After taking a break from our Inbound Marketing series last week to talk a quick bit about Google+ this week we are back on track talking about Competition Analysis and On-Page Optimization.

Competition Analysis is taking the time to analyze businesses that are similar.  Once the businesses that are in competition have been determined, the analysis begins.  First create a visual analysis, are they exactly the same as your company, what are their goals and strategies as a company, what are they doing good as a company?  Then begin to assess, if your company were to do business different from them would they even notice?

These are great things to consider as a company, because not only does it help your company be more competitive it also helps give your company a direction to look towards.  As a company you are able to grasp what other companies are doing and adapt upon that to build a better company.

The next level is to begin seeing if you can find examples of competitors work and prices.  Knowing their quality and what they charge for it is definitely helpful in order to stay competitive.

On-Page Content Optimization is about building into a site good Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  This is about building keywords into a web site, making sure that the meta tags and keywords match up.  Other things that can be done is giving keywords specific headers in the coding of the site as well as larger and bolded font sizing.

Obviously we don’t know the algorithms that search engines use, however they search for keywords.  So making sure that the site is a majority of keywords specific to your company is a must for content optimization.  A good measure is to make sure that no more than 20% of the site content is keywords.  Make sure though that headers, titles, and bold words are all tagged as keywords.  Also simple and concise.

Another great part of content optimization is making sure that the site stays up-to-date with new information.  As a site gets updated search engines stop by to see what’s new, as well as it boosts links (if it’s not replacing old information) that lead to the site.  This is one reason why we suggest keeping a blog attached to every website.  Having a blog is a great way to keep new information coming every week that not only draws search engines but individuals as well.  When more individuals view the site, the search engines notice the site more as well.

When a company stops and takes the time to do some competition analysis they can search out the On-Page Content and see where they can out optimize the other company.  As we have stated throughout the series: Inbound Marketing all ties in together.  This can be seen as we have talked about not only Competition Analysis and On-Page Content Optimization but also Blogs, SEO, and Keyword Traffic.  So remember it’s not just about taking one or two of these blog posts and putting them into action.  It’s about putting all of them together and seeing Inbound Marketing spread its charm.

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As we continue our Inbound Marketing series we will be looking dually into parts of Content and SEO by seeing how companies can use Blogs and Keyword Traffic to bring in potential leads.

As a Denver online marketing company we have written several different blog posts for businesses, about blogs.  Before we begin to look specifically at blogging and using keyword traffic we figured we would share these previous blog posts in order to maximize the information we provide for you and your business.

We have written about how useful Tagging is for blog posts, why a company should blog regularly, why blog posts should be interesting, and  how blogs relate to social media and business.

Above are listed four quality articles that line out several pieces of how blogs should be put together.  One thing however that we have yet to cover and fits with our current Inbound Marketing series is using Keyword Traffic inside of Blogs.  This is something that is extremely useful not only for a blogs SEO but for a website as a whole’s SEO.

When writing blog posts, there are several opportunities to build keyword traffic.  First is tags, (which can be seen more in depth in the post above) tags are one of the first things that search engines look for, a consistent tag across several blog posts will build presence for keyword tagging.  Another is keyword linking, this is something that we will dive deeper into as the series unfolds but a big part of Keyword Traffic.  This is because when placing a specific link to a keyword, this increases the SEO of that link, making it easier to find in search engines.  We do this when we link our online marketing page in each blog post.  This is enabling us to use the same keyword in our blog to bring traffic to our site. Which is what using keyword traffic in a blog is all about.

The unique thing about keyword traffic is that it can fall into two deeper levels as well.  When building keyword traffic into a blog there are some other parts that can be used as well: photo and link titles.  On WordPress specifically each specific link and photo can be given titles, these titles can be found by search engines leading to higher SEO.

So in short using the same words, like “Denver online marketing” (what we have been using recently) tags the blog posts, then included in the photos and links tags those as well, leading to a widespread keyword base for SEO.  That is how keyword traffic can be used specifically in blogs as inbound marketing.  Above we have provided other useful information on blogging for business for resources as well.

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As a Denver online marketing company, one of our focuses is inbound marketing.  What is inbound marketing though? Inbound Marketing is focused towards putting companies in a place to be found.  There are several facets of Inbound Marketing and over the next few weeks we will look in depth into each subject and how they fit into the inbound marketing umbrella.

There are four main areas of Inbound Marketing: Content, Opt-in Communications, Landing pages & Conversion Optimization, and SEO.  However as you can tell each of these four areas reach deeper into the web.

With Content you have Blogs, E-Books, and Videos.  Then in Opt-in Communications you have things like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Location based services, email marketing and Blogs. With Landing pages & Conversion Optimization comes the opportunity to convert site viewers into leads for potential business.  Finally in SEO there is keyword traffic and competition analysis, on-page content optimization, and off-page factors such as link building.  Each of these four sections, with their multiple modes behind them, overlap.

The point where all these areas overlap is where Inbound Marketing begins to take its grasp. Inbound Marketing for companies can’t be effective with just one of these areas — all four must be in action to some capacity (whether it’s realized or not) before it can work for a company.  However Inbound Marketing last longer and appeals to more people than Outbound Marketing.  The unique thing about Inbound Marketing is that it meets the consumer where they are.  Inbound Marketing allows for people to search for a company and then find them in several different capacities.  Whether that’s via their links in a search engine, their social media sites, or their blog content.  Then when a potential client reaches a company site, they can hit a landing page, which will encourage them to submit their contact information to gain an eBook, more information, or whatever it is for which they are searching.  Each area of inbound marketing can reach a different audience segment, all looking to see your company’s services or products.  It’s the combination of these three areas working together that makes for a successful Inbound Marketing campaign.

The unique thing about Inbound Marketing is that the main cost is labor, as most of the tools are very low-cost.  The most frequented blog and social media sites are free.  The amount of labor however pays off in long term benefits, placing a company where they can be found for years to come.  So not only does Inbound Marketing meet consumers on their terms, with no flashy items, it is also done in a manner that stands the test of time, which helps increase the amount of revenue and traffic that it should bring to a company.

These next few posts we will dive deeper into each area, looking to see what each part, what each section of Inbound Marketing can offer a company.

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One of the most celebrated battles in history occurred in central China in 208 AD: the Battle of Red Cliff. It was later recounted in the classic Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and retold in the 2008 movie Red Cliff. The warlord Cao Cao built an army to crush his two southern rivals, Liu Bei and Sun Quan. Liu Bei and Sun Quan allied together to fend off Cao Cao’s invasion. Desperately outnumbered, the Allies couldn’t rely on sheer manpower to repel the warlord’s forces — they instead had to rely on the skills and talents of the people on their team.

So who were some of the people on their team? There was their commander Zhou Yu, who trained their armies and led them through the battles. There was the brilliant military strategist Zhuge Liang, who devised ingenious military tactics to use against the enemy. There was the princess Sun Shangxiang, who infiltrated the enemy camp disguised as an enemy soldier and sent spy reports back to the Allies. There were the generals Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, able to face off by themselves against a battalion of enemy soldiers and emerge victorious — they provided much of the brute muscle. Zhou Yu and the Zhuge Liang made a plan to attack the enemy’s navy with fire in order to counterbalance the enemy’s numerical advantage. But in order for their fire attack to be successful, they needed to wait for a change in the wind — otherwise they would end up burning their own navy instead of the enemy. Zhuge Liang, through his understanding of nature, was able to predict the exact hour when the wind would change.  But they were running out of time — the enemy was planning to attack before the wind changes.  So Zhou Yu’s wife Xiao Qiao traveled to the enemy camp to distract their commander through feigning surrender and preparing an elaborate tea ceremony for him, delaying the enemy’s invasion until the winds changed and the Allies were able to successfully mount their attack.

Through the successful combination of the different roles of the people on their team — the Commander (Zhou Yu), the Mastermind (Zhuge Liang), the Spy (Sun Shangxiang), the Muscle (Zhang Fei and Guan Yu), and the Femme Fatale (Xiao Qiao) — the southern Allies emerged victorious and defeated the warlord Cao Cao.

So, what does all this have to do with us today? What can a modern, cutting-edge online marketing agency learn from the dusty old tomes of ancient Chinese history?  Quite simply, we can learn that teamwork is key. One person alone cannot hope to have all the skills and specialties needed to bring marketing success to their clients.  Instead you need a team of people with distinct yet complimentary skills and abilities. Here are some of the people you need:

• The Commander: This is the person who works with the client, determines the current state of their marketing, and makes a plan for them to achieve their marketing goals. Then, like Zhou Yu in the battle of Red Cliff, the Commander leads the team in executing that plan to achieve those goals and bring success to the client.
• The Engineer: This person is the nuts-and-bolts, ones-and-zeros programmer who gets excited about obscure terminology like MySQL and Document Object Model. The Internet runs on technologies like these, so if you don’t have someone on your team who understands it, then your online strategies will never get beyond the digital equivalent of the kiddie pool.
• The Artist: If your website looks like it was built in 1997 by your 15-year old nephew, your target audience will go running in the opposite direction. When your website looks like the work of an amateur, your company will too. You need a graphic design mastermind to design and deliver a sharp, eye-catching, high-end website that displays professional credibility and that people can’t help but be drawn to.
• The Scribe: If your website doesn’t have anything interesting to say, then nobody is going to read it, and consequently, nobody is going to buy from you. The Scribe produces the web pages, blog articles, e-books and other content that captures the attention of your site visitors and leads them to wonder how they ever managed to live without your company and your products or services before.
• The Optimizer: Let’s face it — if your website isn’t being found, then it might as well not exist. The Optimizer is a mastermind in the workings of the gatekeepers of the internet: the search engines. Optimizers spend their days poring over keyword lists, search traffic reports, and back-link spreadsheets. They follow all the latest updates in the behaviors and algorithms of the search engines. They use only ethical, “white-hat” SEO methodologies and avoid spammy, unethical, “black-hat” methodologies. A good Optimizer on your team is invaluable.
• The Communicator: Whether it’s Facebook comment threads, Twitter streams, YouTube channels or other online mediums, this person lives and breathes social media. They want to find the conversations people are having online and jump into them. For many companies, this person will be the public face of the company in most of their interactions with their clients and prospects, so it’s crucial that they get the right person for the job.
• The Entertainer: Sometimes you just need showmanship. If your marketing content is about as interesting as a presentation on the Dewey Decimal System, don’t expect people to stick around to learn why they need you. The Entertainer draws a crowd, makes your company exciting, and keeps people talking about you for days.
• The Analyst: Time to bust out the spreadsheets, folks. The Analyst sifts through the mountains of traffic analytics, conversion statistics and other data to find out what’s working in your marketing and what’s not. These are the people who find out how you’re getting a return on your marketing dollar, and work with the Commander to plan out how to increase that return in future marketing efforts.

Over the course of our work, these are the skillsets we have found to be indispensable for any online marketing effort. Of course, every team looks different, and it’s quite common for some people to have several of these skills, or for several different people to overlap in these skillsets. That is totally fine — what matters is that your team has “all the bases covered,” so to speak. If your online marketing team is missing some of these talents and skills, be forewarned — there’s some chinks in your armor that will likely end up hurting you. But if your team has all of these skillsets covered, then fear not — like the alliance of Sun Quan and Liu Bei at the Battle of Red Cliff, you’re ready to hit the ground running and achieve success.

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“Three Brothers” and “Sun Quan” images in this post are public domain and courtesy of Wikipedia.
“Lessons from History” image © 2011 Chris Strom, LLC.

As a Denver social media marketing agency, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a facet of our company.  Last year we posted a three-part series on SEO (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) lining out exactly how it works.  In order to best serve our customers we are always looking to keep them up-to-date on the latest happenings online and how these can assist their marketing plans.

Google and Bing, two of the top three search engines, have both confirmed that they are using Twitter and Facebook as factors in ranking websites.  This means that every time a link gets shared on Twitter or Facebook it gets counted for the search engine ranking.

Bing went as far to say that the amount of followers/friends that a person has, coupled with the amount of times that link is shared comes together to form an even better search ranking.

Obviously knowing this is good news for businesses looking to improve their search rankings because more links are shared and archived on Facebook and Twitter than pretty much anywhere else (aside from a search engine).  Though we don’t know the algorithms of search engines for social media, we can hypothesize based off of experience with search engines in other areas.  When using Facebook and Twitter to improve your search rankings there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Quality over Quantity: Everyone wants to be better-optimized for the search engines. Seeing that Facebook and Twitter can do that, some people may think they should post their links everyday.  Though this would help, the more effective way is for it to be shared horizontally across friends than for it to be shared vertically through the company.  The more individuals who share, the more noticeable it is for the search engines (at least that’s the assumption).  Also (considering Bing alluded to it) the type of people sharing your links have influence on your SEO as well. That’s why companies are now paying to have actors and actresses to endorse their products via social media — not only is your SEO affected but your sales and site hits as well.
• Interactive Response: Just like individuals posting your links grow your website’s optimization for the search engines, the deeper part of that should help it as well.  We are talking click-thrus, Re-Tweets, and possibly even likes on Facebook.  The concept of interactive response would also consider that search engines might be looking to remove company bias.  In short, it’s possible that a link of a company’s site shared by an individual would rank higher than that same link shared by the company itself.  Interactive response is completely dependent on the content published and the response of followers.  Companies should make sure that they are posting items relevant to their company as well as to their audience.  This is the easy, obvious, way to gain an interactive response.
• Timing: Posts that go viral are awesome.  However, search engines have implemented measures to cut down on short-term fads versus long-term trends.  So having a post that is really popular for a week or two is great, but eventually a post on the same subject, garnering ten to twenty hits a week is going to outpace something that went viral one time.  So recycling quality content is a great idea to maintain that consistent weekly traffic.

Everything on the internet is connected in some way.  In writing on this topic, it was actually quite difficult to try and write out three individual points on this subject because they do all tie in together.  This is why the internet is oftentimes called the World Wide Web!  It’s built like a web with strands connecting everything together.  Search Engine Optimization is where the web comes together.

As always, we are here to help you.  Click Here if you would like help in the area of SEO.  Also we are on Facebook and Twitter as well, we would love to have you as our Fans and Followers.

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