Subdomains

For a great example of this refer to the KING…Google…Do a search for Google to see how they use this strategy. Of course, Google controls the search results so you wouldn’t expect to see anything bad about them. BUT….My point being, you have to click to the fourth page of search results before you even see a listing that Google doesn’t own. Most are Google properties on subdomains, such as earth.google.com and video.google.com.

CraigsList.org also kills it with this particular strategy. Creating a subdomain for your blog (such as blog.domain.com) or for your various products or services can help take up significantly more real estate in the Google listings for your domain or company name.

Just be aware that subdomains need to have some actual content on them as well as having some decent incoming links of their own if you want to ensure that they rank well. Just don’t expect to create a bunch of subdomains and then expect them to out rank the other listings….remember…Google is not stupid…it’s Google for Google’s sake lol

Anyways…enjoy!

Don’t forget to ask any Online Marketing or New Media Questions on our FORMSPRING PAGE! <—- Click it and ask already!

It is very easy for customers to also leave negative and potentially damaging feedback and do damage to a company’s reputation whether it is true or not.  How a company manages their brand online is where “online reputation management” or ORM (also known as online brand management) comes into play.  There are a few different strategies that can be used and over the next few posts I am going to highlight my 5 Strategies for managing your reputation online.

Before I jump into the various steps to addressing an online reputation management campaign and online reputation management SEO, let’s first walk through a very common scenario…

Let’s say that your company has a negative result appearing in the third position on the first page of Google.  This might be a blog or an article on Rip Off Report for example. I have heard stories of companies shutting down because of this situation. To fix this, from an online marketing perspective, the goal then would be to push this result off the first page of Google and there are a few different ways to do this.  Note: If there is validity behind the comments, then that is something the company should address internally before moving forward with a corrective plan of action.

ORM TIP #1: Take Control of Your Social Media Profiles

A big mistake many in the reputation management field make is to register social profiles at a bunch of sites, hoping that some will take over those top rankings. This actually weakens the effectiveness of the strategy, as those links could be consolidated across a few powerful profiles instead, often with much greater effect. The general sites I would start off with would be (in order of profile effectiveness):

Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
Flickr
Facebook

That said, another huge mistake is assuming that just registering a profile is enough to take over the rankings. Actualy participating heavily in the sites and regular authentic participation is key.

Some additional rules to remember with social profiles include:

Name your profiles correctly – If possible, don’t use pseudonyms, but rather your full first and last name (or brand name) either as a single word or with hyphens.
Fill out the profiles completely – photos, bio, videos, links, topics, tags – whatever the platfrom offers, take advantage of it fully. You look bad if the profile is empty.
Be yourself - Dont make the information look flakey or fake.

Like everything else in life – nothing worth having comes easy. Invest in your social profiles and they’ll reward you with controllable front-page real estate in the rankings.

Keep posted throughout the week for 4 other Online Reputation Management (ORM) tips!

Happy Thanksgiving (Canada :) )

Aside from the massive Twitter Security Mess today there hasn’t been too much happening in the world of search marketing in the last week or so.

So, I’m jumping on some news that was big a few weeks ago, and I’m going to give you my take on Google Instant Search.

A few weeks ago Google announced and began to roll out their new “Google Instant” search service.  Before I go into the details of Google Instant, you gotta hand it to Google for the way they continue to innovate. Google Instant is another example of the continued innovation.

Google is starting and will continue to roll out this new and improved way of searching for information online slowly but expect it to be fully rolled out asap.

What does this mean for your business?

It is really hard to say at this time, but I believe it will have a huge impact on the many businesses and how they appear in the search engine results.  Does it change the way we optimize our websites?  Does it mean you need to really focus on Search Engine Optimization?  Does it change the way people will search  for services?

We think the answer to all of the above questions is… YES and it is time to check your website and related services.  This will make sure your business continues to show up in the SERPs.  Google Instant may impact your Google Adwords and many other aspects of your web marketing.  It is just to early to tell what kind or what size of an impact it will have.

Google understands how important search and speed are to the searcher.  With Google Instant, Google is anticipating what you are searching for and offering instant results that match exactly.

Here is what I’m thinkking so far from Google Instant and what you as a business owner might need to do:

• Keywords – The right keywords are crucial.  Keywords must appear in your Title and Description and having the right keywords and understanding how people search is now more critical than ever.  How important is “Local” now to search?  What role would social play in search?  Many questions with little or no answers at this time.
• SEO – Businesses need to really start to look at SEO now more than ever.  Google has already announced that “Instant” will affect search results.  Instant may also mean that no two people may get the same results in their search queries.
• Page One - With Google Instant Search, now it matters that you are on Page One.  My predicition is that this is going to really up the ante and competition will get agressive for those coveted Page One spots…I think that traffic for those on lower pages will decrease substantially.
• Website – You need a website that attracts the clients you want.  Great websites result in the best clients and poor websites may result in poor customers.  With Google Instant, you website is now more important than ever.
• Long Tail Keywords – I won’t get into too much detail but targeting longer tailed keywords with various strategies could lead to some seriou results. I’m going to write a seperate blog post for this point so I can go into more detail about some of the strategies and thoughts I have on this.

Keep posted and let me know your thoughts…

We’ve set up a FormSpring HERE…if you want to ask us any Online Marketing related questions

We gave Phil’s old website a makeover and upgraded him to a new WordPress website. He now has full control over his entire site and site content.

Take a look at this feature from the Sunday Homes to see what kind of homes Phil sells…this one is a beauty

http://homes.winnipegfreepress.com/winnipeg-real-estate-articles/new-homes/Simple-by-design/id-1677/

For New Homes In Winnipeg Contact

Phil Mosher
204-333-5759
info@philmosher.com

Skills:
Mobile development, J2ME, IPhone, Blackberry SDK, Android

Development and Design experience on Blackberry, IPhone and Web Based Development is must. Additional experience on android, window mobile etc is a plus but not required.

Candidate must be proficient in J2ME, IPhone, Blackberry SDK and porting applications from one platform to another.
Experience in enterprise connectivity from mobile device is a must.

Please get back to us with your resume, availability and salary expectations asap.

Shoot us your resume at:
sales [at] sipmarketinggroup [dot] com

We decided it’s time to start blogging again. We set this blog up a while back and didn’t really do anything with it. Hate to sound cliche…but we were too busy with our project load to even think straight about blogging. We’ve added a few more faces around here and things have become a little more stable.

So here’s a few things we want to do with this blog:

1. Have fun - Loving what you do and having fun doing it is very important to us
2. Share Information – Share as much useful information as we can to whoever wants it
3. To Teach – Useful tips, techniques, strategies, etc to help your business
4. Provide Transparency – Give some insight into SIP Marketing and Our Process
5. Experiment – Play around with different ideas and strategies and document it

We’re going to be doing a whole bunch of cool stuff on here so be sure to check us out or add us to your RSS feeds!!

You can also find us and stalk us on these sites:

SIP Marketing Home Page
Facebook
Twitter

Check out our new logo too:

Blue Skies!