The Net Impact

The Net Impact’s Internet Marketing team attended the leading search and social marketing event, Search Engine Strategies San Francisco on August 16th-19th. A part of Connected Marketing Week, the West Coast SES Conference and Expo moved from San Jose back to its roots in San Francisco. SES attracts thousands of Internet marketing professionals who attend educational sessions and labs pertaining to the web marketing industry. This was the third West Coast SES Conference The Net Impact Internet marketing team attended.

The subjects covered at SES included: SEO, PPC management, social media, keyword research, local advertising, mobile engagement, link building, duplicate content, online video, site optimization, usability, and high-level strategy. The conference also featured an exhibition hall with over 100 companies, networking events and parties. The Net Impact team attended various informational sessions including: Search, PR and the Social Butterfly, Secrets of Top-Converting Websites, SEO through Blogs & Feeds, How to Become a Link Magnet, Mobile Marketing Strategies, and more.

“One of the most interesting things I learned was about the importance of citations in Google’s new organic caffeine algorithm,” said Lauren Pesko, Internal Marketing Associate at The Net Impact. “Google is now looking quite a bit at social networking sites and how many times your website or blog has been mentioned or linked to. This is really great to learn from an SEO standpoint. The speakers emphasized the importance of adding feeds to your “static” website and turning it into a blog. This can have an SEO benefit because Google’s new caffeine algorithm is giving weight to blogs due to the fact that they offer up to date information – caffeine is all about the real time.”

The first and perhaps the most memorable part of the week was keynote speaker – Jeffrey Hayzlett, Celebrity CMO, Best Selling Author & Former Eastman Kodak CMO. Jeff discussed the changes in the world of marketing and changes his former company, Kodak, had to undergo in order to compete with its competition and adapt to the growth of technology. To achieve this, Kodak’s brand image had to shift from an “old” and trustworthy to a more “modern” brand, while not abandoning their core values. Kodak was actually the first company to hire a Chief Listening Officer. Kodak tweets in 12 different languages over 120 countries, while monitoring all online communication surrounding their brand name. Jeff preached that “passion is not a substitute for planning” and that “creative people should never compromise what they do, or how they do it.” 

“Jeff’s presentation really resonated with me and was a motivating beginning  to our week at SES. His underlying message of the importance of keeping creative people engaged, challenged and free to make mistakes in order to implement positive change is a concept that people from all professions and organizations, large and small, should take into account,” said Web Account Mangager at The Net Impact, Angela Trokey.

The Net Impact Internet marketing team is looking forward to putting together an informational session to share with clients and friends what they learned at SES this September!

“This has been an exciting year for the ever-changing Internet marketing industry,” said Project Manager at The Net Impact, Mandy Christanell. “At SES we learned how to implement proven techniques for transforming tactics into proven strategies that garner results for our clients today, while ensuring they stay ahead of the competition tomorrow.”

Many friends of mine are seeing their kids graduate from high school this month.  My wife’s closest friend from childhood is one of these parents.  On the official message and communication device for the Thomas family, our refrigerator, is an invitation to the graduation ceremony for the twin boys as well as a picture of the two smiling soon to be grads.  They are dressed very contemporary for today in their jeans and Under Armour shirts.  The quality of the picture too reflects the high pixel clarity we have come to expect from even the cheapest camera or smart phone.  I know as well that they are both college bound next year.  That’s almost an assumption in 2010 isn’t it?

It made me think back (ok, way back) to my own high school graduation and contrast the times.  Underneath my graduation day robe, I also wore a pair of jeans and a contemporary shirt. Contemporary then meant a tight fitting, polyester, crazy pattern, oversized collar monstrosity made by Nik Nik or something like that.  Photographs of the grads of course were a family requirement, but taking pictures then, way back in the film only era, was not an instant gratification as it thankfully is now.  Even the instant Polaroid picture took a minute or so to develop and was a nightmare to share or duplicate for relatives.  Of course the quality of the average family camera in the pre-digital days was not near as crisp or high resolution.  And for future printing, keeping film created its own set of issues. Not so with the instant sharing and storage capabilities of today.

Social Media, smart phones, laptop computers, the Internet, digital everything…none of the grads in my class had a clue that we would be living in that world today.  As far as further education was concerned, about two-thirds of my classmates were college bound.  The rest were already working in stores, factories or sales of some kind or had that job lined up right after graduation.  Most of us going on to further education weren’t at all certain where we would wind up  after college. Only a select few thought that a law school or med school was their target. If someone had told me the future would find me running a web development and Internet marketing firm, I would have responded something like, “Groovy, what’s that?  Should I keep my slide rule?” 

Isn’t it striking when you look at today’s work force how entrepreneurs have so dramatically changed the workplace landscape and have created companies in so many new fields that were not even contemplated 30 plus years ago?  Or how their breakthroughs in old technologies like solar and wind energy have developed into some amazing opportunities? It is striking, it is amazing and it is exciting.  It’s almost as exciting as imagining what today’s graduates will create over the next 30 years.  

 The two grads pictured on my refrigerator are indeed entering into a new world with an uncertain future.  But really, how is that any different than the old world and the uncertain, unimaginable future my classmates entered into so many years ago?  The future, by definition is uncertain.  What is certain is that the our world will be shaped into reality by the entrepreneurs of today and those of tomorrow including many who are just now graduating from high school. 

Good luck Class of 2010!  Have fun making the world spin!

Students and Transitioning Professionals Still Need Experience

I recently had the honor to speak in front of 160 students and professionals at the American Marketing Association Student Conference.  Chance conversations before, during and after the conference put me into a real dialogue with both students looking for their career start and professionals in transition about the changing face of marketing in 2010 and the requisite skills employers want to see on a resume.   

One person I spoke with told me they wanted to work in event marketing.  Their resume however did not say this nor did it display any experience in that area.  Another person told me that they wanted to pursue a career in Internet marketing.  Yet again, nothing on their resume said, “I’m involved in it today”.

Think about.  If you are pursuing a career in Internet marketing, what makes your resume stand out?  Most of today’s competing candidates will have great educational background, strong grades and references.  Everyone may even be comparable in the way they express their personal and career goals.  Even in the interview you may be practiced and polished.  But the request that may decide the hire is, “tell me about your experience in this area.”

Now it may seem unfair to state that you have to have experience before you can get the job that will provide experience.  Catch 22 right?  Yet, I can tell you that, as an employer I look for that experience, even if the experience is self-propelled or unpaid.  I really want to work with people who are passionate enough about their stated career choice that they are already involved.  This prerequisite involvement is not as hard to get into as you may first think.  You just need to know where to start.

As a recent graduate just starting your career or as a professional in transition how do you garner experience without already having a position in your chosen field?  Let’s talk about where to get started.  Are you on Linked In? If not, join.  It’s free.  Sign up for a few LinkedIn clubs that are in your area of interest.  Next let’s do some relevant career research. You will find that  there are  numerous professional organizations for every field that offer frequent webinars, case studies and meetings.  Take AMA-STL as an example.  For anyone interested in keeping up to date with marketing trends AMA is a terrific resource. 

True, these steps will not provide “work” experience but will show passion and involvement.  This elective involvement is also a good start in finding pathways to work experience. For a student, if you are lucky enough to get on as an intern performing work that will get you hired then congratulations.  If not, then while on campus maybe try to figure out who can use your assistance and self-propel into some experience.  Could it be your club, fraternity, sorority, church, family member or maybe even a teacher that gives you the chance to perform research, write  blog or run an event?  If not, I can assure you that there are dozens of non-profits in every community that will take you on in a heartbeat.   Even a local business may be interested in some cheap but capable assistance. (Will blog for food?)  Again, one of your goals is to put something under that “Prior Experience” heading on your resume that will make you stand out.

Many professionals today have their own website.  If you wish to be equally ambitious yet don’t claim to be a html expert, why not start your own blog?  Blogs require about zero technical knowledge today.  They are also cheap to create, host and maintain.  The primary requirements in having a great blog are using your brain, having the willingness to create a community and the discipline to commit adequate time.  What to write about?  Some of the most widely read blogs contain posts that inform their readers about case studies, work related information and excerpts from other authors that the blog owner finds interesting.  Wouldn’t it be great to respond to a question from a prospective employer with, “yes, I know what you mean.  As a matter of fact in my blog, I noted an interesting study in that same area and I thought…..”  That’s a person the interviewer will remember.  Equally, the people you blog about, the members of your LinkedIn groups and your  fellow charity co-workers could just possibly be the faces you see across the table during a job interview. 

Much of the same thought process above can work for transitioning professionals, but what if you are looking for a career in a non-marketing related discipline?  Again, I think most employers are looking for passionate, involved and creative people that can show experience even if through their own initiative.  That is especially true if you are “recreating” yourself for your next career opportunity.  Knowing your subject matter from a working world perspective, writing about your desired area of employment, proving your thought leadership and being involved in a like-minded community go a long way in making a great first impression.  More importantly, they allow you to answer “yes I do” to the question “Do you have any experience?”

How do video, social media and advances in mobile effect search? What are the search engines changing?

These were just a few of the questions answered at The Net Impact’s Search Engine Strategies Session on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010. The seminar covered current trends in search engine optimization and highlighted the best presentations from the The Net Impact’s SEO team’s recent trip to the Search Engine Strategies Session held in Chicago December 2009. The three presentations presented focused on B2B, Blended Search and Linking.

The first presentation, presented by Angela Cicerelli, Web Account Manager at The Net Impact, covered blended search. Blended search enhances user experience and is another way to engage with potential customer. If you are having troubles ranking for a keyword, blended search just may be the answer. The presentation discussed why we should care about images and videos in search. Social media sites, such as Flickr and YouTube, are now becoming major sources of  website traffic and are appearing in search results. What to take away from the session regarding blended search – The web isn’t about pages anymore, it’s all about streams, feeds and syndication. If information is important, it will find you.

The next presentation, led by Lauren Williamson, Web Content Manager at The Net Impact, highlighted the importance of linking. Link popularity measures the quality and quantity of links pointing to a web page. Recently, social media marketing has become one of the most practical and high quality ways to earn links. The Chicago Search Engine Strategies Session touched on three main reasons why it is important to have a linking program: improve rank, boost traffic and to increase brand exposure. Lauren closed with the statement: “Building links is similar to building relationships – it takes works and is all about quality, not quantity”.

Sonya Sawall, Web Account Manager at The Net Impact, led the final conversation on B2B. Business buyers and decision makers are online, using search engines. Business professionals engage in social networking in order to build relationships that bring business. They rely on search, sometimes throughout the whole buying cycle, and in order to be successful, Internet marketing experts must align their messages with buyers needs throughout each phase of the buying process.

The most important thing learned at The Net Impact’s SES Session: There is one certainty about SEO – the game is always changing. “If you are following a best practice that dates back to 2008 or earlier, toss it away.  It’s now wrong”. 2010 is the year of real-time, personalized results, growing importance of social, community and web mobility. We need to continue to adapt our SEO strategies to stay ahead of the curve.

We hope you all enjoyed the presentation as much as we did, and we look forward to seeing you at the next TNI event!

Check out some great pictures from the event on Flickr!

Five Helpful Tips for Above the Fold

Artistic Sensations Quality Kids and Teen Room Decor

Every once in while it’s good to review the basics for conversion like, “What is working on my Home Page?” For this conversation, I selected a small but mighty retailer of teen and kids furniture, Artistic Sensations.  The Net Impact is currently running several Google Optimizer tests on this site including several to improve conversion.  Yes, you always want to improve conversion. Many of the elements on the current home page for Artistic Sensations are the results of previous tests.  What did we learn and how does it relate to this Home Page Pointers post?  Here are a few quick and easy take-aways:

Finally, keep testing and making changes.  All we know is that this version of your site is what the customer likes today.  As for tomorrow?

Previously, we looked at several open source content management systems that are widely used. Those are great options unless you have a Microsoft server. If that is the case, what are your options?

Here are two options for you to look into:

Dot Net Nuke

Dot Net Nuke is an open source dot net content management system, and like the other content managements systems, has some nice add-ons. Dot Net Nuke has an easy-to-use interface, but it can be buggy when you try to implement your own custom design. Still, it is extremely popular and has lots of ability if you are constrained by or are sticking to the benefits of a dot net machine. The most current release of this freeware like many others is sometimes referred to as the “bleeding edge”. Tackling new releases is not for the unskilled or time constrained developer.

Master Pages

My limited personal knowledge of the technology that goes into master pages, server side includes and the like prevents me from going into further detail about how these technologies work in that respect. We can always engage the tech team here at TNI for that dialog. The point is that implementing master pages is an easy way to save yourself a headache in the future.

The overriding concept and purpose behind master pages is simple: Create one “master page” that controls the border of your web page and only fill-in the middle, content portion of the page individually. Content management systems allow you to do much of the same thing, but with master pages you have the ability to edit actual static page files. For any web site with more than a few pages, this is a great option.

The rate of change required for a website to be considered “current” continues to dictate a shorter and shorter refresh cycle. Because of the need for fresh content and in other ways, up-to-date site features, more and more businesses of all sizes are looking to web solutions like the two above in order to allow new information, graphics and even pages to be created by someone other than the IT team or Webmaster that will still reflect the same brand strategy and maintain the standards in place throughout the rest of the site. Making website updates with relatively the same ease as a blog post looks like a highly desired attribute that businesses will increasingly have on their checklist.

Significant contribution to this post by S Trachtman.

“Why can’t I just buy a $99 per month package and be number one?”

Every week The Net Impact team runs into a discussion regarding SEO packages offered by other SEO firms. The conversation usually begins with “Why can SEO Company A offer us a SEO package that promises to deliver results for $99 per month while other firms, like TNI, only offer custom solutions that are higher in price?” It is a fair question to ask. One that is not easily explained without first educating our prospects a bit on what SEO really is, or maybe better stated, what it has become. Once upon a time SEO solely meant, to most providers, developing site-appropriate meta data, keywords and submitting to directories. When the bar was lower for most firms competitively, then it was possible for an automated program or an unassociated third party to simply follow a routine and achieve some results. Also, some years ago, there wasn’t the appreciation of how powerful the Internet had become as a marketing tool. Firms did not yet realize that the search engines had become so entrenched into the daily lives of individuals. With those points in mind we now fast forward to 2008. Today, developing a website or operating a website meant to market your services or product without taking organic search and other traffic generation marketing efforts into consideration is, for lack of a better term, marketing suicide. Yes, there are still sites strictly built to support a professionals business card. If your networking is all local and you do not feel the need to drive extra attention to your business then perhaps a GoDaddy hosting account and a Web Site Tonight template could be exactly what you need. No argument. For any firm though that is embroiled in a competitive marketplace or wants to bring in more recognition this solution, without a lot of web-savvy support, just won’t fly.
What should I look for in a SEO service?

Let’s start with the obvious. See how your potential SEO service provider does for their own firm. Do a search on, “Search Engine Marketing firm City” or use your state if you prefer. See if they come up on page one. I absolutely throw out the argument that their SEO service is so busy taking care of customers they cannot do justice to their own site through their own effort. Really? We use our own site as a “test tube” for SEO on a regular basis. Only by continuing to quest for advancement can you achieve superiority.

Next, want to see their site (or your site) as the search engines do? There are many tools available for this test, try out this tool. SEO-Browser.com Or, you can download the Google toolbar to your desktop and check things out. There are way too many other “tools and toys” to mention. The fact is, you have ways to investigate.

Other steps are pretty common sense. Ask for references. Don’t just read testimonials. Review their client’s sites. Do their clients face the same level of competition your firm faces? There is a big difference in the way you would market a national sales automation firm vs. a local plumbing supply firm. Both need SEO, but differently. Interview the SEO firm. Ask tough questions. Ask about their process. See if their past experience matches your needs. Will they require any information from you or is this an automated program? Remember, your competition is product, service, region and keyword specific. How can they exclude you from that process and achieve results?

Finally, weigh your investment. Is this a closed-end package that ties you up for a year or more or are their services month to month? Do they seem eager to sign you up without ever knowing your circumstances? Like any good relationship, you have to feel comfortable that your energy will be well spent as well as your cash.

Make the selection of SEO support more than just a price proposition. Consider the decision based upon the desire to be on page one!

One of the biggest challenges for sales teams today is keeping in contact with potential customers.  Generating leads and staying in contact with them is time consuming and expensive.  It can also distract sales people from providing existing customers the service they need and expect.  Unfortunately, most companies still rely solely on the sales team to develop leads. Since there is so much competition today, requiring your sales team to make constant phone calls, sending out letters and emails, will likely get nowhere.  In fact, there is so much demand for the attention of prospects today; there is now a strong resistance by these prospects to engage with sales people. 

Consumers and buyers no longer rely on sales people for information; they now have the ability to shop and research on-line. They are likely to engage with a sales person only when they get close to a purchase decision.  In the case of on-line purchases, there is typically no engagement with a sales person, so, it’s even more critical to have effective follow-up systems. The current market trends are placing exceptional demands on customer acquisition and retention strategies.  Status quo can be very inefficient and expensive.  Without addressing this new environment, productivity suffers, sales struggle or decline, turn-over increases and customer satisfaction drops.

Wouldn’t it be helpful if there was a way to improve the process of not only lead generation, but, more importantly, lead development?  Wouldn’t it be even better if this process could be automated?  These goals are achievable using new marketing automation technology and by re-defining the role of your sales people.

In direct sales, there is significant opportunity to increase the efficiency of the sales team by improving not only how sales communications are managed, but by whom. Business owners should carefully look at the role of the sales person and the role of their marketing resources.  There should be greater alignment between these two functions; freeing the sales people from unproductive tasks and requiring marketing to take on more responsibility to nurture both prospects and existing customers. Marketing automation tools facilitate this process. 

Leading companies are now integrating nurture programs into both their on-line and off-line marketing and sales strategies. These companies have their sales and marketing teams work together for the same goals – getting and keeping customers.  They rely on a marketing function to generate new leads and maintain contact with those new leads. Through this nurturing process, they also qualify the leads.  Once they are considered qualified, or reach some trigger point, then the lead is sent to sales.  With marketing automation technology, this can be automated and integrated with CRM software or other business applications. This strategy allows the sales team to stay in front of their customers more often, thereby building stronger relationships and improving retention rates. 

To help companies address this challenge, The Net Impact has partnered with Marketing Solutions, Inc (MSI), based in Chesterfield, Missouri.  MSI specializes in marketing automation software and lead nurturing programs.  Together, our combined resources offer small and mid-sized businesses a resource to improve their lead generation, lead conversion rates and customer retention.

Learn more about how technology can help your lead conversion at this St. Louis-area seminar.

We looked at Zen Cart before as a nice, open source shopping cart.  However, there are still plenty of other options if you have specialized products or are looking for something cheap with an easy-to-use interfaace.

The Shopping Cart Alternatives

There are plenty of monthly services that you can use for your shopping cart that may also give you a headstart instead of building the cart yourself.  Among those options are Ebay Stores, Yahoo Stores, MonsterCommerce, and ProStores.  These services are just the tip of the iceberg. 

While each of these services is different, as a whole they do have general advantages over creating your own shopping cart.  Those advantages include:

1. Ease of Design

For the most part, the previously mentioned store applications offer template designs.  Template designs offer an effective, easy way for you to design a nice looking web site and get the web site launched quickly.  There are often templates that can be purchased for other shopping cart interfaces such as Zen Cart, but they still require some adjustments on the part of the store owner.

2. Customization

On one hand, complete shopping cart customization is only provided through creating your own shopping cart.  However, if you don’t have that type of ability or budget, using one of the preceding pre-packaged shopping carts offers plenty of flexibility in design and layout in most cases.

3. All-in-One Solutions

Most of the monthly store shopping carts have one other advantage that can save you time: Credit card processing.  While you may need to install modules or simply configure your account information with shopping carts like Zen Cart, many of the pre-packaged stores listed above do the credit card processing for you and make this process easier.

4. Non-Technical Advantages

Don’t know HTML or some other technologies necessary to design a web site or edit components?  The overriding purpose of these previously mentioned online stores, in most cases, is to give you the ability to design a store without using any code.

5. Safety

In general, using one of these pre-packaged stores is safer than coming up with a design yourself.  The designs provided by these store services have often been tested, so you know whether or not they make effective stores that will lead to conversions.  Also, you can get technical support from the store services if you ever run into problems.

Affiliate Stores

Somewhat closely related to shopping cart stores is the ever-growing affiliate store.  CafePress.com and Zazzle are two very popular affiliate stores that you can use to design your own apparel and sell it to customers.  CafePress seems to be the market leader, but Zazzle is catching up.  Both affiliate stores allow you to customize clothing, cups, and all sorts of other apparel with your logo and other designs.  CafePress lets you setup your own press, while you get a percentage of the sale with Zazzle.  Like the shopping cart stores listed above, these two affiliate stores are easy to setup, design and customize your apparel.

Seth Trachtman is a Web Marketing Account Manager for The Net Impact Web Design St. Louis.

For any web site making money through advertising revenue, the creation and deployment of a media kit is an extremely important process.  The media kit for web sites is an informative guide to advertising on a web site, often including advertisement prices, banner locations and available advertising space.

The creation of the media kit can be a complicated and daunting task if you have never done it before.  Where do you even start?

The following steps will help you get started, and from there it will be a piece of cake.

1. Take an Inventory

Do you have existing advertising?  Do you know how many ads you will be putting on your web site?  Before setting up a media kit, it is a good idea to nail down the foundation of your advertising availability so that you know exactly what you will be offering to potential advertisers.

2. Evaluate Competitors

How are your competitors doing their advertising?  Your competitors can tell you a lot about not only where to put the advertising but also the advertising landscape.  If bigger competitors are struggling to find advertisers, it could be an indication that the advertising dollars in your web site’s industry are not available.  If this is the case, you may want to hold off on creating a media kit or adjust your plan to attract advertisers that are cautious about advertising in your industry.

3. Find Samples

There are media kit samples all over the internet, and evaluating what you like and don’t like is a good starting point for creating your media kit.  Simply type in “web site media kit” into your favorite search engine, and you should get thousands of results.  This is also a good idea to take an inventory on the format of the media kit – PDF or webpage.

4. Develop an Outline

Writing a media kit seems like a big process, but it really comes down to what you learned when writing a paper in school.  Plan ahead with an outline.  Outlining the media kit will make the process much faster, rather than adding and subtracting sections in a disorganized fashion without an outline.

5. Create the Media Kit

Once the media kit is mapped out, it is time to start putting it together.  Since your media kit is an important tool in your advertising sales, it is important to make it look neat and provide traditional calls to action.  Creating the media kit can take some time, but the difference between a good and a bad media kit can easily be reflected in sales.

Seth Trachtman is a Web Marketing Account Manager for The Net Impact Web Design St. Louis.