Pixel Visions

Is it time to put mobile marketing on the table?

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:54:30 +0000

In 2011, 487.7 million smartphones were shipped, a 62.7% increase over 2010. This marks the first time smartphones shipments topped that of PCs (only 414.6 million PCs shipped). Most people don’t replace PCs as often as they do smartphones, of course. But there’s no denying people are becoming more and more attached to mobile devices. There are many ways to tailor your marketing and advertising to mobile devices. Google Adwords offers numerous mobile PPC advertising options, including click-to-call. An email marketing campaign reaches people with smartphones and tablet devices who check their email while they’re on the go. Give us a call if you’d like more

Facebook IPO Update

admin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:53:51 +0000

On February 1, Facebook filed for an initial public offering and expects to begin selling shares this spring. In 2011 Facebook had profits of $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion. 85% of that revenue came from advertising and the rest from social gaming and other fees. Facebook expects to raise at least 5 billion and hopes to raise as much as 10 billion when it begins selling stock in April or May. This is likely to be the biggest Internet or technology IPO ever.

For online marketers, the message is: social media must be embraced! Its impact is growing stronger every day. Facebook and other social media platforms will continue to be aggressive in finding ways to compete with search engines. In addition to having a presence on social media sites, many marketers are adding Facebook pay-per-click to their advertising plans. From 2010 to 2011, the number of PPC ads delivered on Facebook grew 42% and the average price per ad grew 18%. Keep in mind that it’s easy to make costly mistakes when you first venture into social media marketing. Call us if you want help with social media.

Social Media and Search Results: Any Connection?

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:28:21 +0000

We pay very close attention to search rankings and social media trends. No doubt, search engines are trying to figure out a way to incorporate social signals (activity on social media sites) into search results. How much of an impact this currently has on search rankings is up for debate. So far, we don’t see a significant impact. We recommend that you participate in social media activities so you’re prepared for the day when social media becomes an important factor in search rankings. Evidently, that day is coming!

Social media certainly has a place in online marketing. Facebook has 800 million users (compare that to Google+’s 62 million) and more than 50% of Facebook users log on every day. Twitter has more than 100 million users and posts more than 250 million tweets per day. Facebook and other social media sites are great for reaching out to customers and building a community around your business. We’ll be happy to talk to you about adding social media to your online marketing plan.

Did someone say great content and SEO?

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:56:19 +0000

Blogging on your website is a great way to add fresh content but more importantly, blogs can be a search engine traffic magnet! Your long-tail keyword-rich blog has potential to rank highly for any number of long-tail keyword phrases that are relevant to your industry.

Many marketers are inclined to target head terms, which are high volume keywords consisting of one or two words. Example “lawyer” or “tax lawyer.” But head terms are very competitive and there’s little chance they’ll improve your search rankings. The smarter strategy is to use long-tail keywords. Example, “tax lawyer specializing in small business.” Yes, there are far fewer searches on long-tail keywords BUT, a recent industry study demonstrated that using long-tail keywords can help a website move up in the search rankings far more rapidly than head terms. And, long-tail terms converted two and a half times more than head terms. Long-tail keywords may bring smaller traffic volume to your site but chances are, it will be the profitable kind of traffic!

Need even more evidence that targeting long-tail keywords can be good for your search results? Last month, Google announced that it would be doing more comprehensive indexing, making long-tail documents available in its index. That means that your blog that contains long-tail keywords is now more likely to rank for relevant queries!

Many people throw a blog post up every day without much thought to keywords or quality. Our advice: concentrate on using long-tail keywords in your blog and make sure the content is useful to your readers.

Google “Farmer” makes a difference!

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:31:39 +0000

The Google Panda (aka Farmer) updates were designed to knock content farms out of the top spots in the search results. Apparently, they’ve succeeded. A study by New Science Magazine shows strong evidence that Google has gained the upper hand against those unruly sites that scrape content from legitimate sites. The study was run by computer scientist Richard McCreadie at the University of Glasgow. He ran 50 search queries prior to the Panda updates and found that content farms were present in the top search results. Following the Panda updates, content farms were no longer in the top search results. High-quality websites are now far more likely to be found at the top of the search results.

This is very good news for all of us who work hard to publish high quality content. The update eliminated many of the sites that don’t deserve a high ranking so now there’s more room for the rest of us at the top. Most sites that achieve top rankings use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies. If you have questions about SEO services give us a call!