There are billions of searches placed on Google from day-to-day, most of which inquiring about brands and businesses. Most businesses have the  ultimate goal to turn those queries into relationships by making meaningful connections. Therefore, Google launched today Google+ Pages (similar to Facebook Pages, but with more benefits for your business).

First off, Google+ Pages will now come up in potential clients search results. This is important for your business because it allows them to not only recommend you with a +1, but make a real connection by adding you to one of their circles. This will create a long-term relationship by allowing them to listen in and spend time with your team. Your most loyal customers and super fans will want to say hello as soon as you start sharing.

Secondly, a new feature called Direct Connect serves as an even faster way for your business to get connected to your prime prospective consumers. Maybe you just heard about a new company on a TV commercial that you want to know more about, or you saw on a billboard a cool new product you want to try. In both scenarios, you want to get connected with the desired product/service right away; Direct Connect makes that happen in an easy and even automatic way. Just go to Google.com and search for [+], followed by the page you’re interested in (like +Internet Marketing Inc).

You will then directly be taken to their Google page, and if you desire, an option to add them to your circles immediately. As of today, Direct Connect only works for a limited number of pages, but give “+Google” a try to be the first to see this cool new innovative feature! If your organization seems fit for this great new opportunity to not only get more clients, but create a relationship with them, you can learn more about Direct Connect in Google’s Help Center.

Many big companies and brand names that wanted to get an early start on developing their social outlet through the new Google+ Social media website were removed and replaced with a 404 error messages.

Many of these companies were removed earlier than others throughout this week, allowing some brands to develop their Google+ presence but shortly after, brands such as Sesame Street, Mashable, Ford, and Search Engine Land all had their accounts suspended. Google did mention early on that business pages would be coming soon, which was the main cause for the removal of their Google plus accounts.

Google upset many Mashable followers, who had over 103,000 followers and said to be the 4^th most popular account on Google. Many other companies are ready to jump on board with Google+ but are slowed down by Google’s selective business account testing which businesses had to apply for by the end of last week on Friday.  Out of the thousands of businesses that applied for the business account through Google+ only a few will be selected through this week by email.

For the companies that were removed from their Google+ account received a message stating:

Your profile is suspended

After reviewing your profile, we determined that some of the content (e.g. text, images, name) violates our Community Standards or our Names Policy. Please remember that we are currently limiting profiles to real people and will be launching a profile for businesses and other entities later this year.

Google’s Christian Oestlien does mention however with the overwhelming amount of businesses that have applied for the business account, even though they cant accommodate everyone, their interest has got them very focused on accelerating their development plans. We look forward to learning more about this developing topic.

Starting in 2012, the Web’s set of available domain suffixes will expand from the 22 typical .com, .edu, .net, etc… to .anything.

ICANN, the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and the group that oversees the Internet’s domain system agreed on Monday June 20^th, 2011 to open an application window for proposing new domain suffixes, which could be almost any word in any language, including those that use different scripts, like Arabic or Japanese.

This change though, comes at a certain price. Today, the standard dot-com registration circles around 15 dollars. ICANN’s application for a new suffix will be accompanied by an $185,000 fee, which ICANN will keep regardless of the outcome of the application.

Also, ICANN will require applicants to prove they have a legitimate reason to make such a purchase. This is solely done to prevent any one person to go out and steal companies’ trademark with the goal to resell them later, which happened when the web started to grow. The fee will discourage scammers, and cover potential trademark issues.

Here is a word by Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN, found on http://www.icann.org:

“ICANN has opened the Internet’s naming system to unleash the global human imagination. Today’s decision respects the rights of groups to create new Top Level Domains in any language or script. We hope this allows the domain name system to better serve all of mankind”.

“Today’s decision will usher in a new Internet age,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of ICANN’s Board of Directors. “We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration.”

The recent announcement is already facing some criticism. ICANN’s move is opening the gate for large corporations and brands to drive the future of the Internet. Canon and UNICEF already said they’ll submit an application, and coalitions are forming to apply for more generic terms like “.eco.”

The expansion of the domain name system could turn the URL bar into another place  for in-your-face marketing and branding. ICANN expects as many as a thousand applications, mostly from recognized companies and brands. This will benefit the bigger brands today, but the impact of this change, in the long run is much less predictable.

This could turn very expensive for businesses themselves as well. Instead of focusing on the current 22 generic suffixes (.com, .net, .org, and so on), companies will be pressured to “own their brands” by buying up every custom suffix that might come in handy. If nothing else, they’ll want to buy them simply to prevent someone else from doing so.

The true impact of this new change will be revealed once it is introduced to the web and its users. Most experts are skeptical of the internet users reactions as today, many web surfers do not understand the structure of a domain and assume everything is dot-com.

ICANN will soon begin a global campaign to tell the world about this dramatic change in internet names and to raise awareness of the opportunities available from new domain suffixes. Applications for new domain names will be accepted from January 12^th, 2012 to April 12^th, 2012.

Simply deleting extra data fields on your website can potentially save you millions, as shown in the article “Expedia on How One Extra Data Field Can Cost $12 M“. Expedia utilizes SAS® predictive analytics, which helps them understand their customer base statistically, based on web traffic and user behavior. They realized from studying this data, they they needed to eliminate ambiguous data on their online form  that was misguiding their customers away from their product.

Expedia realized customers were inputting their bank name in the optional ‘Company’ field and proceeded to enter their bank address instead of their home address in the subsequent field. This was preventing the credit card verification process and consequently driving customers away. By simply removing one misguiding data field, an immediate improvement was noticed resulting in a $12 million profit per year.

We can all learn from this example.  It is essential that the direction on your website is efficient for the average online user. Remember that people do not want to spend extraneous time on a website if they don’t need to.   The information you provide on online forms  must be straightforward and free of misunderstandings. Analytics can only obtain so much information about online users. One way to completely understand your website users’ behavior  is to  physically observe them navigating the website and note their confusions.

According to SAS analytics (http://www.sas.com/success/expedia.html), Expedia applies their resources in three ways: inventory selection optimization, website design and fraud reduction. Each facet of SAS analytics observes data in order to learn and optimize on previous customer behavior. These data collections ultimately prevent issues like credit card fraud and help interpret data that will be useful to a specific customer.

Although the primary purpose of using analytics is not eliminating problems such as these, it has proven to be useful in removing glitches to optimize a website’s performance. Analytics only provides statistical information which is why it is crucial to understand your customer in order to make your website as efficient as possible. Who knows, maybe removing a couple of optional fields on your website’s  online form could result in similar benefits.

Link Building is a big part of SEO, which you already know. So how do you get the most from your link building efforts without getting lost in the wild wild west, er web?  Well, focus on anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text attached to a hyperlink.

Not only is anchor text important to search engines, but it’s also helpful to your website visitors. It helps them know the topic of what they are about to see. You want to make sure to choose effective anchor text for the incoming and outgoing links to your website.  This will greatly increase the value of the link and boost your search engine rankings.

To get started, during your link building acquisition, seek out links where you can determine the anchor text that another website uses for your website link.  This is an important part of the search engine ranking algorithms.  Aim for websites that not only have a link to your website, but also the words around the link that include the keywords you want to rank for. For example, in the descriptions of directory listings, blogs, and press releases you should be able to include the text you want to hyperlink.

To illustrate, instead of saying, “Click Here” as your anchor text, use the keywords that you are targeting. If the search engine bots see that the text around the link includes the keywords related to the website that the web link is pointing to, that will help you gain authority and increase the value of that link.

As an example, if we want to direct web visitors to a web page about internet marketing, we could write Internet Marketing and hyperlink that to an external website about internet marketing, or even a page on our website about it. You should also add variety to your anchor strategy to increase the value of the links. Don’t just have the same anchor text over and over.  Let’s look at some examples of this below:

• Internet Marketing Company
• Internet Marketing Firm
• Web Advertising Agency
• Website Optimization and Promotion
• Search Engine Marketing Solution

Notice how some of these have 3-4 words in them. This incorporates the long tail keywords that help us show up for many keyword terms and they typically have a high search volume.  Every day, about 25% of searches are keyword terms that never been searched before, so having variety in your anchor text is a very important way to get new visitors!   Notice that those links aren’t all going to the same page, this is termed “link diversity”.  The same would be true for inbound links, it would be better to have less links  from different sources, then many links from the same source. Keep in mind the anchor text should be different for those inbound links.  This falls in line with Google’s methodology- keep everything natural and relevant for your users!  Now, start getting creative with your anchor text- you’ll be happy that you did!

A new study detailing the likelihood of referrals and purchases from Facebook fans and Twitter followers has revealed, perhaps unsurprisingly so, that fans and followers are a brand’s best friends.  The study explains that 60% of Facebook fans and a whopping 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend a brand or brands after becoming a fan or follower.  Furthermore 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to purchase products or services offered by a brand after becoming a fan or follower.

New meaning to “brand loyalty”

Skeptics of the lasting impact or advantage of a brand maintaining its presence on Facebook or Twitter may insert their feet into their mouths now.  The simple act of clicking “become a fan” or “follow” is likely not the sole reason these brand loyalists are recommending or purchasing from a brand.  Still, the regular interaction with and updates from their brand of choice remain influential in their decisions to recommend or purchase.  In some ways, a person’s news feed is the ultimate location to stage a marketing campaign, as updates are mixed between posts from a user’s friends, subliminally asserting that this brand itself is a friend. 

The end of the email era?

If critics still need convincing, they need only look at the frequency with which Facebook users are logging onto the social network.  The raw numbers of daily log-ins were detailed in a previous post, but they, nonetheless, indicate that almost half of Facebook’s user-verse (universe reference, anyone?) logs in each day, most times more than once, ensuring that an update or promotion is not left unnoticed.  Furthermore, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal announced the “End of the Email Era,” positing Facebook messages had replaced emails, citing a study by Prompt Communications.  In the study, 96% of respondents claimed to use Facebook messages as a means of communication, with only 91% of respondents admitting the same for email.

Just like video killed the radio star, Facebook messages have killed the email.   Armed with the knowledge that radio remains a viable means of mass communication, we know that death is not quite as final as the Buggles suggested.  Nonetheless, as medium replaces medium, the broad encompassing tool of email has been edged out in sheer usage by its cousin, the Facebook message.  The question remains over the qualitative differences between these media, as almost certainly deeper conversations and more information can be exchanged via email than Facebook message.  That being said, it is becoming increasingly clear, given the frequency with which the social network is utilized by everyday people and the inherent loyalty of fans and followers, that social networks are and will remain a crucial arena for marketing campaigns.

With 1.9 million unique visitors per month, you can bet that celebrities all over are jumping on the Twitter trail too.  On an average day, users can expect to find tweets from Britney Spears, Lance Armstrong, Barack Obama, Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Colbert, Shaquille O’Neal and even, MC Hammer.  But the wide array of celebrities on Twitter really extends beyond this.  Some celebs ahead of the curve have already logged on to Twitter, managed their accounts for a while and subsequently deactivated.

So what would drive a celebrity to run away from the free publicity and fame?  Isn’t there always more time to be in the spotlight?  Well, not according to famous teen star, Miley Cyrus.  She claimed that her Twitter account began invading her privacy and putting her personal affairs in public view too frequently—probably right around the time she boasted a following of 2 million.  So she decided to conclude her Twitter affair and kissed it goodbye with a YouTube rap video about how she “stopped livin’ for moments and started livin’ for people.”  You should really check it out if you haven’t seen it— it’s highly entertaining, not to mention perplexing as she is trying to run from the public eye by creating a new viral video.  How ironic.  She should probably stick to acting, but that’s beside the point…

Regardless of Miley, many other celebrities have managed to run successful campaigns on Twitter.  They’ve used them to promote themselves, their songs and shows, grow a fan base, relate to their audience and humanize themselves.  Twitter can actually be a really successful tool for celebrities in increasing their personal brand awareness, just like how companies and businesses use the microblog for viral marketing.

Ashton Kutcher is a great example of this phenomenon.  I’m sure everyone remembers his victory over CNN?  Earlier this year, they we racing to see who could reach 1 million followers first.  He tweeted incessantly and offered a free Guitar Hero to his millionth follower.  Somehow he single-handedly conquered the news super station.  He currently claims the most followers out of any other celebrity on Twitter with 3.9 million fans reading his microblog on a regular basis.  He tweets about 10 times a day and usually adds in a link, either to a website or other profile.  He often interacts with his followers—recently, he replied to a fan’s tweet about his last chemo session with “live strong, Drew.”  Must be why he has so many followers!

However, Ashton Kutcher is not the only celeb using Twitter to show his sensitive side—Tila Tequila has been consistently blasting out posts on her profile page to aid her favorite charity, The Keep a Breast Foundation.  She recently collaborated with artist Randy Janson to create a shiny, red, sculpted version of her breasts to be auctioned off on Ebay.  Tila is a heavy Tweeter, with an average of 143 posts per day.  She’s been publicizing and promotion the auction from her Twitter account, which has apparently created a lot of hype.  There’s only 8 days and 10 hours left and the bidding has already hit $45,000, so if you’re interested, I’d bid now!

So as you can see, celebrities are not shy when it comes to Twitter.  The most successful celebs are the ones with the highest tweet frequency and most user engagement.  But, keep in mind, just because we’re talking about celebrities here doesn’t mean they are all tweeting with the same intentions.  Several news sources in 2009 have conjectured that many stars employ their Twitter profiles as a way of disseminating personal information before the paparazzi can expose it.  Some people may see this as lessening their personal privacy but celebs like Britney Spears, Lance Armstrong and Shaquille O’Neal believe that this is actually a form of privacy control because they can control the accuracy of the information they release.  Although it may deplete the dollar signs of the paparazzi machine, it seems like a pretty good plan to me.

For more information on celebrity profiles, check out Celebrity Tweet.

It is always surprising to see major brands and companies that have been around for decades that still have website built in the 90′s.  It is fairly common and many times this is simply not a priority especially if the company “doesn’t gain new business prospects via the web”.  The response to this kind of comment of course is “Of course you don’t if your website is old and invisible to Google”.

More large companies (across all industries) are starting to realize the importance of improving their online marketing capabilities.  For most, it is a matter of simply focusing on it, making the commitment, and having an internal team to head up the effort.  Even if the Internet marketing and website development initiatives are going to be outsourced, mostly companies will still need and internal marketing team leading the charge.

Some company owners and executives wonder if now is a good time to invest in improving their online exposure.  The answer of course is that it has never been a more crucial time.  During good economic times, consumers and potential customers do not scrutinize these types of things as much nor do they price compare a shop around as much as they do now.  You have one shot when someone visits your website.  This is important especially if your website is your key resource for providing information about your company and services.

So once you have decided that it is time to make the commitment, what is the next step?  Here are some tips for getting started:

• Define your business and marketing strategy: Your business goals should drive your marketing strategy.  Look at what you are currently doing (or not doing) and set some benchmarks.  Research your competitors that are doing it better.  If your major competitors have a better website (that has been redesigned in the last 12 months), great rankings in the search engines, and an exciting social media campaign, then you have some work to do!  But don’t worry…the fact that they are doing it proves that you should be too.
• Website redesign/redevelopment: Before launching the marketing strategy, you need to prepare your online platform for traffic and converting traffic into new business.  Think of this as having a house warming party.  You wouldn’t send out 100 invitations and make big plans to show off your home unless you have done spome “house cleaning” first.  Your website needs to be compelling, user-friendly, offer great value to your visitor, and have good calls to action so the user know what you want them to do.
• Internet marketing strategy: Start with the basics.  A good search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is the right long term investment to make.  There is no point investing in a new website if noone is going to ever see it (or at least not many people).  Remember my comment above about companies saying that they do not gain new clients or business from the Internet?  Well this is meant to change that.  Great rankings relevant to your industry, business, and services, will eventually build traffic and foster new customers – if the website is set up to convert.  Pay per click (PPC) advertising can be a great way to get quick results in the search engines, target specific areas and consumers, and get faster results than you will with SEO.  PPC is advertising where as SEO is more like a true investment in the future of your business.  Other strategies include social media marketing, email marketing, display ads, retargeting, etc.

The best way to get the process started is to talk to people you trust who are currently doing it.  The most important thing to realize is that consumers in all industries are researching online and could find you if you take the time to “be found”.  The web is a trasparent place and people want to know who you really are.  The days of hiding behind a website that has limited information are over (if you want to survive).   Consider starting a blog and get the executives involved.  If the CEO of Ritz Cartlon can make time for blogging and Twitter, so can you!

By now you have probably heard of Social Media.  If you have not heard of it yet, now is a good time to learn more about it, what it does, what it can mean for your business, and your branding efforts.

Social Media is what the industry commonly refers to web applications, tools, software, or websites that connect people to one another.  Famous among these are the likes of facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit,  Xanga, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, and many, many more.  These  allow people to connect to one another in one form or another, to read the opinions of one another, and to base their own decisions on what the “communities” of these sites say.  But, that is not all that Social Media is excellent for.  In fact, it is becoming an increasingly important part of a company’s arsenal of marketing, messaging, and customer interaction.

To understand why Social Media Optimization (a.k.a. SMO) is an ever increasing crucial part of a company’s marketing strategy, one only needs to look at the success that Alltop (Guy Kawasaki’s company) has had by looking at their Twitter efforts. According to Guy Kawasaki, 6% (http://bit.ly/HeGOs ) of all traffic to Alltop comes directly from one source alone – namely Twitter.  Alltop is not the only example, and it may not be the best tool for your customer either.  In fact, here at IMI we decided to run a test a pilot run for one of our high end customers with a niche market – the highly affluent people (in other words, rich!).

We decided to do this test on one site only.  We posted a forum on investments begininning at $5mm on aSmallWorld.net.  The response was astounding, because witin 5 minutes of posting we had our very first interested potential investor. This was social media at its finest.  Our poster already had a following on ASW, had been an active member, and with their post they were able to prove the model – social media optimization works.  SMO does not only work, but it is absolutely crucial for companies wanting to build branding, obtain customers, and expand, and pinpoint demographics for their product, services, or brand.  Without SMO, you may very well be giving up the edge for your competitors to run with.

I’ve always wondered how people come up with their company name and have made note of certain trends. Many financial institutions name their company after the last names of executives. Many internet based companies have a name that means nothing but sounds web savvy ie: TechCrunch, Mashable, Technorati. Day Spas name their company something that sounds relaxing ie: Revive, Rejuve, Tranquil. Some companies such as Internet Marketing Inc. have a name that describes exactly what they do and then there are companies with names that are completely random.

Your company name plays a role in your overall branding strategy, marketing campaign and sets the tone for how many perceive your business. When creating a company name some of the most important things to keep in mind include:

Can the name be spelled?- There are many words people are prone to misspell ie: Words where the “I” may come before “E” except after “C” etc. If your company name is commonly misspelled then keep this in mind when doing keyword research for SEO and PPC. You might even need to include misspelled versions in your campaign and purchase domains with the misspelled version that directs back to your homepage.

Can the name be pronounced?- If your name is commonly mispronounced then people will also have a hard time spelling it when entering it in search engines. You can structure your marketing campaign to include many audible elements so people get used to hearing the pronunciation. You can integrate videos on your website. You can also run radio commercials that direct people back to your website and embed MP3s of the commercials on your website.

Does the name describe what you do?- There are so many choices for brands that it’s important your marketing campaign really sends a clear message about your company. If your company name has nothing to do with the product or service you offer then it’s even more important to develop a strategic branding campaign so people are used to associating your company name with your specific service or product.

Whether you’re just starting a business or have been around for a while, it’s always a good idea to work with an Internet Marketing Company that can also help you with brand consulting for your business plan. If you want to know more about using your company name to strategically brand and market your company, please contact me!

-Melodie Tao