Have you spent money on your web site, search engine optimization (SEO), maybe even online pay per click (PPC) advertising to drive more traffic to your site? Are you getting more traffic, but no return on your investment in the form of sales revenue? How do you get web site visitors to convert to customers and generate sales?

Today we need to track more than the number of visitors to a web site and where they come from. How do visitors behave? What do they click on from your home page? Where do they go? What do they do?

If visitors to your site are leaving, you need to ask more questions. Is your site easy to navigate for your target audience? Is it targeted to your key customer segments? Does it have valuable content for your target audience? Does each page have a strategy and an expected outcome that you can measure?

Is there a way for a visitor to your site to take some action short of buying now? If they’re not ready to buy now, how can they stay in touch with you? Does each page on your web site have a few actions a visitor can take such as subscribing to your blog or newsletter or following you on Facebook or Twitter, so they are not forced into an “all or nothing” call to action? (By “all or nothing” I mean the one where the web site says “Contact Us!” The visitor reads, “Contact Us So We Can Annoy You With Our Sales Pitch!” and doesn’t call.)

Now that you’ve invested your hard-earned marketing dollars in driving more traffic to your site, make sure you’re getting results when visitors are there. Connect with them, engage them, and you’ll have a better chance at converting them to customers.

Flickr photo, Some rights reserved by Cirofono

Ouch! Your search engine optimization (SEO) company, maybe despite claiming that their  tactics are above board (white hat tactics), tricked the system with black hat tactics that go against search engine guidelines. Maybe you didn’t know that you should ask the question, “What kind of tactics are you using to optimize my web site for  search engines?”

We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know About SEO

As executives (whether we’re CEOs or Chief Marketing Officers/CMOs), when it comes to technology, we often don’t know what we don’t know. We may not be marketing technologists experienced in search engine marketing or optimization (SEO/SEM). Even if we are experienced, we’d like to believe that when our SEO vendor says they use best practices, they really do. Even if we’re asking the right questions, what if they don’t do what they say?

Black Hat Tactics Have Been Around for Years

I heard firsthand about black hat SEO tactics in 2002, at Confab, the conference for consultants by consultants. I attended a  presentation in which a consultant told his SEO horror story. He hired a company to optimize his site. The company used tricks to improve performance. His site was summarily de-listed by Google. His site had been coming up high in the results and generating potential client leads. De-listing was a disaster after all he had invested in SEO. He had to create a new site with a new URL and start all over again.

More than ten years later public company JC Penney is having their search results “manually adjusted” (not de-listed!)  by Google for use of black hat practices by their SEO vendor. The story broke with a New York Times article, “Dirty Little Secrets of Search.” Doug Pierce (Doug Unplugged blog author) wrote an excellent analysis of the SEO vendor’s use of black hat tactics (“spammy”  links, doorway pages, and keyword stuffing) in The Data and Details Behind “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search.”

How Could They? Their Site Said They Wouldn’t

Two days after the NY Times article appeared, I visited the web site of the search engine optimization company hired by JC Penney. From their Recently Asked Question page titled, “SearchDex Best Practices,” I clicked on a link to read, “SearchDex Response to Google Guidelines.” On this page on their web site they wrote the following:

“Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a web site that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, ‘Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?’
Only site original content is made accessible; tricks are not possible nor approved.”

“Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or ‘bad neighborhoods’ on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
SearchDex does not support link scheme architectures”

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Sites which employ these techniques are not eligible for the SearchDex license. Indexed pages do not contain hidden text or hidden links.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But apparently what they said on their web site was not what they did. Actions speak louder than words.

My Solution? Do a SEO Audit

We have no control over the honesty or integrity of our vendors, so let’s focus on what we can do. If you’ve engaged an SEO company to work on your web site, you need to either learn how to audit their work at a detail level or hire a third-party expert to do a SEO audit for you. Find out exactly what tactics your vendor is using to get your site performing high on search engine results. Then, compare those tactics against search engine guidelines like Google’s or Yahoo’s. If there are any questionable tactics being used, remove them. Focus instead on creating tons of strategic, relevant content to attract and engage your prospects and customers.

Your next action as a CEO or CMO? May I suggest one? Do an SEO audit. Now.

Photos on Flickr – Black hat: Some rights reserved by dariuszka; White hat: Some rights reserved by A. Germain

What’s the point of spending money to drive traffic to your web site… …if you’re not getting a return on your investment? Several of our new B2B clients came to us with this very frustration. After years of hearing about the benefits of search engine optimization and/or pay per click advertising, business owners finally bit the bullet and invested in these tactics. So why are their online marketing dollars not turning into sales revenue?

There are two main reasons your spend on online marketing can be like flushing money down a toilet.

1. SEO Has Changed

First, search engine optimization techniques have drastically changed in the last three to four years. Some SEO companies keep doing the same old tactics – and you’re expecting but not getting great results. The old tactics (metatags, alt tags, keywords, links) have some value, but what’s more important is strategic and relevant content on your web site and on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. You need to crank out content that your prospects will find of value and that puts your company, product and services at the top of the list for the searches your prospects are doing. In all of this you also need to get your prospects, colleagues and customers buzzing about and “liking” you and your content.

2. Your Web Site Isn’t Sticky

What happens when a visitor comes to your site? Do they leave? Scratch their heads (or something else) and then leave? Do they read the one article they landed on because they searched for “chartreuse widgets” and then leave?

Your web site must be designed with your target visitor – not you – in mind! Then, your web site needs to be measured against objectives and tweaked or modified if you are not getting the results you expect.

Put together a great marketing plan to add relevant and strategic content to your online presence in 2011. Make sure that your web site is attractive and compelling to your target audience. Only then can you stop flushing precious marketing dollars down the toilet!

Photo from Flickr, Some rights reserved by Mai Le

Are you on the fence about a Facebook company page for your business? I’m still hearing  a lot of misconceptions about Facebook from business owners. Here are 11 reasons you may want to create a presence on Facebook in 2011 and beyond, no matter if you are a business-to-consumer or business-to-business (B2B) company.

1. Your current and future customers are on Facebook connected to millions of friends, family and work colleagues. According to Facebook’s statistics page today, 500 million people spend 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. Half of the total users – 250 million people – sign onto Facebook every day. You need to have a presence where your potential and existing customers and clients are and where they are connected to hundreds, maybe thousands others who will see your information as it streams onto their contact’s news feeds. Facebook is part of our culture, especially for younger generations. For those who like Facebook, seeing the Facebook logo on your web site that indicates you are part of their community can help create an instant emotional connection to your company and brand.

2. It doesn’t take long to create and maintain a Facebook company page. You can create it in under one hour and maintain it in under 30 minutes a week. There are tools and utilities that allow you to stream news and information about your company automatically into your Facebook company page. You can add photos, links, videos and other content as you go to keep content fresh, either from your computer, a smartphone, or directly from your video camera.

3. Facebook is free. Businesses spend millions on email, web sites, search engine optimization and traditional marketing. Take advantage of this opportunity.

4. Facebook company pages are secure and have no visible connection to your personal profile. In order to create a Facebook company page, you do need to be a human being with a profile on Facebook. You don’t need to do anything on or with the profile if you don’t want to. Facebook has done a good job of addressing privacy issues that came up earlier in 2010. In fact, Facebook has very intricate privacy settings that give you control over who sees what on your personal profile – you can even customize this down to the individual.

5. There is no limit to the number of fans you can have on Facebook, and you can send them unlimited messages for free.

6. Your information can “go viral” on Facebook. If someone connects to your Facebook company page, when you post content it streams into the news feed on their Wall for all their friends to see. Others can choose to “share” your content on their walls, increasing your reach and number of brand impressions.

7. Facebook offers some of the most targeted advertising on the Internet. Think about it. Facebook users add 90 pieces of content on average each month. The content and their profile information is full of keywords, psychographic and demographic information, making it possible to do very targeted advertising.

8. You can poll your connections on Facebook. Want to run a new product name or brand by your fans? Find out what is on their minds? Facebook has polling applications that allow you to ask questions and get feedback for free.

9. You can quickly and easily make special offers to your followers on Facebook. Facebook has coupon and other applications that make it easy to provide incentives to existing and prospective customers.

10. Facebook has features that make it easy to report and block spam. If someone connects to your company page and begins posting spam content, your company page administrator can report the individual and block future posts by that person in one step.

11. Facebook provides statistics on visitor behavior on your company page. You can elect to have the number of visits, connections, active users, comments and wall posts summarized in an email sent directly to you, making it easy to measure your progress.

Are you convinced now? Will you create a Are you convinced now? Will you create a Facebook business presence in 2011? Please comment below.

Here’s a video that show you how to optimize your LinkedIn Profile website links with keywords. Making this easy change will help make your links more compelling so that visitors to your profile will be more apt to click on them and help optimize your profile so that you will come up higher on LinkedIn search results when users search for what you do.

If you prefer to read the instructions, I’ve provided them below. Please comment below if this information is helpful or if you have other questions about optimizing your LinkedIn profile!

Instructions on Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile Website Links

LinkedIn has generic defaults for the three links it allows each user to set up in their profile. This is OK, but who wants to click on a link that says “My Website?” Remember that visitors to your profile or web site listen to radio station WIIFM – What’s In It For Me? They are more likely to click on links that say something about the content, especially if there might be something on the website or page that adds value for them.

You can change the generic to custom descriptions of your choosing in a few easy steps. Make sure you use keywords that will help LinkedIn visitors find you when they search for certain skills.

1. First, go to Your Profile and click on the Edit Profile tab.
2. Scroll to the Website links below the Connections sections on your profile and click “Edit” on one of them.
3. You will see a screen that first allows you to select a title for the link. Use the dropdown list and select “Other.”
4. Now additional fields are available so you can enter a custom description and the URL for the link. Note that you can link to three different sites or three different pages on the same site or any combination of the two. Also, note that you are limited as to the number of characters, so you may have to get a little creative with your link naming.
5. Enter your custom descriptions and make sure you scroll to the bottom and click on “Save Changes.”
6. Return to your profile and make sure the changes show up.

Congratulations! You are one step closer to optimizing your LinkedIn profile!

The major search engines are placing more emphasis on content, not so much on tricks and behind-the-scene tactics, to rank web sites higher for keyword searches.

Let’s say you are a metal-stamping company, and your prospective customers are searching for “flat springs.” It’s all well and good to have text, meta tags and even photos with alt tags about flat springs on your web site, but it’s even better if you have written a blog entry, produced a video, sent out a press release, even recorded a podcast about these parts.

It takes time to create all this content. Part of the solution is to have a plan in place that maps out goals and a schedule for online content. How many videos will you produce? When will you produce them? How many podcasts, blog entries, press releases, articles, etc.?

Another part of the solution to make content generation easier is to re-purpose. Once you write the article, re-purpose it for the press release. Use the same content to write the script for your podcast and video. Re-purpose the article content again and again by creating several blog entries from it.

Make sure your SEO supplier has content creation built into the services they provide to get your website ranking high and qualified visitors coming to your site.

Photo from Flickr, Some rights reserved by James Cridland

I got an inkling that all was not right in the web development and SEO world in 2008. I went out to bid for a client of mine – a manufacturer of green industrial lubricants – and got bids for a new, optimized web site that ranged from $2,000 to $20,000. Hmmm – that’s too big a range! That’s a red flag of a fragmented industry – or innocent business owners being ripped off on their Internet marketing!

Then again in January 2010, I requested bids for a client that needed a web site update and ongoing SEO. I got bids for $4,000, then $7,000 for the update alone. Hmmm. I called my web dev/SEO guru  and asked, “Mark, if I’m not mistaken, to update this site we need to do steps 1, 2, 3 and 4, test everything and then flip the switch, correct?” He said, “Yes!” I said, “How much would that cost?” He said, “$400.” Eeeesh! A 10 x markup from the other guy? Are you kidding me?

I started directed successful web site and SEO in 1998 (among other marketing), when I first worked on a client’s web site. At that time, there were very few SEO experts out there. I rolled up my sleeves, learned SEO,  instructed the web developers involved with my clients, and we got fantastic results. From this experience and in part because I spent 14 years in the software industry prior to founding New Incite, I understand SEO and web development technology!

In 2005 I placed more emphasis on positioning and marketing my B2B CMO for Hire services. I said, “Now there are more good SEO companies out there, I can partner with them and focus on  strategic marketing, marketing planning, execution/project management and results tracking!”

But now in 2010 I am seeing SEO and web development practices that aren’t right, and I’m going to continue to blog about them and consult with my clients to protect them and save them money. There are too many new web development and SEO companies who got into the business because they saw the need, but:

• They see web dev and SEO as a money-making business only – not a win-win for both their company and their clients.
• They learned SEO when they got in but they haven’t kept up with best practices and they’re still proposing old tactics – I kid you not!
• They’re specialists in something else (graphic design, IT services, publishing) and have added or moved to web development and SEO as a cash cow that they pay lip service to but are not experts in!

So, share your war stories – have you or your clients ever been ripped off on web development or SEO?

Photo on Flickr – Some rights reserved by superk8nyc

As a B2B marketing consultant, I’m often asked what day of the week is the best day to send promotional email. In earlier days of B2B email campaigns, the school of thought was that the best days were Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. On Mondays business people are overwhelmed and had a email inbox full of spam from the weekend. On Fridays people have their mind on the weekend and didn’t have as much time to read email.

Then, in 2008, Morgan Stewart, research director at ExactTarget, an email marketing firm, was quoted in Fortune magazine in an article titled “Sunday is the New Monday.” Stewart said “The best day to email is when no one else is doing it.” The article went on to say that Sunday was a day when business people have the time and space to read email, often from their smart phone.

Both arguments seem logical to me. Mondays and Fridays are not the greatest for email. I receive fewer emails on Sunday, and I notice Sunday emails more than the emails I receive on weekdays when email volume is higher.

However, the best answer to the question, “What is the best day to send B2B marketing emails?” is specific to your particular target market(s). When I was President of the Institute of Management Consultants Southern California, I noticed that we got more responses to emails on Friday afternoon. That’s often a time when consultants are in their offices finishing up from the current week and preparing for the next week. Clients usually don’t want to see us late Friday afternoon.

Find out the best day and time to email by trial and error or by primary research. Use a program like Constant Contact that tracks the email “read” time and day to find out what your target prefers. You can also simply observe when you get the most replies to your emails. Interview your customers, prospects and colleagues to understand when they review and read email. If the answers allow you to identify a better day of the week for email, send your email on that day. Then track the results to see if there is an improvement in responses or email reads and click-throughs.

What have you found from your B2B email marketing campaigns? Have you been able to identify a day on which your email read and/or response rate is higher? What day is it and whom do you target? Please comment below….

Photo by Stefan Baudy on Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Just as technology emerged in the movie industry to make 3D movie production  more cost-effective, so too has it  emerged to provide B2B marketers with a 3 dimensional, not 2 dimensional, platform to provide compelling information about products and services and engage the people who like them.

People buy from people they like. This has been true well before use of the Internet . Remember the boring person who spits when they talk and who cornered you at the cocktail party? Your eyes glazed over, and you excused yourself to refresh your drink (and wipe off your face). What about when you got the overly assertive (aggressive?) sales pitch at the lunch that was intended to “get to know each other?” You looked for the first excuse to leave early.

Now, in social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, people choose whom they want to follow. Most people want to follow people who are interesting and have relevant stories to tell. They do not want to follow people who only post business pitches. They especially don’t want to follow those who repeat the pitches, over and over again!

How do you get people who wear 3D glasses to follow you?

Be Interesting in Your Social Networks.

It’s more important than ever to be interesting. Don’t copy “stuff,” but do create original materials. Don’t push your features and benefits out, but do tell a story that has some emotional context. And, yes, even your software product or your black box network router has a story, because it has changed the way people do business and made their lives better. Even better, get your customers to tell people online how your product or service changed their lives.

Be Your Brand Online

It’s also critical to know whom you want to personify online to represent your business. Don’t merely express your individual opinion online when you are marketing your products or services. Be your brand. Spend some time figuring out what your brand is (if you don’t know already). Then represent it creatively and “engagingly” online, and your customers will represent it as accurately as you do.

At Marketing Profs 2009 B2B Forum in Boston, Jay Baer said, “Be 3 dimensional in your social networking. Save the 4th dimension for Facebook.” (In my opinion, you could let loose a 4th dimension on Facebook, but set up your privacy settings so that your work connections don’t see that)

By all means be interesting and market in 3D. Don’t be 2D! What do B2B marketers think? Are you 3D or 2D? What are the obstacles to being 3D in your marketing?

I don’t know about you, but one of the challenges for someone new to blogging is researching and  writing entries without spending tons of time. I’m pretty conscientious about my blog entries. I don’t want to put out only my opinion nor do I want to generate fluffy or light blog entries. I want to reference other opinions, videos, blog entries, etc. so that readers get value.

Last month I live-blogged at a conference. It was challenging, in that I wanted to finish a blog entry in the one hour 15 minute time slot each speaker session was allotted; yet I wanted to offer some depth. At this conference, which was the Confab conference for consultants, the seats with plugin access for laptops were in the first three rows. I tried to sit way over on the side so as not to annoy anyone with my blogging activity.

Live-blogging forced me to more actively listen for the nuggets and take-aways from each session to put into the blog, and to listen for a way to “net out” the session – that is, to find a way to quickly characterize the speaker, their comments, the audience Q&A. As the session started up, I entered in the session title, speaker info with links to their sites, took notes, wrote up my blog entry while paying attention to the ongoing presentation and discussion.

Throughout the conference I completed several entries. On the flight home, I thought that if I had queued up the speaker info, links and session titles in advance I could have focused more on content during the session. Back in my office, I researched live blogging, and, (no surprise) found that others had had the same experiences and put together very helpful information, including the tip to set up blog entries with session basic info and links in advance!

See Bruno Giussani’s Tips for Conference Bloggers. Bruno is the European Director of the TED Conferences. I also got value from the PDF that Bruno wrote with blogger Ethan Zuckerman.

My blogging is becoming more efficient through learning from those who have walked through the learning curve before me! This blog entry took me about thirty minutes, which is probably a record!

What have you learned about live blogging? Or about blogging in general? Please comment below.