Are Virtual Worlds crossing the Marketing Line?

It’s funny, about one year ago I heard about Second Life. I thought to myself what the heck is Second Life? I don’t understand. Well basically Second Life is a virtual world where you can create a different life or alter ego with an avatar. Second life is SIMS gone wild; it is a 3-D world where you can create your own alter ego and invent your own experiences. Currently the site entertains over 9,114,494 residents. As a resident you can buy and sell items, meet new people and essentially create a life all your own to be shared with many people you do not event know.

Since the development of Second Life many advertisers have made appearances in this virtual world, such as Coca-Cola , Sony BMG Music Entertainment , Sun Microsystems, Nissan, Toyota, Starwood Hotels and Intercontinental Hotels.

New to the lineup on the Second Life kick is CBS. Yes I said CBS. The show CSI is making a debut on Second Life. Here is the snippet:

The episode of CSI is scheduled for Oct. 24, Taylor, played by Gary Sinise , finds himself entering the computer-based virtual world known as Second Life, walking (and sometimes flying) around three-dimensional, animated Manhattan landmarks, recreated by a technique called machinima, and pursuing not a suspect but an avatar.

CSI and Second Life? All I can say is -- WHAT?? You cannot be serious!! TV is switching over to interactive marketing in a scary way. I know I am going to be watching that episode if anything just to see how they cross television with the idea of social media. Can it get any crazier?

Holiday Online Advertisting – Are You Ready or Is It Too Late?

It is the end of September and there are only approximately 88 days left to shop for Christmas – depending on when you read this of course – but for the sake of my blog I am sticking to 88 days based on the day I have written this.

Halloween is around the corner and following that will be Thanksgiving, then Black Friday followed by Cyber Monday is your site ready for the season? If not you are losing out on prime time! Get yourself in gear and get your advertising campaigns fully functional. Kick start your marketing efforts with a Pay per click advertising campaign. There is no better time than the present to focus on a strategy that targets holiday shoppers then right now. If you wait any longer you are seriously going to miss the season completely.

Google AdWords has made advertising fairly easy for first time online marketers. They give you two options for an account, a Starter Edition or a Standard Edition. If you really want to make the most of your online efforts you really should just go for the standard edition this way you can create it and optimize it effectively. All you really need to do is go to Google AdWords register for an account, create your ads that are relevant to your business and choose your keywords with the Google Keyword Tool and you are off and running.

Here are some stats for you if you are not a believer, according to comScore, online consumer spending grew 26 percent in 2006 to $24.4 billion. More than 80 percent of consumers did at least some shopping online (BizRate and Shop.org Holiday Mood Study 2006), and 50 percent of shoppers bought more stuff online in 2006 than 2005 (NielsenNetRatings research). I would say those are some telling numbers.

Here are some tips for you:

1. Focus on the Holidays and create campaigns that geared toward those shoppers by creating titles that are specific to holiday shoppers. Choose keywords such as “Christmas Gift Ideas” or “Creative Christmas Gifts”.

2. Create an offer that will be enticing for this time of year with discounts on shipping if possible. I do all of my Christmas shopping online for my daughter, who is 9, so I don’t have to deal with the nightmare at Toys R Us, which is by the way instant headaches for me – and if I can order the same thing online that I can get in the store without paying shipping then I am in!

3. Make sure that your landing pages are also relevant to your keywords. Nothing is worse than offering a promotion for an item and when you click to the website you cannot validate that the offer is real. Please do not make me search around your site to find the offer that was presented in the ad, because if I don’t see it on the first page you bring me to then I will be gone. You can lose a visitor that quickly! Make sure your promotions are visible within the first click.

There is still time to jump on board but don’t wait too long because before you know it Thanksgiving will come and go, and the next thing you know you will have a champagne glass in your hand wishing people you don’t know a Happy New Year!!

Looking to Get More Traffic Naturally? There is More to SEO...

There is big hype on how to gain more exposure on the search engines. Many small businesses think they just need to “optimize” their website. What exactly does it mean to optimize your website anyway? There are many company’s who will tell you that there are specific things that need to be done to your site to make sure the site is able to be crawled by search engines, and if you are lucky maybe they will talk to you about linking, accessing links to your site from other sites that are relevant, and then it stops there. There is more to optimizing your site than titles, descriptions, and directory links.

As a small business owner what else can you do that won’t break the bank?

1 – User Generated Content – let me explain what this is. Simply stated, it is available content that users are generating on social media sites across the web such as MySpace.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and even Yahoo! Answers just to name a few. These sites allow you to create profiles and add valuable content to them which could be highly relevant to your business. It also allows for huge opportunities to increase traffic to your website which at the end of the day that is what you want to see.

2 – Blogs by far are the easiest ways to generate traffic to your site. How you ask? By simply writing and linking which is exactly what the search engines are looking for. The content within blogs gets crawled by search engines and eventually can make its way into the search results chock full of keyword phrases. It is so easy and it can be done for FREE! The only costs that are related to this effort is maybe ten minutes of your time about 2 times a week. If you are not a believer check out Blogger.com and get your blog started today!

3 – Articles and Press Releases – are also an easy way to generate traffic to your site. With this method you can actually increase your backlinks (links leading back to your website) naturally as well as give the search engines lots of content to crawl. Your article or press release is highly relevant to your business because it is typically about your business once again chock full of keyword phrases. For this effort check out companies such as PRWeb, Market Wire, and Ezine Articles.

4 – Last but certainly not least, there are Viral efforts. Have you checked out YouTube lately? If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on viral efforts my suggestion would be make a video and post it. It is easy and effective. You can also submit it to Google Video and don’t forget to optimize your title and description for this video with links leading back to your website. Imagine that! You can do it for such a low cost and actually get a stream of traffic absolutely free.

Remember having your own business is great but don’t forget that in order for your business to succeed you need to be visible and market your site the right way as well as the smart way.

Girl Power Gone Wild

Today I received an interesting email from a friend who wanted me to read an article about a 17 year old entrepreneur. The article referenced at length about how this teenager is truly an Internet Marketing Professional. All I could do was be in awe over what she has created. ValueClick's Director of Media Development has said, "She knows so much about what her site does, more than people three times her age."

This actually struck a chord with me because there are so many website owners who do not know enough about their own sites to make educated decisions about their businesses and here is this 17 year old running the show and became the breadwinner in her household and all because she is targeting young teenage age girls to get free --- YES FREE --- myspace layouts for their myspace pages.

How did she do it? Well through advertising of course, most of her revenue comes from…… can you guess? Google Adsense! Imagine that. While she is starting to work on other ventures to generate more revenue at the end of the day her whole premise has been to service female teenage web users who want “cute graphics” or “hot layouts” for their myspace pages from her website whateverlife.com.

Ashley is by far the youngest Internet Marketing Professional I have read about and hats off to her for gaining exposure in the search engines that land her first page placement on Google for terms such as “cute layout myspace” or “cute web site backgrounds” certainly keywords that I would not think to search on as an adult. She is by far more in touch with her target market than most people I speak with on a regular basis and this includes those who I work directly with and that my friends, is really sad.

For more about Ashley and her site Whateverlife.com read the article listed in Fast Company.

I wish Ashley continued success!!

Pay Per Click or Search Engine Optimization? That Is The Question!

Since I work so closely with businesses that are just getting started online I come across this question quite often. Do I start a pay per click campaign or is search engine optimization the way to go? Often I respond with a very quick, “You need to do both!” I feel very strongly about ensuring a website is getting as much exposure as possible. Many years ago it was fairly easy to get strong positioning in the search engines – mainly Google. This has changed significantly and as a result new businesses find themselves struggling to get traffic if they do not plan effectively. Understanding the differences for both efforts is crucial so let’s go over some very specific details first:

What is Search Engine Optimization?

By definition search engine optimization is a process of overseeing a website to ensure its ability to attract traffic naturally by achieving strong positioning in the major search engines for specific keyword phrases that are related to your business.

Read more about what search engine optimization is by visiting sites like Search Engine Watch.

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?

By definition pay per click advertising is a marketing effort that enables a website to bid on keyword phrases related to one’s business which can appear in the search results pages of major search engines. Visitors can find your ads online with ease, once they click on your ad you pay for that click. The cost is based on the competitiveness of the keyword associated with others who are also bidding on the same terms.

Want to start your own pay per click campaign, it is easy to do with Google Adwords.

Now back to the question of whether or not to do one vs. the other. Natural traffic is free, while pay per click is paid traffic. All in all traffic is traffic and the more exposure you can achieve especially during the early phases of getting noticed in the search engines the better. It is important to have a strong online marketing strategy in place that will help to grow your business. Search engine optimization takes time as you earn your place in the search engines and gain respect and trust from engines such as Google.

While you are waiting to get noticed it makes sense to essentially push your site in front of visitors initially with a pay per click campaign. As your site gains more credibility and positioning improves over time your traffic will increase. If you are also managing a pay per click campaign the traffic increase can be quite extensive in addition to your site’s natural traffic from optimization efforts. It is in your best interest as a business owner to ensure your site is being found and a combined effort of pay per click advertising as well as search engine optimization can assist you with this goal.

As always research before you start an effort such as this, understand your market and what it takes to market your business. Should you decide to consult with experts make sure it is a company that understands the essentials in marketing your business online.

Top Ranking - How Important is it?

Today I had an experience with a client who was all about wanting top positioning in the search engines. Everyone wants to be number one but it is not always possible and with search engines such as Google making many updates to their search results it is very unlikely that any position will ever remain the same for extended periods of time. That said, one must think of other areas of concentration aside from just position or being above your competitor. More concentration must be paid to increased exposure, traffic and conversion – meaning sales or leads.

Now while I tried to explain this to the client he really did not want to hear it. He wanted guarantees and in this industry everyone knows that companies who give guarantees are typically just trying to take your money. Google has a section on their website which talks specifically of SEO firms to be wary of, visit Google Webmaster Tools for more information on this subject. Back to the client, the funny thing about it is that this particular client was no where to be found online and now he has over 25 top 10 placements and multiple pages indexed. In addition to the fact that his traffic tripled in just 9 months, and that I can say is improvement in one’s search results, numbers just simply do not lie.

The lesson to be learned here is as a new business try not to focus so much on where your competitors are appearing on the search engines and try to focus more on increasing your exposure online by increasing your traffic naturally over time, there are many ways to do this of which I will talk about at a later date. If you are as good as your competitors and your site is offering enough content to support this then eventually your site will climb the ranks as your competitors have (as long as you do not do anything sneaky) it just takes time.

Starting Your Online Business

I talk to so many people on a regular basis about their websites and what they can do to help themselves gain more exposure online. I tell them its simple, offer more content within your site and eventually it will happen for you, but it certainly will not happen overnight. There are other things that can be done as well but the most important thing to do is pay attention to the content within your site. One of my biggest challenges day in and day out is talking to business owners about expectations. Many people build a website thinking that once the site is launched traffic will come and people will begin to buy their products or services. Remember the saying, “Rome was not built in a day”?

When first getting started, just like with any business, it is important to earn credibility. You can’t just open your doors to the public and expect them to come into your store and buy any more than you can expect a search engine to place you on page one of their results so that traffic will stream to your site right away, that would be silly.

So as a small business owner what do you do? Make a plan and really think about the best way you can present your products and services within your website. Inform your prospects and guide them by creating a content rich website that will not only help them to understand what you offer but will also help the search engines understand who you are.

Take a peek at this article The Keys to Creating a Small Business Website, and get going! There is exposure to be had and revenue to be earned!