When it comes to breaking out of the box, it's easy to talk the talk.
But when it comes to performing the deed, few businesses are willing to
walk the walk. The Internet is a prime example of this phenomenon.
Chock full of cost effective technologies that can take a business to a
whole new level of interactive marketing, for the most part there are
few companies who truly grasp, let alone embrace, what the web has to
offer.
How has SEO changed over the past few years?
In past blogs we have talked about how SEO has changed from an injection
to a process that factors in everything from your website, to such
things as blogging, social networking and even YouTube. In reality,
there more than 30 points of relevance that the spiders look for when
searching and sorting out the most relevant sites. It is no longer
sufficient to pay someone to tweak your keyword density and Meta Tags
and expect to wind up on page one. To get the job done, you need to
create compelling content on a regular (ie weekly) basis. Ignore this
fact of online life and you will relegate your website to the backwaters
of the major search engines. Embrace this concept and it is not only
possible to generate a page 1 result on such search engines as Google,
Bing, and Yahoo, but you can potentially generate multiple page 1
results.
Gone are the days when seasoned online marketers created an ubersite
that was composed of numerous pages that web surfers could be expected
to navigate through. Today you almost need to treat a web search as a
question and the website (or landing page) as the answer. In other
words, in terms of SEO viability, it is far more effective to create a
number of microsites that are targeted at high value keywords. Not only
is this tactic more effective at generating a page 1 result, but it is
also much more effective at generating a conversion. Particularly if
you include a video that answers the question posed by the keyword
selected, this could jumpstart your online results in a hurry.
Why is blogging critical to your online success?
Speaking of hurrying, a blog post properly optimized can be one of the
quickest way to jump the queue online. For example, a couple of months
ago, I wrote a blog post entitled "Get Your Best Customers to Toot Your
Horn." The post extolled the virtues of employing video testimonials in
order to increase credibility, as well as turning your best customers
into your best salespeople. After posting this article on blogger, as
well as reprinting it on linktoexpert.com, I googled the title the next
day and found that both the original blog, and the repost appeared at
the top of page 1. Not bad for a half hour's work.
Creating and disseminating compelling blogs are one of the easiest ways
to wind up on page one. Why? Because Google is gaga for mixed media,
particularly when they own the conduit. By posting your blogs on
Blogger, which Google owns and posting your videos on YouTube, which
Google owns, not only will you improve your content worthiness, but you
will also feed the 800lb gorilla in the room that owns and operates the
most successful and profitable search engine on the planet.
How social is your social network?
This is another area where most businesses miss the boat when it comes
to online success. To get a bead on how to successfully employ social
networking, the first thing you have to understand is what it is not
designed to do. Just as with blogging, if you simply attempt to create
and disseminate ad copy via social networking, you will quickly find
yourself isolated in an ever shrinking pond of influence as your
audience either ignores or unfriends you.
While social networks can be used to generate an audience and augment
the bottom line, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about doing
so. The best approach is to create an environment in which compelling
stories, humorous insights and helpful hints about your business are
produced and promoted online. The key is that unlike ad copy with is
90% pitch and 10% information, when it comes to social networking, this
equation is turned on its head. In fact, the best way to turn a reader
into a customer when using social networking is to show them that you
are an authority who can save them time or make a problem disappear.
Interacting with an ever growing audience is what social networking is
all about.
What can video do to revolutionize your marketing results?
When it comes to breaking out of the box, online video can be your
elevator to the top if employed properly. As with social networking, no
one wants to watch a 60-second commercial online. What people want to
see is what I refer to as "infotainment." If you can entertain and
inform your audience you will get your message across and have the
opportunity build a vast audience who wait with baited breath for your
next installment.
Think I'm joking? Let me share with you a story about a product called
the Orabrush. Sounds like a toothbrush, doesn't it? Well it's not.
What it is is the worlds first tonguebrush. After spending about
$40,000 developing the prototype and getting the product ready for mass
production, the inventor of the Orabrush started making the rounds of
big box retailers looking to score a little shelf space for his product.
Care to guess at how many retailers signed on? You got it..Nada. Now
some forty kay in the hole and panicked by the thought that his
business could well go under, the inventor started googling around
looking for a way to save his business from the scrap heap. To make a
long story short, the owner of the Orabrush decided to pay $500 to
create a couple of videos that he posted on YouTube. Had he simply
talked about the merits of the orabrush, his videos would have no doubt
garnered little traffic. But that's not the approach he took. Instead,
he created a catchy, funny series of video shorts that caught the
imagination of the viewers and quickly propelled his video views into
the millions. After that, not only did he succeed in getting the big
box retailers to rethink their opinion of his product, but he also
managed to sell over a million units online. His video channel, titled
Cure Bad Breath, is now the third most viewed YouTube channel after
Apple Computer and Old Spice.
The moral of the story is that viral video can be one of the most
effective promotional tools of all times. What most people do not
realize is that YouTube is viewed by more people than all the TV
networks combined. (More than 1 trillion videos were viewed in 2011
alone.) It is also a search engine and social network where video
content is available on-demand 24/7. More importantly, the cost of
streaming content on this online mega-station is exactly zero. So there
really isn't any reason why your company can't start "programming" your
own YouTube channel today.
Want another reason to jump on the YouTube bandwagon? Consider the fact
that every video you upload on YouTube can be embedded on your website
and blogs, can be linked to your social networks and newsletters, and
can be used to put every piece of printed literature and advertising
that your company gives out on steroids and you'll soon wonder how you
ever did without this online wonder weapon.
Carl Weiss specializes in helping clients break out of the box online. Visit his viral video megastation at http://jacksonville-video-production.com