There are many methods of marketing on the Internet. All of them have a certain degree of value, but this value is usually a function of the relevance of the situation, context and environment. Many businesses still fail to effectively incorporate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with other online marketing strategies. As the Internet continues to grow in scope and complexity, SEO remains the most reliable method of ensuring that search engines can locate, read and distribute relevant content to your target audience.

Search Engine Optimization

This term refers to a broad set of activities that increase visibility online and drive traffic to a website. The website design, layout and content determine the ability of the search engine to read the page and assign a page ranking. To achieve visibility on the Internet, the search engines must be able to read the page according to a specific set of rules.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media

Successful online marketing strategies incorporate social media with other techniques. Combining SEO with social media optimization is a particularly powerful strategy because it leverages the existing architecture of the Internet. Good keyword density and having social pages are positive attributes. Visibility on the Internet is a key to developing brand recognition, and business owners should consider this visibility as a kind of intangible asset.

When an advertisement appears on a webpage, the person who sees it may not immediately convert into a customer. However, an initial impression is created, and this can be developed by additional online social media management techniques. When a similar ad appears based on similar online search behavior, the potential customer is more likely to recognize the brand, and the association between the brand and the online activity is strengthened.

When this happens on a social media platform, the connection between the social activity and the product can be significant. Many advertisers believe that this strategy has a high impact because of the cumulative effect of brand exposure. The association created between the brand and the social interaction is significant enough to warrant investment. An example of this success is visible in a new generation of companies who address the concerns of their customers by producing fair-trade products and services.

They advertise a company process as much as the product because of new market demands. This provides a specific kind of value, and they know other companies are either unable or unwilling to compete with a process-driven ad campaign. For example, companies who advertise social benefits like paying a living wage to employees enjoy the most traction in this developing niche. This kind of ad grabs the attention of their customers and develops a very progressive style of brand loyalty. It can quickly go viral on social media because users want others to know about companies who are treating their workers fairly.

This particular strategy might not work equally well for every company, but it does demonstrate the powerful effect of developing an authentic connection with a loyal customer base. Marketing strategies should always be sensitive to social context. Social media can spread the message about the benefits of doing business with a particular type of organization, and leveraging this network has the potential to catapult visionary companies into a position of social leadership in an evolving online economy.

Pay Per Click Advertising and Online Marketing

Pay Per Click strategies receive mixed reviews from users. Some businesses find them extremely helpful, but others are less convinced of their efficacy in converting visitors into customers. Many online campaigns are also constrained to operate within a finite budget. Therefore, combining Pay Per Click advertising with other relevant online marketing strategies offers more long-term benefits than using PPC alone.

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It’s been a week since the Super Bowl and people are still talking about the ads more than the game.  Sure, everyone discusses their favorite commercial,but the real buzz is about the social media surprise successes of the game.

Every year, companies spend spectacular sums of money for short 15 sec or 30 sec commercials, but this year was vastly different.  Many, if not most of the advertisers utilized their commercial time to direct viewers online to their social media accounts.  Twitter estimated at least 50% of advertisers used a twitter hash tag somewhere in their Super Bowl commercial with almost as many mentions for Facebook.

In the past, a business only had the time during the commercial to familiarize the viewer with their brand and sell you their product.  Now, advertisers can piggyback on that ad time to invite the viewer to become a fan.  Their social media invitation creates an online relationship that extends beyond the initial commercial involvement.  For a business, connecting with customers and potential customers online opens the opportunity to convert the person into a loyal customer and fan.  By building their brand presence online, these fans and customers will add to their intentional marketing by generating their own buzz online.

Now that we are a week past the Super Bowl, those commercials and their social media presence are still buzzing around the water cooler therefore multiplying the effect of the initial ad buy.

The most talked about commercial/social media presence has been Oreo.  Oreo used their Super Bowl commercial to announce the launch of their account on Instagram.  By asking, “Are you cookie? Or are you crème?” they invited viewers to take part in their visual discussion on the still new Instagram.  In just a week, their Instagram account now boasts over 80,000 followers.

The surprise power outage in the 3^rd quarter threatened to be the most talked about part of Super Bowl XLVII until Oreo jumped into the discussion with a now infamous tweet, “You can still dunk in the dark.”  The social media team at Oreo created and posted this image within minutes of the power outage. They seized on the crisis at the stadium to get people talking about their brand once again.  I don’t think they could have even imagined the widespread success of that one picture and tweet.

With that one tweet, which has been retweeted over 16,000 times, Oreo stood out in a very crowded field and made headlines for days.

That is the power of a business using Social Media correctly.  To engage fans and stand out from the crowd.  How is your business using Social Media?

Lisa Jones

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Is SEO dead? With so many companies shifting their marketing dollars and efforts from SEO to Social Media Marketing, some are left to wonder, is search engine optimization obsolete? In this day and age of digital communication via texts, Facebook, Twitter, and the likes of Instagram, building relationships with client and consumer hopefuls, can’t possibly be a bad thing if it’s done correctly. Right? It takes a dedicated and trusted social media manager, good strong strategies and proper management of the networks for social media marketing to really pay off.

Let’s assume you are performing social media marketing correctly and that you are building a good following in all the major social networks. You are babysitting the networks and responding to inquiries in a timely fashion and people seem excited. Are you converting these new “friends” and “likes” into sales? If not, why? Could it be that ALL of your efforts are going into social media and that you haven’t checked your website lately? Maybe your website is just not up to speed with what this technology savvy, social client base you’ve been diligently working on needs.

Guarantee: Times and strategies will constantly change. There are only so many hours in the day to complete all the necessary tasks of running and maintaining a business. One task that cannot be overlooked, ever, is SEO. Good, old fashioned, white hat search engine optimization. Fine tuning your content, titles and pertinent information on your website is crucial to an engaging website. With information on how the search engines utilize urls and meta-info being a bit sketchy, page titles, images and paragraph titles have to be engaging yet convey the correct information of the content quickly.

Might I suggest a Spa & Salon Day for your website? Spa & Salon Day? Really? Did a real live, experienced SEO/SMM strategist just suggest a spa day for a website? Yep. Sure did. Websites need a little love and pampering too. While social media marketing is an absolutely wonderful way to gain new clients, if your website can’t support your SMM efforts of traffic to your site, you aren’t going to ride the social revolution wave…at all.

Spa Day Specials for your website could be:

• Facelift: Does the content on your website need a facelift in order to utilize keywords representative of your company’s needs? Is the content of great quality? Is it engaging enough for the reader?
• Manicure & Tips: File down your titles and make them engaging, yet short. Are you page and paragraph titles suggestive enough to keep a visitor on the page?
• Soothing Eye Treatment: Does your website flash and blink and sliders make readers dizzy? Are images eye catching or distracting? Don’t forget some could be viewing on a mobile device.
• Microdermabrasion:  Scrub and remove that dead content that is no longer applicable.
• Full Body Massage: Does information flow in an easily navigable manner or do you have to “massage” it to get where you want to go? Do your menus and buttons still go where you think they go?

Spa Days can be expensive, especially when done right. But with regular website maintenance, hopefully you site can stick with spa treatments and not have to go the surgery route! Don’t forget….SEO IS NOT DEAD!

Melanie Ledbetter-Remy | Bizopia – Social Media Marketer

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2012 was a big year of change in SEO.  Once again Google led the industry shake ups by changing their search algorithm and announcing long term changes that forced the SEO firms to change the way we do business going forward into 2013.

The SEO world was turned on its ear when Google’s Matt Cutts mentioned at SXSW in March 2012 that Google was working on an search over-optimization penalty.  For months SEO professionals bickered and discussed the meaning of the comment and the consequences if enacted, but it quickly became evident that Google was serious in its attempt to make the GoogleBot smarter.

2012 saw many changes by Google intended to weed out low quality but highly optimized sites and help high quality sites achieve ranking success. The top six 2012 Google changes for SEO include:

1. Link Building – In their effort to make Google search smarter, Google Penguin updates adjusted the spam filters to block links from low-quality networks resulting in high ranking pages tumbling off the first page of Google.  Suddenly, SEO firms were left scrambling for ways to build more organic, relevant, quality links and rid themselves of harmful unnatural, paid links that had worked for high SERPs in the past.
2. Exact-Match Domain – In September 2012, Google released an Exact-Match Domain Update (EMD) that hurt the rankings of websites with keywords in their domain.  Even though this update was only to affect low quality EMDs, it appeared to have a much wider effect than intended, resulting in a large-scale devaluation of EMDs.
3. Google Search Plus Your World – In January, Google went live with Search Plus Your World to give logged in Google users a more personalized search experience.  Now the SERPs give priority to people connected to the user by placing their site higher on the search page.
4. Google+ Local – Google Places, a staple of local SEO, was merged with Google+ to make Google+ Local.  This update forces small businesses and users onto Google+ to increase traffic, audience, visibility and interaction on Google+.
5. Google Authorship – Google took a major step in implementing its authorship plan by announcing a link between a Google+ profile and content produced by that person.  This link builds a content producer’s authority on a subject, provides a valuable link to their content and customizes search results with the author’s profile picture.
6. Social Signals – This year saw Social Signals integrated into search more heavily than ever before.  How much weight social media interaction will ultimately be given in search algorithms remains to be seen but Google has continued to stress its importance.

As we start a new year, we look back on the changes Google brought to SEO in 2012 to develop our SEO strategy for 2013.   Google has shown a priority on helping high quality sites, with natural links, fresh content and social interaction reach the top of the SERPs.  All SEO professionals need to continue to move our clients in that direction to be successful.

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Gary Remy leads Bizopia as CEO, helping Houston small businesses get found on the web through SEO, Web Design and Social Media Optimization. Stay in touch with Bizopia on Facebook, following on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or Pinterest.

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Any small business owner understands you need to get your business in front of customers, but how do you do it on the web? You must first know where are the people on the web. The answer: Social Networks. To get in front of them, you must design your corporate website so social media platforms are integrated with your business website.

Interacting on social media has a dual purpose for a small business; first, to be where people are and second, to link back into your website to help your search engine optimization (SEO). The Google search engine indexes every tweet you make, so if you are talking about content that is important to you as a business on a daily basis via Twitter, Google is going to recognize you as an expert in that field. Social media engagement helps your ranking results for your website when you focus on keywords and that activity drives organic traffic back to your site.

Facebook is the first place for a small business to establish a brand presence and go social because Facebook is now the most visited site on the web, ahead of even Google. As a small business, you use Facebook to connect with clients and fans, spread your message, and differentiate your business from the competition. It is your opportunity to show the world why you are the best to do business with in your industry.

At first, our goal at Bizopia was to teach our Houston SEO clients to integrate their Facebook and other social media sites for their businesses themselves; however, we learned that most business people don’t have the time to get involved in social media for their company. Now, managing the social media for our Houston SEO clients is a fast growing part of our web design business.

We speak and interact on their behalf via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Blogs and Pinterest to spur their social media activity. It is amazing to watch their fans and influence grow across the Internet. This social media integration shows them online as the experts they are in their business and industry.

Just because a business has created a Facebook or Twitter account, doesn’t mean they’ve established a real online social media presence. You have to do it right. Your activity must be consistent and regular for people to take notice. Social media interaction must be timely to generate higher rankings and traffic on the web.

If you can’t find the time to incorporate social media for your business, let us show you how we can make your business more effective on the web.

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Gary Remy leads Bizopia as CEO, helping Houston small businesses get found on the web through SEO, Web Design and Social Media Optimization. Stay in touch with Bizopia on Facebook, following on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or Pinterest.

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The latest viral video craze on the Internet, with more than 500 million views, is Gangnam Style by Korean artist Psy.  What makes it so incredibly popular?  Is it the quirky dance, the techno beat, or the over the top style of the video? As a Houston small business, would you love even a fraction of their half a billion views for your video or website?

If so, do SEO Gangnam Style!  By utilizing video SEO, you can direct massive amounts of organic traffic to your small business site. YouTube is the second largest search engine behind only their parent company, Google, and internet sites with video consistently have higher SERP (Search Engine Result Pages). As the third most visited site on the internet and with more than 14 billion video views a month, the popularity and power of YouTube is only increasing.  This growing size and importance of YouTube has made internet video marketing a necessary SEO strategy for Houston small business.

People love videos because they provide entertainment, pizzazz, and a bit of excitement. When visiting a web page, a well-placed video will grab attention unlike most text.  A well-produced video can inform a potential customer about what you do in a shorter amount of time than paragraphs and paragraphs of text on the page.  And, people remember what they watch 3x better than what they read.

Your small business video must be well placed, well produced and represent your business message to be credible.  It should define and represent your business style and business personality.  Some choose to make their video quirky or funny, but most are simply straightforward.   No matter what you put in the video, it must represent your brand and relay your message to potential customers.

We know that search engine companies like Google are placing increasing importance on social signals for rankings and video is integral for successful social media.  People watch and share video with friends via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest faster and easier than ever before.  Placing a video on your business site, adds another building block to your Search Engine Optimization strategy. The size of YouTube and importance of social media make video SEO a necessary technique in the SEO arsenal of any Houston small business.

Bizopia, the solution for Houston Search Engine Optimization, offers a premium video SEO package to make your Houston business stand out in the crowd.

Lisa Jones

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With the release of Google’s latest update, Penguin, the rising significance of social media is being realized. Search algorithms appear to be increasing the weight of successful social media interaction in calculating search engine results. Businesses are taking notice of the importance of being engaged as a company online, but may question whether hiring a professional is necessary and best practices.

Most Businesses Give Social Media A Try Themselves At Some Point

Many business owners and employees are on social media personally and believe they can create and manage the social media platforms for their business themselves. However, there is a distinct difference in managing social media for a business than simply using it for personal engagement. Businesses participating in Facebook or Twitter have vastly diverse goals than an individual. Without the proper emphasize on social signal strategies for businesses, a company could end up joining the long list of companies with social media faux pas horror stories after passing the job off to an intern. But most businesses will give it a try themselves at some point before realizing they need to bring in a professional to map out their social media strategy and dedicate the proper time to engaging online successfully.

Social Media Is A Commitment, An Investment In Resources.

Social Media Management (SMM) requires an investment in time, resources and education. Any firm considering managing their social media in house must ask, “Do I have an available employee to dedicate to it?” and “Do we have the internal expertise to do it ourselves?” In truth, the cost of hiring a professional social media consultant or agency to manage the social presence of the company is less than the cost of traditional marking. Hiring an outside SMM firm will save the business time and energy to focus on performing the actual business of the company.

If you have a firm already managing your web design and SEO strategy, it would be beneficial and a natural fit to integrate your social media optimization into the package. Your SEO firm must stay abreast of the constant evolution of Search Engine Optimization, which requires more social media engagement to achieve successful search engine results.

A social media agency maintains a wealth of professional knowledge and experience in building and maintaining social media accounts for business clients. Outsourcing your social media marketing allows the business to maintain control of the “voice” of the company while reaping the benefits of the professional knowledge base and experience online.

Lisa Jones

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What is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the implementation of an online strategy to increase organic traffic from unpaid sources to the website. A successful SEO strategy achieves higher rankings for the site in search engine results.

How Does A Business Benefit From SEO?

Search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo drive 85% of all website traffic.  Studies show that 79% of search users do not look past the first page of search results and 42% visit the top result only. In essence, to be found today online, a business needs to appear at least on the first page of search results for their keyword or main topic.  Using SEO strategies increases your chances of being noticed by organic search engine traffic and putting your business at the top of search engine rankings.

How is Search Engine Rank (SER) Determined?

The most popular search engine, Google, uses a custom algorithm to return search results relevant to the keyword.  Though the exact criteria used by Google to rank sites is a closely guarded secret, your leading Houston SEO firm, has developed our own SER criteria that moves customers to the top of the search engine results for specific keywords or topics.  We constantly adjust our custom strategy to reflect any changes in the ranking system made by Google, as they accommodate new technology and developments.

Can I Successfully Implement An SEO Strategy On My Own?

The basics of SEO are online for you to attempt and the SEO do it yourself approach can make an improvement in your SER. Many businesses quickly learn that SEO is not a one time set up or design, but requires an ongoing strategy to navigate to the top of SER and maintain that high position.  This requires specialized knowledge and dedicated time to react to the private, frequently adjusted algorithm used by Google.  When SEO is done poorly or incorrectly, Google may disregard the site entirely, leaving your business lost online.

Hiring someone to manage your SEO dramatically improves the online brand visibility of your organizations, which in turn drives potential customers to your brand and site.

How Do I Know The SEO Strategy Is Successful?

Before beginning, we conduct research to create a baseline for organic traffic, develop a strategy and target SER for later comparison.  After the SEO strategy is developed and implemented, the SEO firm tracks the search performance to assess the success of each step.  With the use of advanced analytics, frequent research and other custom tactics the results of the SEO strategy will be measured and tweaked every step of the way to reach that coveted first page or top SER.

How To Get Started?

SEO begins with an evaluation of current SEO strategies for the business including measuring any current success from which a custom SEO strategy may be developed. Once the website is created or redesigned using SEO strategies, other online activities may be recommended, including, link-building, pay per click ads, engaging on social networks, press releases and blog writing are implemented to increase the effective return of SEO.

Bizopia, the perfect place in Houston for web design & SEO, offers free website evaluation to get your business started with a new SEO strategy.

Lisa Jones

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An important key for small business marketing is getting your message out where people will see and act on it.  More and more people are not only online, but also actively engaging in social networks.  Studies show that almost 70% of online Americans are engaged in social media networking with the greatest increases taking place in the over-25 crowd.  Six of the top ten most visited websites in the US for 2011 fit into the social networking genre of websites.

The rapid growth of social media and social networking is changing the traditional marketing model for small businesses. Engaging online with social media allows a small business to push their brand directly to their customer base, engage their clients, provide better customer service, and target niche markets at a lower cost than traditional marketing.

The benefits to a business engaged in social media go far beyond the most obvious direct marketing opportunities. Actively participating in social networking will increase search engine optimization (SEO), and lead generation and customer loyalty. Search engines, including Google, are incorporating social media pages, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, and the content found on them, in their formula to generate search engine results (SER). Activity on these social networks now positively affects your SEO and SER.

This online engagement presents a public face and personality for your company, increasing the potential for stronger customer referral and loyalty.  People want to connect with or develop a relationship with a business that they are interested in, or comes referred by friends. They also want the opportunity to sneak a look behind the scenes of your operations.

A social media presence does not happen overnight, but through a well-developed strategy focused on clear goals. When starting a social media strategy, many small businesses prioritize three goals: Increased Brand Awareness, Improved Customer Communication, and Greater Sales Reach. These goals may and should be customized for each company and adjusted as the social media strategy progresses. As people spend more time on social media the opportunities for small businesses to develop engaging and productive business social presence increases.

The cost of traditional marketing to obtain this level of personal connection with the customer base would take a serious bite out of the budget for most small businesses, whereas the cost of hiring a company or consultant to manage the social platforms and engagement is much less. An investment in social media with a proven Social Media Optimization company gives businesses a great opportunity to reach their customers, potential clients and others in their industry.

Lisa Jones

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Small businesses have similar marketing needs as a large corporation without the budget of a large corporation.  Generating targeted leads with a great ROI at an effective price point is imperative to compete in the marketplace. Fortunately, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) allows the small business to not only successfully compete, but to thrive in the marketplace without breaking the bank.

The many benefits of SEO for small businesses include:

1. Cost effectiveness –SEO is one of the least expensive marketing options available; costing a fraction of a major marketing campaign.
2. Targeted traffic source – Using targeted keywords, your website will be found by customers already searching for a business offering your goods or services.
3. High ROI – The return on investment for businesses utilizing SEO strategies is much higher than those of traditional media marketing campaigns or other types of online marketing.
4. Functional website – Websites developed using SEO principles are functional, easy to navigate and customer friendly.
5. Increased brand visibility – Through link building, your company will be discovered on qualified, relevant sites increasing visibility and marketing beyond your immediate circle.
6. Measurable results – Many tools are available to accurately track the positive results of SEO on your site.
7. Increased traffic and sales – SEO increases the organic traffic to the site, which naturally increases your opportunity for greater sales.
8. Create Relationships – Building links with other relevant websites provides the opportunity to create relationships and spread brand loyalty online.
9. Global Marketplace- Small businesses are no longer limited to a local or regional marketplace because of their ad budget.  SEO principles increase web presence in a specific market area for local services or niche marketplaces.
10. Level the playing field – Millions of people visit the internet daily. You no longer need a major marketing firm to get your company, products and services in front of potential customers just strategic SEO.

Search engines want to return high quality, relevant results at each search.  With your website optimized for search engines, your site will rank at the top of search results, generate targeted leads, and open your small business up to the global marketplace at a cost effective price with a high ROI.

Lisa Jones

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