Posts Tagged ‘mobile marketing’

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Co-Sponsors Take Back Their Support On SOPA & PIPA

Posted by Travis Osterhaus on January 19th, 2012

Many people took time out of their day yesterday to take action against the passing of two proposed bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property  Act (PIPA). An astounding 4.5 million people signed Google’s Anti-SOPA petition, according to the LA Times. Eighteen senators pulled back their position on PIPA, including Senator Marco Rubio (co-sponsor from Florida), and SOPA co-sponsor Arizona rep. Ben Quayle also changed his stance to opposing the bill on Tuesday.

The goal of these bills is to censor your web browsing which would also potentially impose damaging effects on American business and even our very own Internet Marketing Inc. All of you last minute paper writing college students must be in for a tough week because Wikipedia is officially blacked out in an attempt to dislodge the bills from being accepted. Wikipedia is allowing you to raise awareness by putting up a fancy box that allows you to input your zip code and let your voice be heard. After submitting your zip code, information of your district officials allows you to contact them. Feel free to drop them a line, express your concern and give them your opinion on censoring your rights.

Now there is always two sides to the story. Google understands that combatting piracy is vital, but, “the most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs.” Also joining in is Mozilla as they changed their default home page from a blank white background to black.

What are your feelings as to how citizens have reacted to this attempt at censoring your web searches?

How Optimizing Your Mobile Commerce Site Will Boost Your Conversion Rate

Posted by Kelsey Powell on November 29th, 2011

With the rapid growth of smartphone and tablet sales, many retailers have begun to create mobile commerce sites in hopes to acquire a larger client base. But what most retailers don’t understand is that it’s not just about creating the mobile commerce site; you must optimize it in a way that’s user-friendly when accessed through search engines or popular shopping apps. Foot Locker is a good example of how this is done correctly and efficiently.

When shoppers are using their mobile device to browse the web, they are most likely clicking a link on one of the popular mobile apps from Facebook, Twitter, or Google or through a web search. They are then redirected to a page designed to be accessed from a laptop computer or desktop, not with the viewing capabilities of the small screen our mobile devices offer us. This inevitably will kill your conversion rate. As a retailer, you must account for all the mobile social users that are clicking links created for a desktop search. It is vital that you understand a lot of your customers are now coming to you on a smartphone through Google, Facebook, and Twitter apps that connect to content with desktop page URLs, not mobile URLs.

So how exactly should we be optimizing our mobile commerce sites?

Brian Klais, founder and president of mobile commerce consulting and technology from Pure Oxygen Labs LLC, says, “To build a mobile commerce site on the m-dot domain structure (for example, m.Retailer.com). When alle-commerce site www-dot web pages are in perfect alignment with all mobile m-dot pages, it becomes easier for a retailer to redirect a consumer from an e-commerce page to an m-commerce page, regardless of where the consumer is clicking from.” By doing so, this will lead to those high conversion rates every retailer hopes for.

Amazon is a great example of how redesigning ones layout to be more tablet friendly will improve your conversion rate. They recently changed their interface to a simpler and less cluttered look, with larger buttons that are easy for tablet users to tap (as opposed to the standard links or smaller buttons). The biggest improvement, as stated by the web design firm Alexander Interactive, is a fly-out window that appears when user taps ‘Shop By Department.’ The bold text in this menu is praised for its clarity on both PC monitors and tablets.

Now we ask, when will you be making the change to have your site more mobile-friendly?

Google’s GoMo helps your Business Go Mobile

Posted by Ciria Mariscal on November 2nd, 2011

The ability for clients to shop on your website is becoming more and more important as people now use their mobile devices as their computers. If your site isn’t able to easily offer them the ability to look at what they want, you lose a customer and in seconds that customer will go to your competitor or lose interest all together.

Being unable to access businesses websites happens thousands of times a day. Each day more and more of your customers are looking for you through their smart phones. A mobile website is designed to be able to be seen from mobile devices without any problems and without having to pinch or zoom the screens.

How to improve your mobile business website

By going to HowToGoMo.com, business owners can enter their current URL and see how their websites are seen on mobiles. GoMo will then make suggestions on how to improve the site and make it more mobile friendly. It will also show you great examples of mobile websites and lead you to mobile site developers such as Atmio, Inc, Dudamobile, and Google Site Builder.

GoMo is an important marketing effort to help businesses with their mobile sites. As more people will be able to access mobile sites and be better able to surf through them, Google will be able to increase their advertising reach.

It is a win-win situation for all, as businesses are able to keep their clients searching on their website though their mobile devices, attract customers to their website and services through another source, and Google will be able to broaden their advertising opportunities.

iPhone 4S Opens Land of Opportunity For Marketers

Posted by Kelsey Powell on October 5th, 2011

After a much anticipated wait, Apple announced yesterday the innovative new features the iPhone 4S has to offer. From a lightning speed dual-core processor, to over 200 new software features, to a voice activated assistant who learns to understand your exact wants and needs, the iPhone will once again take us into a new world of technological advancement. So what does this mean to marketers? In a nutshell, the iPhone will be more advantageous and more essential than ever before, and the new iOS software will be hard to pass up – resulting in an expansion in market share.

Siri App and Its Ability to Understand Consumers

Some people may be familiar with the Siri App, which has been in the improvement stage for the past 18 months at Apple. Bringing the consumer a natural language processing assistant capable of responding to text messages, finding ideal restaurants proactively, and even helping to set reminders and schedule appointments, without even leaving your pocket (via Bluetooth).

This voice activated assistant not only understands what you say, it knows what you mean. For example, if one was to ask Siri “Where can I find some good breakfast cafes nearby?” Siri would respond, “I found a number of breakfast cafes near you.” It would then proceed to generate a list of possible cafes to choose from.

If your business is in that location, this new application serves as a strong advantage for your company against competitors. Although, it is not yet stated to what degree Apple will give developer’s access to the Siri API, but
if and when this happens, third-party applications will be able to push their company to its target market through this innovative form of mobile marketing.

3 Price Levels Will Expand iOS Market Share

In efforts to remain ahead of the Android market, Apple had to be wary as to how they would introduce the upgraded iPhone 4S. They decided to remain in line with their current pricing level for the 16GB version and 32GB version at $199 and $299, respectively. Apple is also introducing for the first time a whopping 64GB edition, priced at $399. In order to drive up iPhone market share, Apple is offering the 3GS version for free with a two-year contract, in addition to purchasing the current iPhone 4 model at a mere $99 (8GB).

With an increased market share, marketers will find it easier to focus solely on the iOS platform in order to allocate their dollars and mobile marketing efforts adequately. We can then assume those contemplating switching to the Android platform may be deferred, due to the increased attention for the iOS platform.

The Siri app and subsequent market share expansion, are only two of the defining highlights of the new iPhone 4S. We are anxious to see what Apple will come out with next that is sure to help us, as marketers, reach our audience in more innovative ways than ever before.

The Inverted Pyramid Writing Style

Posted by Kate Riley on August 31st, 2010

When writing content on the web, a good rule of thumb is to use the inverted pyramid technique, also known as Bottom Line Up Front.  This entails putting your most important point as the title and first paragraph of text in your article, and the supporting details towards the end.  Be sure to capture the attention of your users’ right at the beginning of your page, so that way they don’t need to scroll down to get the main points of your article. On the web, people tend to jump from page to page on websites, so you want to catch their attention right away.

Benefits for Readers

If a user likes what they see in your article from the beginning, they are more likely to bookmark it and read the rest of the article later. Or, if they are using a mobile phone, they can see the main point of the article and email it to themselves to read later on. (more…)

The Last Winter SES Chicago

Posted by Myles Vives on December 16th, 2009

A week ago ended the last SES Chicago scheduled to occur in December as it will move to October 18 in 2010.

Although mid December is not technically Winter it was wintry enough especially compared to a much more Fall like mid October date starting next year.

The 2009 SES Chicago started on December 7th with a dusting of snow outside as Jeff Jarvis kicked it off with his interesting keynote on the link economy being part of the greater Google economy the online space is currently in.

ses chicago 2009

The sessions that followed had a predominant SEO theme versus the growing social media focus of Pubcon & SMX conferences in my opinion.

Although the Google Real Time Search did evolve into a hot topic near the closing of SES as Rae Hoffman was furiously writing a great post in the speaker lounge on the real time search spamming potential.

I was particularly surprised there wasn’t much focus to online mobile marketing, beyond one session, which is sure to be a greater focus in all of the major Internet Marketing conferences in 2010.

Matt McGowan & Mike Grehan were generous enough to have me speak on a site clinic with Tony Wright & Elisabeth Osmeloski before I had to quickly take the shuttle through the snow to Midway Airway where my flight back to San Diego encountered chronic delays.

The wet snow & flight delays at this recent SES Chicago will be a distant memory when SES comes back to the United States here in San Diego February 2010.

Also this is my last post here on the Internet Marketing Inc Blog as I will be joining Resource Nation as the SEO Director there going into 2010 but be sure to check back here for the latest Internet Marketing news as well on Android at my personal site GoogleAndBlog.

FaceBook Apps and Mobile Widgets

Posted by Brent on October 8th, 2009

Interested in taking your social media marketing capaign to the next level?  You can gain a vast amount of momentum through traditional social media marketing methods and frankly it is best to start with the basics anyway.  However, once you have an engaged audience, what is the next step?  With a great foundation set and a loyal and engaged audience behind you, you can execute a wide variety of marketing, promotional, and brand building strategies.   So how do you do this?

There are a wide variety of open source applications for promotions, events, fundraising, non-profit causes, etc.  But if you really want to personalize your brand’s social engagement, it should be done using customized social media technology such as Facebook applications and widgets for mobile devices.

social media process

 

Promotional FaceBook applications are designed to engage users, create a fun and “viral” tool that can be shared, and increase the fan base (i.e. you must become a fan to enter the “Video Contest”.  Here is an example of a FaceBook application we built for Hilton Hotels’ Video Vacation Contest where contestants must become a fan and then may upload videos nominating themsleves or friends/family to win a Mexico vacation.  It creats a fun way to involve the fan base and encourage them to “share” the contest opportunity with others.

Hilton App

 

And then there is mobile marketing and widgets for mobile devices.  Providing your audience with apps and widgets to download is a great added value to any social media campaign.  The audience that accesses their social networks via their mobile device is growing exponentially.  eMarketer projects that mobile social network users worldwide will climb from 243 million in 2009 to 803 million in 2012!  Internet marketing takes on many different forms but unless your brand is at least aware of the opportunities for social and mobile engagement, you are leaving money on the table!

2009 Internet Marketing Trend: Mobile Marketing

Posted by Melanie on May 12th, 2009

Advancements in mobile technology opens the door to mobile marketing.   Mobile marketing today is described as a marketing channel on mobile devices.  Despite the decline in overall marketing, a recent report suggests that mobile marketing will increase by at least 36% in 2009.  In 2009 and 2010 the Internet will play a major role in mobile application development.   In Europe and Asia mobile marketing continues to rise exponentially.  Last month, Europe alone had sent out 100 million advertisements via mobile marketing.

Why move with the mobile marketing trend?

  1. More people all over the world use the mobile interface to access the Internet versus the PC.
  2. Mobile platform has location sensing to enable you to segment your target market locally, nationally, and/or globally.
  3. The convenience of coverage practically anywhere and everywhere.
  4. Availability of smart phone web analytic enabling you to market smarter.
  5. Enhanced display technology making it the perfect platform for web and landing pages.
  6. Create an application to promote your business with another avenue for earnings potential.

Mobile marketing may just impact the world as mobile technology.  Stay tuned for Mobile SEO.

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Internet Marketing Inc SEO Director Speaking At SMX Advanced

Posted by Myles Vives on April 29th, 2009

I’m speaking at SMX Advanced

I will be representing Internet Marketing Inc. at SMX Advanced in Seattle on June 2nd as a speaker on the Mobile Search panel.

SMX Advanced is a two day event taking place at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center from Tuesday, June 2 to Wednesday, June 3 in Seattle, Washington.

There will be a Meet & Greet party at the Odyssey Maritime Museum on Monday June 1st hosted by Microsoft who has timed the announcement of its new search engine KUMO later at the conference.

SMX Advanced in my opinion is the pinnacle of all major Internet marketing conferences as such if you could only attend one conference all year this should be the one, although PubCon would be a close second.

This conference has sold out each year and the last chance to get the early bird lowest pricing is on Friday May 1st by saving $200 at this SMX Advanced Registration page.

Please let me know if you will be attending the conference or in the Seattle area in early June by emailing me at mike AT internetmarketinginc DOT com

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