Local Businesses Popular With Mobile Search

Thursday, June 25th, 2009 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

According to a recent study by comScore, Inc., the number of local searches accessed through use of a mobile device has more than doubled since 2008. Searches conducted through use of mobile applications (like Google’s Mobile App) saw an 83% increase from last year alone! Though SMS remains the leading vehicle for mobile search, comScore’s Senior Vice President, Serge Matta, predicts that mobile applications will pull in to the lead in the near future. With the iPhone’s recent price reduction (want) and alleged expansion to the Verizon network (want more), consumers are more likely to hop on that 3g raceway and in to — local businesses. Local businesses with fully optimized websites, that is …

From local directories and restaurants to maps and movies, tech-savvy consumers are connected, online and on the go. It is a beautiful thing.

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Tags: iPhone, local businesses, Local Search, mobile applications, mobile search, Search Engine Optimization, sms

Resession Time Means Marketers Move More Dollars Online…

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, Local Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Not surprisingly, the budgets of more than 54% of marketers worldwide have been negatively affected by the recession, according to data gathered from an eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.  Most would guess that advertisers are spending less - way less in the case of newspapers, local radio and television.  Got that, but then where are they spending their precious ad dollars?  If you guessed “online”  you guessed correctly.

It’s a fact during tough times, more marketers are adopting search engine marketing techniques.   Over 90% of marketers polled by eMetrics said they would increase or maintain their spend on e-mail advertising, and more than 83% said the same about paid search. Advertisers also want to know what they are getting for their search engine marketing investment.  In fact, over 87% of those surveyed plan either increasing or at least maintaining their spending on web analytics. This all adds up to one thing…accountability.  In the advertising world it is all about return-on-investment, measurability and the ability to target - hallmarks of search engine marketing.

Lastly, it looks like this trend will continue.  A recent report by eMarketer.com states that search engine marketing (specifically paid search, contextual advertising, paid inclusion and search engine optimization) “will experience increased spending through 2013. By then total US search marketing outlays will reach nearly $23.4 billion, and marketers will be spending more on SEO than on contextual advertising.”

Isn’t it time that your moved more of your marketing dollars online?

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SEM Summer Reading List

Friday, May 8th, 2009 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Don’t Make Me Think
By Steve Krug. An awesome book on website usability. It will give you an expert’s ability to judge Web design.

The Big Red Fez
By Seth Godin. Solid and practical advice for anyone with a website.

Purple Cow - Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
Another winner by marketing guru, Seth Godin.

Web Design for ROI
By Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus.  Increase conversion rates and turn browsers into buyers and prospects into leads.

The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines
By Jill Whalen. A how to guide for writing keyword-rich marketing copy.

Happy Reading!

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Tags: Search Engine Marketing

Top 5 SEO Tools

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

There are so many resources on the Internet that can tell you how to perform SEO on the html code but here are a few good tools that NetSearch Direct utilizes on every SEO campaign.

1. Keyword Research Tools (Adwords Keyword Tool and Keyword Discovery)
2. Track Rankings Tools (Webposition and SEO Book Tools)
3. Quick website information (SEOQuake)
4. Yahoo linkdomain search to find out competitor backlinks, also good link tools at SEOMOZ/linkscape
5. Patience

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Tags: Search Engine Optimization, seo tools

Guaranteed SEO Leads

Monday, April 13th, 2009 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

How many times has an SEO company been asked to guarantee leads?  The fact is no one can guarantee leads through SEO.  The entire foundation of SEO is to get a site ranked as high as possible for keyword phrases within the SERPs.  You don’t see anything in that sentence about leads.

NetSearch Direct can tell you how many searches a keyword phrase gets and the percentage of clicks from the listings on the SERP, which equates to visitors.  From that, we provide an industry conversion percentage in order to estimate the leads possible — but no guarantees are given.

In order to produce a lead from your site, several variables must be optimized (site design, call to action, coupons, etc.).  NetSearch Direct provides our Internet marketing experience on all projects.  We can help your website convert more visitors into leads, but we cannot guarantee leads through just SEO.

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Tags: guaranteed seo leads, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, seo leads

The New NetSearchDirect.com

Thursday, March 26th, 2009 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

On behalf of the entire NetSearch Direct family I would like to proudly introduce you to the new and improved netsearchdirect.com. We have been working on our new site for the past few months and are really excited about the outcome. The new site offers loads more information about our industry, our products and our people. There is even an interactive chat feature where you can connect with one of our staff live.

Check out our new look and feel and tell us what you think. http://www.netsearchdirect.com

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SEO Keywords - High Traffic verse High Conversion

Friday, March 20th, 2009 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

NetSearch Direct specializes in search engine optimization and more importantly we focus on local seo.  In order to provide the most benefit to our client we first perform thorough keyword research on their industry and products offered in order to put together the best combinations of keywords to go after. Once the core keyword list is decided we then start our on-site work.

Many people and SEO companies make the mistake in targeting the key phrases with the largest search volumes only without looking at conversions.  If you get 10,000 people to your site through 3 keywords but only convert 3 people through those keywords then that is not a very good conversion rate.  It is important to look for the keyword phrases that are going to convert visitors into sales.

Using key phrases that may drive high convertible visitors to your site each month is likely to be much better than targeting a highly competitive broad key phrase that is only vaguely related to your business, even if it does attract 10,000 searches each month.

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Tags: local seo, Search Engine Optimization, seo keywords

Social Media Growth

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

More than 67% of the global online population now goes online to visit social networks and blogs (Nielsen Online), and even more amazing Twitter grew 33% in only one month according to Compete data. Digging even deeper into the latest stats and mobile users accessing social network sites on their handsets is up 156% from last year in the US.

So what does this mean in a time when newspapers are becoming scarce, nobody looks at a phone book anymore, and you can probably find your 2nd grade teacher online if you look? It means that businesses have real-time opportunities to increase brand awareness, manage their online reputation, drive traffic, and build their customer base.

If a person visits your website, it’s a general rule that you have about 8 seconds to get their attention. That means you need to draw them in, give them an incentive to stick around, and have a means to give them what they want immediately. Also, if they are a repeat visitor they are probably quickly scanning to see what’s new on your site. In comparison, on a social networking site such as Twitter, while people are still quickly scanning, the messages are short and to the point. It’s easy to pick out if a store you like is having a sale and it’s also easy to pass that information on or  make a comment about the company or product.

Properly managed this kind of customer interaction can create real opportunities for your business. So my recommendation is that if you haven’t really taken a look at these social networking sites, take a little bit of time and give them a once over. Look up your favorite business, see how they are talked about, see what they are doing in this arena. Next time, I’ll give you some easy tips to maybe dip your own toes in.

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Transparency Is Here To Stay

Monday, January 26th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

I came across this post from Seth Godin about the value of transparency when marketing yourself and your business online. Seth refers to it as practicing spiritual business. He asks the question:

Can you succeed financially by acting in an ethical way?

The obvious connection to SEO is that employing “white hat” tactics and shunning “black hat” tactics will, in the end, create a stronger and more lasting success. Leaving aside the cratered minefield of what tactics exactly constitute “black hat”, many businesses wrestle with the idea of transparency.

The most common issue we encounter as a Search Engine Optimization company is over content. The search engines love content, but business owners worry that putting too much information on their website will give the competition a strategic advantage.

If this sounds familiar, let me state the painful truth.

1. The web is here to stay. Your customers and potential customers now demand a different dialogue and relationship with you.
2. If your business is afraid to post content for “competitive reasons”, than your value proposition is not as strong as you think it is.

Need more convincing? I recommend reading the book “Firms of Endearment“. The companies profiled not only outperformed the S&P 500, but they also beat the companies profiled in “Good to Great” by a significant margin!

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Tags: firms of endearment, good to great, white hat seo

How Quickly Things Change

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 | Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment

I was recently reading an article on search engine land that was discussing a way to check to see if Google has penalized a domain. Basically, by adding the word “hyves” as a sub-domain to your site, and checking the PR, it would come back with a code that told you if it had been penalized. While that’s a great thing to be able to do, what’s really interesting is that, this sparked a pretty involved discussion in the forums and comments.

People were trying different domains, analyzing the results, comparing notes, and the discourse went on and on. Well skip ahead a few days, and guess what? All of a sudden that technique didn’t work anymore. You would think that Google would be pretty busy with cutting out huge chunks of services, their new personalized search results experiment, and launching a news service in Singapore, but obviously Google pays attention to these forums, and sites that talk about search engine marketing, and quietly turned that feature off.

So my point is this, things can change very quickly in the search engine marketing world. Techniques that work today, might not work next week. Only by actively staying abreast of news, SEO discussions, and the general feel in the SEO world, can you hope to improve and maintain your search engine marketing campaigns.

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Tags: google, hyves, PR