
Print your logo on labels or stickers and place them on all communication with customers. They don't need to be fancy, but they should feature your logo and colors.
Print your logo on an inexpensive premium like a hat or golf ball. The more memorable the item, the better. Distribute your premium on every sales call, to customers, prospects and even suppliers. Buy in bulk to reduce costs.
Offer your expertise to local or industry media publications that are read by your target customers. Make yourself available as a source for upcoming stories related to your business. Or, write an article and pitch it to target publications.
Ensure that all your promotional materials match one another graphically. At the very least, your business cards, stationery, signage, packaging, brochures and website should all feature your name, logo and tagline consistently.
Visit your clients around holidays (or minor holidays like Groundhog's Day), leaving them a holiday-themed surprise with your logo on it.
Clothing is one of the best ways to market a product and service on and offline. By creating clothing that is branded with your logo and services you can ad this clothing line to online shopping sites and having people wear your clothes with your branding obviously increases your brand awareness.
Forming co-marketing relationships
More and more companies are working with other business to help market each other.
This is partly to compete against other businesses, and partly to form marketing alliances and relationships. A co-marketing relationship can help you access new customers and build brand.
A list of your existing customers is worth something to any business that targets similar customers. At the same time, customer lists belonging to complementary businesses could have value to you. Promoting jointly will benefit both businesses without compromising the privacy and confidentiality of each business’s customer base.
Best Practice:
Make a quick list of who you would be interested in forming a co relationship with. Focus on a business that would have similar customers to you, but in either a different or complementary Industry. Analyze those businesses or people that you think would suit you. Then you need to carefully select who you want to work with.
Select a larger business than you if you can. They will have a larger database of customers for you to access.
Decide what you could offer this business (such as a free product, free service, demonstration or joint promotion alongside one of their products). Ring or email this business, and set up a meeting.
Be sensible about choosing your partners. There might be potential conflicts of interest and you need to make sure the business you build a co-marketing relationship with has similar values and customer service levels as your business.
Co-marketing Tactics
Once you have decided on which type of business would be best for you to approach, you need to decide on the most likely tactic before you contact them.
Distribution of Marketing Materials
Both businesses agree to send marketing materials of the other business to their existing customer base. For example an architect could contact a building contractor. A joint promotion is worked out where for a particular month the architect includes the advertising brochure of the building contractor, in their monthly invoices. The building contractor also does this for the architect.
It allows a single co-marketing campaign without any long term commitment. Both parties can then assess the success.
Marketing materials could be distributed by e-mail campaigns, through newsletters, by profiling the co-marketing company on your website, or even by having the partner company make sales visits with you.
Joint Promotions in the Media
Decide in advance what you believe would be a useful joint promotion, and then produce an example of what this would be. If you can show that you have already thought about the result, you will have an increased chance of success.
This involves getting two or more businesses together to advertise in the media (radio, newspaper, local TV, magazines and others). The businesses do not have to be similar, just complementary. For example, a builder, floor covering company, drapes and blinds business and a landscape gardener could all co-operate on a marketing promotion.
Sometimes businesses need only be complementary in location, not activities. For instance, you might co-operate with other very different businesses in your street or mall to attract more people to the location.
Support a Customer's Advertising
If you supply products or services to a retailer or wholesaler you could support a business customer. For example if you manufacture chairs and sell them to retail outlets, you could approach these retailers and offer to support their advertising of your chairs (for example a 50/50 split of the costs).
- This way, the more they sell, the more you can sell to them.
- The benefits of co-marketing with complementary businesses
- Other forms of co-marketing you can implement
- How to assess the return on investment
Events Marketing includes online events and offline events. Here, I am only going to talk about one of the forms in online event marketing – Webinar
Top Tactics for Webinar Marketing
- 1. How Far in Advance Do You Start Advertising Your Webinar?
If you start too early, people often forget what inspired them to sign up in the first place. More than two weeks in advance is too long a lead time.
Running ads just before the event to re-stimulate interest in those who already signed up, or to give a last opportunity for interested parties to register.
Sometimes people don't sign up for a Webinar or white paper the first time they see the offer. It may be on the second or third pass.
- 2. 50% Rule
Base on my experience over the years, roughly 50% of those who sign up actually wind up attending the Webinar.
This means you should continue to promote the event because it is a safe assumption that many who sign up will not attend. You want to avoid investing lots of money in a Webinar only to have too few people attend.
- 3. Who Should Attend?
One effective way to communicate this is to clearly list it in your ad. Your target or non-target audience will appreciate the clarity you show by stating whom you want to reach,
- 4. Do Dry Runs
It is imperative to do dry runs as long as you are controlling the speaker's time. This may be difficult with guest speakers who are time-crunched, but at least do dry runs one time.
I Typically do dry runs the day before the event, so if graphics are loading slowly or there is a change in ordering, there is a little production time left before the actual event. Dry runs are especially important if the speakers are being piped in from different locations.
If the speaker is in one place, and the graphics he's talking about are being controlled from a different place, it is critical that the person controlling the graphics knows when the next graphic is to be presented and how long it takes to deliver it to the slowest user out there.
- 5. Keep It Short
Having a 5-7 minute intro (or less) and 20-35 minutes for content. Because people invest less time getting to a Webinar event than a real space event (and they are often multitasking in their office while attending a Webinar), their attention span tends to be shorter.
- 6. Send Reminders
When people sign up for your Webinar, don't forget to ask for permission to use their email addresses. This way, you can remind people of your upcoming event. Make sure to email helpful pieces of content to those who've signed up. Don't overdo the reminders, though. They can get annoying and be counterproductive if they're overused.
- 7. Oh, You Missed It
For those who missed it, no worries. Emailing them and show them where they can see a recording of the Webinar at their convenience.
- 8. Sales Lead Leakage
I suggest you should break leads down into 4 or so categories. The A and B leads are contacted within 48 hours after the event.
The C leads, emails them sent or human contact weeks or months later, but so very often, marketing departments somehow disconnect from sales departments and huge numbers of leads are just dropped. This is wasted money falling to the floor.
Before holding a Webinar, buying media to promote it or writing the copy for the ad offers, make sure your internal lead routing process is air-tight.
- 9. Don't Read Your Webinar Speech
Nothing sounds so boring as listening to someone read their presentation verbatim. This does not mean you should wing it. What you can do is to practice it out loud as many times as you can prior to the event. You can write "connectors," which are words on cue cards that lead you from one point to the next.
- 10. Prep for Questions
If you're going to have a Q&A session, it's a good idea to ask for questions prior to the Webinar. No one wants to be the first person to ask a question. Once the ball gets rolling, others tend to jump in.
Don't be afraid to pause before answering. Pauses indicate that you are being thoughtful about what you say next. This goes for answering questions as well as the content of your speech.
Marketing Director
NBS Corp, Santa Clara, CA ~ 2008-2009
Founded in 1999, NBS is a contract manufacturer specializing in PCB layouts, NPI to Pilot Production, Manufacturing test, and rework.
Challenge: Launch brand building and lead generation campaign while securing event driven co-marketing opportunities.
Actions: I organized Google Adwords PPC and email marketing campaigns to generate leads through A/B and multivariate tested landing pages. While working with a web development firm, I secured a cost effective contract to develop and maintain an in-house blog for content development. This will continually increase organic search traffic while promoting the brand. I also organized "home run" co-marketing partnerships with Agilent, Merixand and Avnet.
Results:
- Measured and analyzed performance of online marketing initiatives.
- Developed, launched, and optimized email marketing campaigns.
- Monitored trends in the competitive landscape to enhance existing products and services.
- Translated customer data into the creation of marketing programs and best practices material.
- Managed and analyzed Google Adwords PPC campaigns.
Internet Marketing Manager (contractor)
Gaming Tags, Mountain View, CA ~ 2008-Present
Gaming Tags reviews, hosts and develops indie Flash games.
Challenge: Recruited to manage SEO campaigns to increase and monetize organic traffic.
Actions: Identified cost effective keyword opportunities, created content development strategy, optimized internal link structure and started external link building campaign.
Results:
- Expanded longtail, traffic generating keywords to over 50k terms.
- Increased monthly uniques to over 40k visitors. (85% organic SEO)
- Improved ad clickthrough rate by 180%.
- Initiated partnership with Chinese game developers.
Senior Marketing Manager
SurfaceInk Corporation, San Jose, CA ~ 2007-2008
A Hi-Tech services company focusing on product development, industrial design and mechanical engineering.
Challenge: Recruited to perform corporate and product marketing, and run business strategy.
Actions: Partnered with the CEO, head of Engineering, and Product Management to analyze corporate situation and competitive offering, and established marketing road map.
Results:
- Developed online marketing strategy, such as SEO, SEM, direct ads and A/B testing.
- Coordinated with web developer to optimize internal link structure.
- Re-branded the company image from a small onsite services provider to a full product development firm.
- Established and run Center of Influence program targeting corporate partners.
Director, Business Development & Marketing
Accelerance, Inc., Los Altos, CA
A IT outsourcing consulting firm ~ 2004-2007
Challenge: Recruited to devise and execute corporate growth strategies and form partnerships with firms worldwide.
Actions: Partnered with the CEO to fully analyze the limitations and weaknesses of the business model and service offerings.
Results:
- Overhauled the marketing plan; moved away from ineffective traditional marketing methods towards a highly targeted, efficient online and offline marketing model.
- Developed and delivered the “Vision” line of service offerings, resulting in a clearly communicated, streamlined product that targeted the core of our customers’ needs.
- Expanded and clarified the Asia Pacific marketplace expansion strategies for our clients, resulting in a higher client satisfaction rate.
- Formed partnerships with high-tech companies.
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Legacee, Inc., Westlake Village, CA ~ 2001-2004
International marketing consulting firm to assist Hi-Tech product companies gain entry into new overseas markets.
Challenge: Recruited to form and execute expansion strategies, build and strengthen client relationships and cultivate partnerships.
Actions: Thoroughly analyzed marketplace, customer needs and market opportunities.
Results:
- Tailored the product and service offerings to closely match the needs of the clients uncovered through intensive client-focused analysis, resulting in higher client uptake and satisfaction.
- Developed long-range strategic marketing plan to ensure continued growth, despite continually changing market forces at home and abroad.
- Led the Asia Pacific consulting team responsible for business development, international marketing, and interfacing with partners and government entities.
Co-Founder
Global Apparel Express, San Mateo, CA ~ 1999-2001
Challenge: Inefficiencies in the supply chain between geographically and culturally disparate companies, thus inspiring the creation of Global Apparel Express.
Actions: Formulated the business plan, recruited developers, and raised capital.
Results:
- Raised capital from personal resources and angel investors and maintained investor communication and collaboration throughout the business lifetime.
- Developed a supply-chain management solution enabling inventory reduction savings and allowing buyers and sellers to do dynamic trading online for the apparel industry, a first for this industry.
- Evangelized the product, garnering interest from major US apparel companies and large off-shore textile suppliers.
- MBA in progress, Pepperdine University
- BS, Business Administration, Liaoning Shenyang University, China
- eCommerce Systems Design and Integration, UC Berkeley
- Created the first B2B e-marketplace to link manufacturers in China with U.S. buyers.
- Developed Legacee’s product marketing strategy and implemented the product marketing campaigns resulting in sale revenues increasing by 100%.
- Managed client relationships and alliance partnerships for Accelerance, an IT consulting firm, with 15 partners in 8 countries.
- Analyzed customer needs and buying behavior to create a marketing and sales program that captured approximately 60% of the cellular phone and pager market in China’s Liaoning province, thus displacing Motorola as market leader.
- Engaged with the Chinese government, thus contributing to the successful entry of Liao-Pu Telecom’s products (cell phones, pagers) into the government procurement channel.
- Founded a start-up; raised capital, launched product line, built successful sales force, and developed a client base of 35 major accounts, achieving an annual growth rate of over 100%.
- SEM (search engine marketing)
- PPC
- Ad Creative Writing
- Landing Page Optimization
- Paid Inclusion
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- Link Building
- Keyword Research
- Information Architecture
- Onsite Optimization
- Lead Generation
- Email Marketing
- Direct Mail
- White Papers
- Events/Seminars
- Product Brochures
- Co-Marketing/Partnership
- Webinars
- Social Media
- Tools:
- Adwords
- Google Website Optimizer
- Webmaster Central
- Spy Fu
- Compete.com
- Yahoo Site Explorer
- SalesForce
- iContact
- Webex
