How Difficult is it to Sell Cookies to your Mother?

The answer is not difficult at all. Now let’s take this logic to the Internet.

One area that concerns me about many B2B companies is while they shout to the rooftops about how important growth is; they fail to see the illogic of their website platforms which can be one of the biggest mediums in the world to capture this directive if managed properly.

How many times do you see corporate websites that are really glorified Extranets? Unfortunately, all too often this is the case. While this may be good for their existing customer base and employees -- your mother -- does it speak to those who don’t know the company by their name and/or brands?

I think not.

What I see happening quite often is that corporations tend to configure their website to solely speak to the Known rather than embracing the Unknown. The Known would be their existing customers -- which while important -- cannot be the only focus of this platform. The area that many times is overlooked is to capture the Unknown (new customers) and/or up-sell to existing customers.

One way to uncover whether this is happening is to research the web metrics referral data. If a majority of the visitors are coming to your website via the company name, website name, and/or brand names, then you may have a problem. Your website most likely is being driven by offline branding tactics, which are vastly different from online methods and many times much more expensive.

Please understand that while I am all for offline branding tactics (trade shows, print ads, and direct mail); they are heavily reliant on the One Factor. One trade show. One page within One magazine during One given time-frame. Or One direct mail piece that is sitting among Many competitors direct mail pieces. I classify this One Factor as a passive tactic. What you need to start doing is reaching out to the Active and/or engaged audience that is seeking out knowledge.

Where do you find those individuals? The Internet, which is a global 24/7 portal.

It is a known fact that most individuals research information online. Whether it is at home or the office, the Internet is a medium where individuals can research topics rather anonymously and come to their own conclusions based on the data that they uncover. This is the Unknown factor. The customers are Unknown, and their habits and preferences are Unknown. Therefore, it is up to companies to make sure that they have data about their products and services that can be found -- easily, but most importantly in the manner in which the Unknown wants it.

The way to do this is with various Internet tactics that reach out from the screen via search marketing (organic and paid), community building, article marketing, WEBinars, podcasts, and social networking. Once this has been put in place, the next step is to watch visitor behaviors via your web metrics. You will see patterns emerge and can leverage your future tactics on conclusions you draw from the output. While this may seem daunting, it can be handled with a well though out plan.

Sound difficult. Perhaps. Will it work? Absolutely.

The best part about it is that your mother can relinquish her position as your One Factor.

Linda Stacy

What does Personalization and The Long Tail have in common?

While this might seem like an odd question, it is actually quite logical. First, Google Personalization is described by Google as,

“With Web History, you'll be able to:

• ...View and manage your web activity…

• ...Get the search results most relevant to you…

• ...Follow interesting trends in your web activity…”

This sounds pretty good, correct? Well … that depends.

From a User standpoint this may be a good thing in the short run. However, if all the past searches are taken into consideration with a new search, aren’t you going to miss something?

Perhaps.

From a Business standpoint, if ranking highly on the SERPs is important to you then Personalization means that your Long Tail keywords are more of a factor then ever before.

Why?

If you have a user who does not mind that Google is capturing their search behaviour -- or even encourages it -- then businesses have to make sure their White Hat website has as many of the long tail keywords incorporated into the text as possible.

This is because seemingly inconsequential keywords are being captured that make the visitor unique. Unique in the manner that they willingly give their interest and intent in their own lingo. If all those words are captured within the search history -- and if you have similar words on your website -- then the probability of a SERPs match will increase. The best part about this is many times the likelihood of a visitor purchasing from a website that speaks their lingo increases.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I am recommending legitimate text content with these keywords and not SPAM tactics. When you have good content that speaks directly to your visitors in their language then you don’t have anything to worry about. If you know your customer but don’t have this incorporated into your online text, then you do have something to worry about.

While these seemingly odd words or phrases might seem a bit silly to incorporate in your page keyword metadata, if it corresponds with the visible text, then you will have a greater chance during this Personalization era of capturing and/or keeping your high SERPs.

Sound simple? It’s not…

Why did I name my blog Start Backwards?

When I decided to start a blog, the first order of business was what shall I name it? Because I have many ideas and thoughts about the content, the name puzzled me for a short while. Then it hit me.

I’ve always thought a bit differently that most people by the fact that I analyze a problem from the end rather than the beginning. I can vividly remember when I was in kindergarten the teacher gave the class a maze to figure out how to get from the beginning point to the end.

I took one look at it and determined that in order to get to the end I should start there. As the other kids were struggling thru the maze going from one stop point to another -- and many times having to go back to the beginning -- I found that if I started from the end and worked backwards, the mazes were pretty straight forward.

I completed the maze in record time and handed it back to my teacher. She looked at me oddly and asked how I did it so fast. I just looked at her and said “Start Backwards”.