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Incorporating video into emails - a simple enough concept that wasn't even possible two years ago - improves click-through rates by 2-3 times, according to a recent Forrester report.

Start with goals for well defined outcomes

Measuring the effect of SEO for Public Relations benefits should start with well defined outcomes. To get a good handle on SEO effectiveness, it's important to match the purpose for the effort with specific metrics. For example, if improving brand visibility is a goal, then documenting brand mentions in connection with news & PR content at regular intervals can demonstrate the effect of content promotion and link building.

Great list of items you need to address when deciding on processes to manage web analytics in your company. My best advice is to find someone to dedicate an hour a day to your web analytics.

It's not that bad, I swear! 27 easy little steps that will take you from the day the boss pokes her head into your office and says "Hey, I think we need analytics" to the night you get Employee of the Year for leading a company-wide turnaround.

Can businesses today really create sustainable revenue and long-term profit around regularly publishing professional-quality online video, and keep their production costs well below the standards of broadcast-quality? Yes, if they're willing to be what I call "videoratis" - a video professional and publicist skilled at more than one job that relates to their business and their online community.

Companies invest thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per month into improving their natural search engine visibility. At times, certain influences or perspectives occasionally evolve to work directly against the efforts of the professional SEO consultant. Here I'll describe three scenarios and hopefully help companies avoid the unfortunate expense of sabotaging their own SEO investment.

The first thing clients say to me when requesting SEO is invariably centered around rankings. "I want to be position so and so, for such and such a keyword." And I am certain that this is a situation familiar to many of you providing SEO services. However, search isn't always about ranking. And rankings aren't an overnight success story - they take time to achieve. In the meantime there need to be other indicators of success. There are a range of metrics possible to use to act as such indicators, many of which are key to gauging small business SEM success. Ranking high for "xyz" may deliver huge volume of visitors, but not sales. On the other hand, capturing niche rankings for "uvwxyz" and "abcdefg" may deliver less traffic, but actually better sales, not to mention may be easier to achieve in a shorter lead time.

Search engine optimization has changed dramatically over the past few years. The shift is from one of web page optimization and link hounding to content and engagement optimization. In short, search engine optimization and social media are now undeniably intertwined. It has become extremely difficult to achieve any measure of success for important keyword phrases without the use of social media.

Think local. Depending upon who you listen to, somewhere between 20% and 40% of all searches have a local component-a place name, or some other inferred geographic qualifier. So, what's your catchment area, what are the towns, villages, locations, urban areas, landmarks, counties, states, and even countries that you're looking to serve? Add those to your list too

The study found that local search - the practice of using online search tools to find local businesses, products, or services - grew 58% in 2008, reaching an annual total of 15.7 billion searches. By comparison, overall core US web searches grew at a much smaller rate of 21% year-over-year, nearing 137 billion searches by the end of 2008.

There are certain skills that you must firmly grasp before you tell folks you're an internet marketer.

If you're thinking of exploring social media for your company, go for it! But before you do that, here are five important tips you need to know:

The following examples with Google Analytics will help you get more insight in your local traffic. Basic knowledge of Analytics is assumed. Google Analytics (GA) should already be set up for the website in order to continue the following examples.

Great tips on budgeting time for your online reputation management

Monitoring your business' social media presence is incredibly important. You need to respond to people talking about your brand and understand how people view your company. However, a common concern is that it takes up too much time.

As you push traffic to your website and expand your brand name, you lose out if you don't use the power of online video. Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) is a vital and necessary component of a competitive website, and it's not as difficult to implement as you may think.

When considering the tools of social media and how they relate to your business communications needs, it's important to think about two parts of the equation: possibility + function. These tools open up new ways to communicate, which is great. It also means that you have to consider what the functional goal of that communication means to your need.

"Bring wine to the picnic." In this case, Conn was talking about the idea that if you show up and try to market, people will be frustrated and will shut you out. Instead, if you bring something of value to people, they'll be more likely to accept you.

Great points to focus on conversion rates rather than traffic.

The most important point every online business needs to know is this: Conversions (how many people take the desired action - whether that is completing a purchase, gaining potential leads, or increasing a subscriber base) are more important by far than increasing traffic.

There are three basic rules that you need to follow to have a successful Web presence: 1. Brand matters. 2. Usability matters. 3. Search engine optimization matters.

What we, as intelligent marketers, need in the end is an econometric model that allows us to use multiple variables to determine the outcome of our social media campaign.

With communities in the driver seat over product, a shift will happen as communities can define the spec of future products and therefore multiple brands will bid for their business. As a result, we should expect the agency model to flip over, where PR agencies start to represent communities of customers -rather than brands.