Home  |  About Us  |  Contact  |  Social Media  |  News  |  Create  |  Develop  |  Refine  |  Protect  |  Invest  |  
The Total Image Group   ...Business Alchemists

A regularly updated resource of information and news items.

Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

Newspapers: the future

Posted Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

The way out of the paywall debate is for newspapers to become the online authority on what to buy and what to do

guardian.co.uk, April 12th 2010

Take a look at Google‘s homepage and compare it with any newspaper’s homepage. One difference is striking: www.google.com, the most viewed media output on the planet, contains no ads. And, unlike the newspaper industry, Google doesn’t have any financial problems.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Google understood that blindly converting its users’ eyeballs into money is not enough. The key is to develop a revenue model that makes the most of its unique advantage online. That advantage is being an online search platform, and the system it has developed integrates perfectly into that, by displaying relevant text ads for each search. Newspapers, by contrast, have tried importing the old media‘s ad revenue model to the web – and failed.

Online display ads don’t have enough impact on users to be attractive for advertisers, and therefore don’t generate enough income for publishers to sustain the newsrooms. This problem worsens as the print news industry generates less and less income, while people’s attention shifts more and more online.

In their despair, newspapers are now trying to copy another income model from old media – subscriptions. News Corp and the New York Times, for example, are at different stages of erecting paywalls around their sites. But it is not clear if users will be ready to pay for online news they are used to getting free. And this strategy will clearly reduce newspapers’ visibility on the web, both on search engines and on social media – while cutting revenues from the ad model.

The solution is that, just like Google, newspapers should invent a revenue model that utilises their unique advantage on the web: their credibility. So how can they make money from trust? From a reader’s point of view, the first step before buying a product or a service is deciding what to buy. The best agents to answer such questions online should be newspaper websites, as they have both the knowledge and the credibility.

Newspapers should be the online authority on what to buy and what to do. Not only is this their duty in our age of information overload, it can easily be converted into revenue. The first step, then, is to anticipate the user’s quest. Reviewing “best cameras under £300” is a good example. So is comparing coffee makers or reviewing the movies on release now. The second step is to create the copy and the web page that provides answers to the reader’s question. The third and last step is to link to product or service providers. The newspaper generates revenue when the reader clicks on these links (if using the pay-per-click model) or when the deal is completed (if using the pay-per-action model).

In this system every actionable article (a book review, a travel guide) should have links to enable relevant action. By clicking on them, the reader turns into a potential customer. This may be a new model for newspapers, but it isn’t one on the web. Sites such as cnet.com (technology) or tripadvisor.com (travel) have been doing it for a while with great success.

While newspapers have at most £10-£20 average RPMs (revenue per 1,000 pageviews), these sites enjoy £25-£40 RPMs or higher. And the advertisers love them. As they are heavily optimised for search engines, they are among the first results users see when searching for products. So these “vertical” sites enjoy a significant number of visitors from search. The first result when typing “best laptop” on Google, for example, is laptopreviews.org.uk – which then leads the user to retailers’ sites stocking the products they recommend.

Indeed, this model creates perfect synergy with the search engines. The roles are clear: the newspaper creates the credible research or review, the search engine sends the visitors, a contextual advertising program matches relevant providers/advertisers to the content, and all parties share the revenue. Readers are exposed to the relevant text ads as they pass through the newspaper‘s credibility filter, and are ready to make a purchase.

When searching for “best laptop” on Google, no newspaper is present in the first few results pages. Newspapers have the reviews, the writers, the credibility, the potential to rank high on search results – but they are not there. Too bad, because that’s exactly where the money is.


5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010

Posted Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Resolve to give your online marketing efforts a boost this year by recognizing areas for improvement and putting in place a plan to make positive changes.

online marketing, Jan 8 2010

1. SEO:
I resolve to focus more on maximizing visits and conversions from organic searches. With SEO efforts, it’s easy to get caught up in one goal: getting found via the search engines. But ranking in the search results is only half the story. If potential customers aren’t clicking through to your web page – or other piece of digital content – the ranking doesn’t mean much. Plus, due to variances in what each of us sees in the search results for the same query, rankings as metric are no longer as useful. Personalized search results according to location and web history means your site might rank high for one person, but not another.

Maximize the success of your online marketing efforts by analyzing your metrics report to determine which pieces of digital content are highly visible but producing less than ideal traffic results. Then take some time to ask yourself these questions:

What competitive search results are your potential customers seeing? Assess the title tags and meta descriptions of competitive search results. Are competitors offering customers a free case study or a complimentary product sample? Then consider ways to make your own title tags and meta descriptions out-entice the competition.
Does your content live up to the promise put forth in your title tags and meta descriptions? Put yourself in your customers’ shoes: When you first visit your web page or other digital content from an organic search, is the content you find relevant? Potential customers don’t want surprises; they want a solution to the problem that caused them to search in the first place. And they want it as promised.
Not only will searchers respond more favorably to customer optimized titles and meta descriptions, but the increase in clickthroughs will, no doubt, be noticed by search engines and may influence subsequent rankings.

2. Social Media:
I resolve to set goals and track the results of my social media efforts.
There’s no denying that social media is more difficult to justify in terms of ROI compared to other online marketing strategies.  But that’s not to say it’s impossible – or that tracking results should be placed on the back burner. And without goals, it’s pretty difficult to measure success. In 2010, put forth even more effort to set goals for social media participation and tie results back to specific tactics.

There are a host of free or near-free tools available to gauge brand mentions and traffic from social media channels.

Tracking results via social media monitoring tools is just a start. Those results must be tied back to business goals. Potential goals might be:

Develop better customer relationships
Reputation management
Identify and energize brand evangelists
Increase brand awareness
Increase relevant visitor traffic
Improve standard and social search engine visibility
Build up a list for email marketing
Increase leads or sales
Without setting specific goals upfront, social media efforts can’t be definitively quantified so be sure to implement a Social Media Roadmap and all or social bases will be covered.

3. Email Marketing:
I resolve to integrate my email marketing with other online marketing channels. Regardless of what the naysayers may say, email marketing isn’t going to disappear as a result of social media in 2010. In fact, email will continue to play a significant role in most online marketing mixes this year. A study from Silverpop found nearly half of marketers surveyed plan to increase email marketing budgets in 2010.

That’s not to say email marketing efforts shouldn’t evolve with the times. Integrating email with social media is on par to be a popular resolution for 2010: A recent eMarketer report found 40% of executives surveyed willmake integrating the two tactics their top marketing initiative this year. Another 25% of respondents have already implemented an integrated strategy.

Pledge to take email marketing to the next level by encouraging email subscribers to not only forward content via email, but also to get social with email and share it via Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other sites. Conversely, conduct a poll on Twitter or your blog, and encourage followers and readers to subscribe to your e-newsletter for the results.

4. PPC:
I resolve to maximize conversion rates by testing different versions of my ads and landing pages. Most companies using self-serve pay per click programs fall victim to “set it and forget it” habits. They’re busy with numerous other marketing activities or don’t have the time to really get to know the native bid management platforms and test/refine campaigns. Even if PPC efforts are reaching set goals in terms of conversion rates, there’s always room for improvement. You’ll never know until you try.

Consider these three ideas for testing different elements of your PPC campaigns:

Test multiple ad versions that highlight different benefits of your product, service or company. For example, one could tout cost-savings benefits, while another emphasizes a convenience aspect.
Use A/B testing to try out two different headlines on your landing page. Again, each could speak to a different benefit (i.e., cost savings vs. convenience). Google Optimizer is a great tool for this.
If you’re targeting a competitive search term with many competing ads, consider launching two different campaigns simultaneously. Each could offer a distinct piece of fulfillment – a free case study and a product coupon, for example.
A few tools for testing include:

A/B Testing resources: (Google Website Optimizer, 7 Free Resources)
Multivariate Testing service: (Omniture)
Heatmap & User Testing tools: (CrazyEgg, Clickdensity, Clicktale, userfly andEyetools)

5. Mobile:
I resolve to rethink my website design for mobile users.
If your site isn’t already optimized for handheld devices such as cell phones, now is the perfect time to re-assess your site design and how users find your site through mobile search – particularly for B2C companies.

In October, ABI Research forecast that mobile sales of physical goods in North America would reach $750 million by the end of 2009, a 117% annual growth rate. Consumers are doing a lot more than purchasing downloadable cell phone ringtones and games from their mobile devices. These days, clothing, electronics, books and a host of other items are being purchased through mobile commerce. Additionally, social network participation through services like foursquare, Facebook and Twitter are growing dramatically, creating additional opportunities for promotion and traffic to the mobile version of your company web site.

When optimizing web pages for the mobile web, consider a few tips:

Keep fonts in their most basic format
Eliminate advertising to conserve screen space
Take out images unless they are absolutely necessary
Remove Flash, Java or any plug-in content unless absolutely necessary


 
©2024 The Total Image Group
Home  |  About Us  |  Contact  |  Social Media  |  News  |  Create  |  Develop  |  Refine  |  Protect  |  Invest
The Total Image Group Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 02595342
The company's registered office is: 12a Melbury Court, 14 Lindsay Road, Poole, Dorset, BH13 6AT