Here are 5 tips to help you get your 2014 marketing off to a great start:

1. Determine where you currently stand.  What were the results of your 2013 marketing efforts? What worked and what didn’t? Can you measure the ROI for most of your marketing activities? Are you reaching your target market? Are you spending too little or too much? If the answer to any of these questions is “No” or “I don’t know,” it’s time to do an audit. Identify areas for improvement and look at what to keep and what to change.
2. Write down key dates. Are you rolling out a new product or service in 2014? Having an anniversary or annual sale? Will you be closed for any part of the year? Put these events into a timeline and think about what marketing activities should take place around them to keep your customers informed.
3. Identify major goals. What are your major business goals for the coming year? How can your marketing efforts help achieve those goals? Will you create a new website or improve your old one? Do you want to find new ways to connect with customers through email or direct mail? Do you want to start a referral program or improve customer loyalty through social media? You won’t grow and build your business without identifying where you want to go first.
4. Create a marketing outline for 2014.  Once you’ve determined your goals and key dates for the year, establishing a marketing plan is key. Of course, you’re bound to make changes as the year progresses, but take the time now to sketch out what activities need to take place when.  Create a calendar and write in a timeline for website updates, email newsletters and promotions, sales events, marketing materials, etc.
5. Determine who will do what.  Who will be responsible for your marketing efforts? If you have in-house marketing staff, the answer to this question may be easy, but there may be other employees who will play important roles in executing your plan. For instance, creating new content, especially for your website, which helps with your Google ranking — is something that can many of your staff may help with. However, if your goals and ideas are bigger than your staff capabilities, it may be time to consider bringing in some additional help to outsource some or all of your projects.

Then when you’ve done all this, you can relax and enjoy the Christmas holidays!

Enter Hummingbird, the latest update from the search engine giant.

What is Hummingbird and what does it do?

Officially released at the time of Google’s 15^th birthday (at the end of September), Hummingbird has really been ‘live’ since late August. Senior-level executives at Google claim that it’s actually the largest update in the past three years, affecting about 90% of all online searches, and is therefore much bigger than Panda or Penguin.

In general, the idea behind Hummingbird was to make online searches more ‘human friendly’ by better understanding complex phrases and language. For instance, if you type a full question into the search box instead of just a few keywords, Google will show you sites that are most likely to answer that question. Therefore, Hummingbird focuses on all the words in a query and how they connect, rather than only a few terms within that query.

The Knowledge Graph

Hummingbird also makes more use of Google’s Knowledge Graph. Google has been using this knowledge base since 2012, which returns answers to “semantic search” questions. For example, if you type “How many seats in Sydney Opera House” into the search box, you’ll see something like this pop up at the top of your results:

Google uses the Knowledge Base to answer your question before listing any other sites relevant to the performance venue.

In addition, on the right side of your screen, you’ll see more information about the building appear, including the address, the names of the architects, opening date, a Google map, etc., like this:

By providing this information, Google is working to anticipate what other needs and questions you may have, and there’s more of this to come. Google executives have stated that anticipating the needs of searchers is a big part of their future work.

Also, with the explosive growth and use of mobile devices, Google has been working on ways to improve voice search (since, of course, they want to make sure it’s easy for you to get results using your phone). Therefore, Hummingbird better understands phrases that are spoken, rather than just typed.

What do these changes mean for your website?

As we said when Penguin came out: Don’t panic. Having good content on your site is still the most important thing you can do, and the use of keywords in your site still matters. However, anticipating and answering your visitors’ needs will become increasingly important, so keep that in mind as you create new content.

Have more questions about all of this? Need some help? Let us know and stay tuned for future posts on SEO!

The heart of SEO

Just to recap from our previous article, search engine optimisation is the art of creating websites in a way that makes it easy for search engines to identify, categorise and select them when a user does an online search.

There are many elements within SEO, but all of them can basically be broken down into two major groups:

• On-page (on-site) SEO, or the content within your website; and
• Off-page (off-site) SEO, focusing on content outside (and/or linking back to) your site

So why is this important? And what should you do?

First of all, here’s why this is important: When someone does a search in Google (or other search engine), only about 10 sites show up on the first page. Most people only click on the top few sites, and they’re unlikely to go past the first page of results. Therefore, if your site ranks at the top of the first Search Engine Results Page (SERP), you’ll get a lot of traffic to your site – and that’s good for your business.

However, if your site shows up on the second or third page, you might only get 1% of the search traffic that the top-ranked sites get. Therefore, it’s important to create great content and build good links to and from your site so Google thinks your website is more relevant and provides a better user experience for a particular search term that the remaining hundreds (or thousands) of results.

That leads us back to:

On-page (or on-site) optimisation

On-page SEO, therefore, is what’s displayed on your website, and it includes the written copy that visitors read and search engines see. To help with this on your site, make sure you write high-quality content that people can understand, incorporating the keywords for that particular page if possible in your heading and/or sub-headings as well as the body copy.

More technical aspects of on-page SEO include using keywords in your page titles, photograph labels and other ‘hidden’ elements such as metatags, but we’ll discuss that in a future post.

There is a need to add content regularly in order to continually appeal to Google.  An easy way to do this is by adding a blog to your website.  Add relevant content to the blog and promote interactivity with your visitors.  You can leverage this content on social media sites too, which really helps with SEO.

Here’s another tip: Make sure you have unique content on every page of your site. It’s definitely possible that there will be some overlap of information, but search engines recognise duplicate content that’s out there just for the sake of trying to get a better rank.

Then there is . . .

Off-page (off-site) optimisation

A good way of looking at off-page SEO is to think of it as work done away from your site but directly affects its rankings through building the credibility, relevance and profile of your URL. Off-page optimisation comprises many things, but a major element is the links your site has to and from other sites. Google and other search engines look at how many links you have, but they also review the quality of those links. As we noted in our post on Google and the Penguin, Google has recently updated their algorithm to penalise sites that put in links unrelated to their site content.   A really basic link to start with though, is to submit your website to the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) owned by Google.

Other factors that Google looks at are things like videos, infographics, press releases, guest blog articles, presentations and connections to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. These things all help with your ranking, too.

Have questions about this? Let us know – and stay tuned for more posts on SEO!

If you have a marketing team in-house that already does a good job of bringing in leads, that’s great. But if you don’t, and you feel you need some outside help, what should you look for?

Before you interview any marketing consultant, ask yourself these questions:

• Have you identified your target market? What type of customer are you trying to attract?
• Do you have a business plan in place?
• What sets your business apart from your competitors? Why should a customer choose your company instead of someone else?
• What marketing efforts have worked well for you in the past?
• Do you know how much it currently costs you to acquire a new customer?
• Do you have a marketing budget in place?
• Are you looking to tackle a single project (such as building a website) or are you looking for a long-term partnership?

Knowing the answers to these questions before you meet with and hire a consultant will guide your conversation and help you find the right match. If you’re clear about what your expectations and needs are, you’ll be more likely to achieve your goals and grow your business.

What to look for

First, look for a consultant who will sit down with you to learn and ask questions about your business goals and needs. Someone who has a marketing plan in mind before understanding your target market and your business is probably going to waste your time and money!  Watch out for ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions.

Here are some other questions to ask a potential consultant: 

• Is there a portfolio of previous work you can review in print or online?
• Can he/she give you some names of clients as references? (Note: Be sure to take the time to actually contact a few of these people to ask about their experience!)
• What are the firm’s areas of expertise? Is he/she familiar with the latest marketing trends?
• How would the billing and payment process work?
• When and how often will he/she provide reporting and results from marketing campaigns?
• Can he/she provide you with a range of marketing options and corresponding prices?
• Does the firm have enough time to devote to your project(s) and deadline(s) right now?

Want to find out if Breathe Marketing is the right fit for your marketing needs? Contact us today to arrange a time to talk.

If your company produces a product that gets shipped worldwide and you don’t have a ‘brick and mortar’ store, this may not be such an issue for you. However, if you have a small business that provides products and services to local customers, you’ll want to make sure they can find you easily.

If you sell flowers in North Adelaide, for instance, you want to be on the first page of Google results when someone types in ‘flowers North Adelaide’ on their phone, tablet or computer. Unless you deliver in Melbourne or Perth, you don’t need to worry about customers in those areas – you only need to focus your energies on potential customers who want flowers (or want flowers delivered) in the Adelaide area.

So what can you do? Here are four tips to make sure your business gets found by local customers:

1. Make sure your website is optimised for mobile devices. According to recent statistics, over 50% of Australians now own a smartphone. Not only have that, but 19% of Australians searched for local suppliers and services on their smartphones on a daily basis. If customers can’t access or read your website on a phone or tablet, they’ll move on to another site and you’ll lose business.

2. Add your business on Google Places, Yahoo Small Business and local directories. Be sure to add your business to Google Places and Yahoo Small Business, which both have basic packages for free. In addition, sign up for local directory options such as Yelp and Yellow Pages.

3. Use local keywords. What areas do you serve? Do you have stores in more than one location? Do you offer on-site services for customers located anywhere between Gawler and Sellicks Beach? If your products and services are location-based, help customers find you by noting specific place names on your site.

4. Put your contact information in text (not an image) on every page of your site. This will help viewers find you and also help Google connect your business to local searches. Although be careful about including your email address which leaves you open to spam – there are workarounds you can do here. Preferably, you want to set up a ‘click-to-call’ feature directly from your site so that people can immediately dial your number from their phone once they find you.

Have questions? Need some help with improving your local marketing? Contact us today.

What is branding, anyway?

In marketing, branding refers to the creation of a name, symbol (such as a logo) or design that identifies what your company is and does. Not only that, but a brand also helps differentiate your company’s products or services from your competitors – it helps express who you are and what you offer.

For instance, as part of their brand, many companies have established logos that you can immediately recognise without seeing the company name at all – and just by seeing the logo, you know exactly what they offer. Here are a few examples:

Seeing each of these probably also makes you feel something, such as, “Oh, I love my new iPhone!” or “Ah, that’s my bank,” or “Ugh, I hate Big Macs!” In each case, you have some type of recognition and reaction.

A company like Apple, for example, sells many products, but you immediately recognise their logo and know what it represents. Whether in print, online or on a billboard – and whether it’s black and white or in colour – you know that symbol and the company it refers to. If you want to buy a computer (or a smartphone) and it has the Apple logo on it, that immediately tells you something about the quality of the product and what to expect. Plus, you’re going to be willing to pay more for it than for a computer from a company you’ve never heard of because Apple has established itself as a leading, high-quality brand. Just as an aside, I was delighted to visit the new Apple store in Adelaide recently. Their strong brand certainly pulls in the punters, as seen in the photo I took.

Defining your brand

Your brand is ultimately your promise to your customer. You want to create a brand that not only helps your customers identify you, but helps you create a connection with them – and ideally, you want them to choose your brand over your competitor’s. So how do you go about building a strong brand? Here are three starting tips:

1) A logo by itself is not a brand, but having a good logo that can be used in all kinds of applications (such as in print, online, on t-shirts, etc.) is an important start. Work with a good designer to help create something that represents who you are and what you do.

2) Have clear guidelines about what your company offers and stands for – and then make sure that message gets communicated to your employees and customers in everything you do. Is great service what sets your company apart? Low prices? High quality? Whatever it is, share that message and back it up in practice.

3) Be consistent with your brand. Once you have a good logo and an established look for your brand, use it in your invoices, ads, on your website and in your emails to communicate your message. Help your customers learn to recognise you.

Have questions? Need some help building or improving your brand? We can help – contact us today.

Why? Because when Google’s algorithm changes, it can have a major effect on how high a site ranks in a search. This means that a website that was ranking really well before the change can suddenly take a nose-dive and end up far lower in search results.

So what does all this have to do with a penguin?

As explained in our SEO 101 post, Google’s software uses tools called spiders to help ‘crawl’ website content, looking for information to bring back about sites they visit.  When spiders visit web pages, they’re looking for many things including the words used on pages, how relevant they feel a site is for a particular topic, how many links a site has and how relevant those links are. All this information is used to get sites listed in rankings.

Unfortunately, sometimes businesses use bad tactics – or ‘black-hat’ techniques – to try viagra online to get on the first page of search results. In 2012, Google released an algorithm update known as Penguin, the goal of which was to penalise sites that used black-hat techniques such as keyword stuffing, duplicate content, and linking to irrelevant sites (also known as “link spam”).

Google estimated that this change only affected about 3.1% of English language search queries, but some webmasters saw a major drop in their sites’ rankings. Now, in their continuing battle to penalise ‘black-hatters’, Google has announced that another algorithm change is coming in the next few weeks: Penguin 2.0.

Though no one outside Google knows just what to expect, there’s pretty clear evidence that sites with a high number of bad links, or link spam, will be targeted, and those sites will drop in overall search rankings.

What can you do?

First of all, don’t panic. If you’re currently using proper white-hat SEO techniques such as creating valuable, original site content for your customers and linking to legitimate sites that are relevant to your business products and services, you shouldn’t have any problem when Penguin 2.0 is released.

However, SEO is clearly becoming increasingly complex.  If you haven’t already, consider outsourcing your SEO activities to a reputable SEO provider.  Asking them how Penguin has changed their SEO practices is a good place to start in sussing out their expertise.  If they don’t know what you’re talking about then they may not be the right people to help you with your SEO.

For more on Penguin and link building, check out this article from Searchenginewatch.com.  What’s also really interesting is all the commentary at the end of the article – there’s clearly a lot of confusion out there right now about SEO and what these Penguin updates mean.

Have more questions about all of this? Need some help? Let us know – and stay tuned for future posts on SEO when Penguin 2.0 gets released!

• Do put together a plan. Develop an email strategy for sharing news, sales announcements, and information. An email newsletter can cover all of these things in one message without flooding people’s inboxes with too much mail. Decide what you want to send, then schedule time to plan, write, design and release your campaigns.
• Don’t overwhelm your recipients with too much mail. An email address is a precious gift from a customer, so don’t abuse it or your recipient is likely to unsubscribe (or worse, report you as a spammer). Send just enough messages to keep your customers interested in what you’re up to.
• Do craft your subject line carefully. Make it short enough (50 characters or less) to fit in an inbox overview, but interesting enough for people to want to open it up and read more. Getting the message into the inbox is just the first step; make people want to open it up.
• Don’t give your readers too much information in the email itself. Give them just enough to grab their attention, then give them a way to click through to your website for more details.
• Do focus more on content than design. Yes, you want your message to be attractive, but it’s really the text that’s most important. If you put in too many graphics, the email will be too big and go straight to Spam.
• Don’t send every message to every person on your list. A newsletter is appropriate for all groups, but if possible, for sales promotions, break your email list into groups and send targeted messages to each one. For instance, if you can categorise your list by what customers buy (package or product purchased, etc.), you’ll be able to target them with messages about other items or services you offer. List management takes time, but the results will be well worth the effort.

Looking for more help with your email campaigns or strategy? Let us know!

What’s ‘repurposed’ content?

When you repurpose content, you basically take ideas or images from one piece of content and reuse them for other content. For instance, let’s say you have some text that’s been written for a company marketing brochure. With a little editing work, you can probably use some of the same information on your website, in a blog or forum post, as a narration script for a YouTube video, or for a Twitter or Facebook post.

Here are four ideas for repurposing content:

1. If you’ve recently given a presentation at a conference, workshop, industry meeting, etc., see if you can reuse the information in a whitepaper for your website. Keep in mind that if you use highly technical terms in the paper, you may need to simplify some of the language for different audiences.

2. Have some great photos of a new product for your brochure or website? Use them to your advantage in social media by posting images to Facebook or Pinterest. Whenever possible, include some ‘teaser’ text about the product and add a link to a corresponding page on your website so that interested viewers can easily get more information.

3. Review your Google Analytics reports, take a look at what blog posts or pages have been most popular recently, and look at ways to expand on that information. For instance, if you have a blog post that’s been popular with your visitors, see if you can create a short video or do an interview with an industry expert about the same topic.

4. News releases are great sources of content. If you have a formal PR announcement about an event, new employee or industry award, use that information in other ways. Do a quick Facebook post about it with a link to the release, create an informal version of the text for your blog (and add a photo or two), or add a few links to related information or resources for readers who want to learn more.

Have thoughts, questions or other suggestions? Let us know!

What is a search engine?

An internet search engine is a database of websites, videos, images and other content. Search engines determine what to include in their database based on many things (such as content quality, level of authority, etc). Once a website is included in a search engine, it’s considered to be “indexed.”

Note: If a website is not indexed, it won’t show up when people search for it, even if they type in a specific domain name such as www.yourbusiness.com.

There are many Internet search engines, including Yahoo!, Bing, MSN, Ask.com and AOL, but Google is arguably the most powerful and well-known.

Google and other search engines include a search tool which people use to find information, products or services on the web. (You probably use Google all the time yourself.) When you type in words for a search – like “picture frames,” for instance – Google immediately searches from millions of existing websites to find the best matches for those words, and then displays all the known websites that match in the order it thinks best and most relevant.

How does that work?

Search engines use software tools called spiders to help ‘crawl’ content, looking for information to bring back the the database about sites they visit. The information gets stored, which helps you get your search results more quickly.

When spiders visit web pages, they’re looking for a number of things, but two of the main things Google spiders look for are:

1) What words are used on a page, and
2) Where those words are found on a page.

If a spider comes across a website that is not in the search engine’s database already – and if it determines that the site is good – it will include the information in the database.

So how does knowing all this help you?

When you sell products or services on the web, you want people to find your website easily – not only that, but you want your website to be on the first page of results when people use search terms that match what you sell.

By knowing what spiders are looking for and building your website content to match, you make it easier for search engines and customers to find your site and purchase your products and services.

Have questions about this? Let us know – and stay tuned for future posts on optimising your site for search engines!