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7 Shortcuts to Take While Doing Keyword Research

posted on March 29, 2012

This post was written by the team at Link Assistant.

While doing keyword research, the digital marketer normally tries to accomplish two things: spend as little time on it as possible and cover as many potentially profitable keywords as the niche provides.

However, hitting both these targets at once is one heck of a task. Hence, it is very good to know what shortcuts one can take, without sacrificing the productivity of their campaign.

Say, you are a CPA (certified public accountant) and have a website called www.SuperDuperAccounting.com (just for the record – the site does not exist in reality as this post is being written). How can you quickly identify high-paying keywords in your niche? Let’s conduct a small case study, shall we?

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Retailers Choose Low Prices Over Discount Days and Coupons

posted on March 29, 2012

There’s a shocking, new trend sweeping across the nation’s retailers — it’s called low prices every day.

JC Penney is the current king with their new campaign that makes fun of holiday discounts and short-term pricing.

In one TV ad, Ellen DeGeneres wakes up at 6 a.m. in the middle of fifties sitcom, wondering why you have to get up early just to shop. The “audience” laughs because they know that if a sale starts at 6:00, the good stuff will be gone by 8:00. Just ask those Black Friday extreme couponers.

In other ads, Ellen makes fun of the .99 pricing concept and then stirs up trouble in the old West when she goes for her coupons. It’s a simple concept. Retailers should offer the best possible price all the time. That’s just good business.

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Google’s Account Activity Latest Attempt to Get You to Sign In

posted on March 28, 2012

Google is in between the proverbial rock and a hard place these days. On one hand, you have newer competitors who have been able to build their empires with social media as the central rallying point. Facebook is the obvious choice here. When Facebook adds another service there is an initial wave of whining followed by resignation to the fact that Facebook has all of your stuff.

Google, on the other hand, is trying to do the online equivalent of herding cats by getting different disparate pieces of a very wide product and service offering to be drawn together for the first time. In the process, they become an easy target for people to point at regarding privacy and Google’s obvious attempts to have data across platforms play together so they can serve ads correctly. They have a difficult task ahead and it’s not getting easier.

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Coca-Cola, Subway and Hallmark Are Still Number One

posted on March 28, 2012

It’s tough enough to make it to the top of your field, but staying there for eight years in a row is near impossible. Still, fifteen brands managed to do just that.

The numbers come from the 23rd Annual Harris Poll EquiTrend Study. They surveyed nearly 40,000 US consumers and asked them to rank a random collection of forty brands and the cream rose to the top.

Every brand on this list is immediately recognizable. Each evokes a feeling of stability, of excellence. They also mean more than just the product they represent.

Hallmark makes cards and Christmas ornaments. But the brand brings to mind visions of loving families, heart-felt gifting and a lifetime of memories.

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LinkedIn Updates People Recommendation Feature

posted on March 28, 2012

OK, I admit it. I have not paid attention to LinkedIn like I should. I take full responsibility for this because of the nagging fact that I have a life outside of social media so this one is on me. As part of the first million to join the network I have shirked my duties that I share with that small and very intimate group of 1 million other LinkedInners. Please forgive me.

That is until recently. In all seriousness I, like I suspect many others, have underplayed the value of LinkedIn because of the time sucks called Twitter and Facebook where there is more immediate interaction. That doesn’t mean those are necessarily good and I have learned my lesson. I am coming to my senses though.

To aid in social renaissance, LinkedIn has now even made it easier for a social media slacker like myself to beef up my connections with their new and improved “People You May Know Feature. The video from the LinkedIn blog gives a brief explanation for you.

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Mobile to Account for 25% of Paid-Search Clicks by End of 2012

posted on March 28, 2012

Mobile is rising faster than anyone anticipated and that’s good news for all kinds of marketers. The recently released “State of Mobile Search Advertising in the US” report by Marin, shows the click growth over the past year.

If mobile continues on this path, Marin estimates that mobile will account for 25% of all paid-search clicks on Google by the end of this year.

Most of the reason for the growth is the corresponding growth in smart phone ownership. It’s estimated that when you combine Android and iOS, there will be one billion phones in play sometime before the summer of 2013.

But it’s not just smart phones. It looks like tablets will be delivering almost half of all the mobile paid-search clicks by the end of this year. That’s really something, given that tablets are not yet common, household devices.

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Survey Says Marketers See Social Media as an Experiment

posted on March 27, 2012

Would you say that social media is an accepted and necessary part of your marketing plan? Or is social media marketing still more of an experiment?

Pivot (the social business conference people) asked brand managers, agency professionals and marketing experts that question and the result was surprising.

49% said that social media marketing was still experimental. Of those people, 37% thought social media marketing would be mainstream by 2013, but 34.8% said they had no idea when they’d break on through.

The reason for the lag? Budget and lack of clear outcomes made the top of the list. Shortly below that, lack of clear social strategy and 39% said it was executive skepticism that kept them from settling in.