ONERank Internet Marketing Blog

Google Street View Car & Camera

If you’ve ever wandered around Google Maps, I’m sure you’ve mapped your house, or the house you grew up in on Google Maps’ feature called Street View.

For those that don’t know, Google Maps offers a photo snapshot (360 degrees) of open streets and roadways in the US and abroad. See this help file about How to use Google Street View.

While visiting the GooglePlex back in October 2009 I was lucky enough to spot this beast in the wild – waiting for its next rove around town. It was a Toyota Prius (Hybrid) with the Google Street View cameras affixed to the top. I felt like I had just spotted the infamous Jackalope, as I had never uncovered any samples of the Street View hardware (nor did I really dig around looking for it).

As the car drives down a street, the camera takes a 360 degree photo of the surrounding area. Sometimes it catches some funny things… (See Naked Street View, Crop Circles, and Other Weirdness). People have been caught in crimes as well as other *uncomfortable* acts by the Street View team.

Anyhow, just thought we’d share this wonderful image of the ingenuity behind Google Street View and the fun scenery we now use to ensure we arrive at the proper location.

For all your internet marketing, SEO friendly web design &  web conversion optimization needs, call ONERank Internet Marketing & SEO: +1 (877) 771-7265 or visit us on the web at: www.onerank.com

Increasing Website Traffic Takes Thinking

We often receive phone calls and e-mail from potential clients wondering how much traffic can we send to their website in a week?

While the answer is a definitive – “it depends” – we often worry about the focus of such an inquiry…

Website traffic is a quirky beast… With so many automated tools for generating illegitimate traffic, the market is ripe for people who are simply looking to “increase website traffic” by hiring a company online. I’ve been pitched by many a snake-oil salesman on working with our firm and partnering on website traffic programs, “For as little as $50, we can generate 1,000 visitors a day for your client’s website.” The old adage holds firm: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is…

While there are thousands of different ways to increase web visitors, that which we encourage FORCE our clients to focus on is not just increasing traffic to their website – rather increasing *interested* or *relevant* traffic to their website. And there is a very simple reason why.

Your purpose in online marketing is no longer to show off how many visitors your website stats can show for a monthly basis. Your purpose is to show how your sales grew 15%, month after month, for 12 months straight. By pushing useless, uninterested visitors to your website, you only gain their attention for 4-5 seconds before they move on to another website. This is only an effective tool when it comes to brand building. If there is no interest in your website or business subject matter, why would they stay or take an action?

However simple the following example may be, look for ways you may currently market in the same wasted manners:

A baby product review website wanted to find a way for us to send them at least 1,500 visitors per day, a feat their current “marketing guy” was accomplishing by working with an offshore company. Their budget was roughly $0.04/visitor ($60/day) that they paid to a firm out of Pakistan. So, for $1,800/mo, they were guaranteed to receive 1,500 visitors each and every day for 1 month straight. And guess what, they received about 1,500 visitors each and every day (according to their website statistics). But what did this do to their bottom line in regard to new user sign-ups? Nothing. What about referrals to affiliate links? Nothing. What about direct sales to product listings? Nothing.

What they failed to do was look at the behavior and referral source of these visitors. Within the first 20 minute phone call we had with their CEO, CMO and current “marketing guy”, we identified an astounding 98.7% bounce rate. Meaning that 98.7% of the visitors landing on their website had no further interest in finding anything else out (information, products, services, etc) related to their website. This means that 1,480/1,500 people (each and every day) just moved on through their website without even really looking at it. 20 people clicked on something in addition to the main page, which meant they were paying about $90/visitor (cost per lead) to take part in their website.

We target a different approach to growing website traffic both organically and strategically. Using various PPC (pay per click) networks, we can hone in on the most effective keywords & client demographic – those that are *interested* and those that want to *buy* or participate in a community forum. Once we’ve identified the best of the best, we build our marketing campaign around the identified focal points.

We were able to take the existing website, without making any significant changes to design, navigation, etc, and boost conversion rates by 10% within the first 2 weeks. We sought targeted and relevant traffic, for those interested in the services and products, causing the first real boost in marketing and acquisition that they had seen in over 6 months.

Here’s some basics for increasing website traffic:

1. Keep fresh and relevant content in your site. Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Social Media, articles, How-To, and anything else that keeps you updating your website with relevant and interesting content
2. Make it known. Use a service such as Ping.fm to get the news out about your blog or content posting
3. Make it social and easily linked. Use a tool like Sociable or Digg, Sphinn, Delicious, etc.
4. Submit your website to Search Engine Sitemap services (Google Sitemap, Bing Sitemap, etc)
5. Ask for links back to your site (make it easy for people to link to you – provide HTML code, anchor text, link URLs)
6. Submit to directories (Yahoo, Google, Ask.com, Dmoz, etc)
7. Ensure proper HTML tags are present and relevant on each and every page

The program works when people put aside the “quick fix” mentality and understand that online marketing is a science, as well as an art. By carefully crafting a well thought out and thorough marketing plan, increasing website traffic will directly correlate with an increase in revenue (if that is your focus). Whatever the bottom line goal, don’t forget to look into the details before you jump into contract. Price isn’t always the determining factor to isolate dollar-for-dollar value.

For all your internet marketing, SEO friendly web design &  web conversion optimization needs, call ONERank Internet Marketing & SEO: +1 (877) 771-7265 or visit us on the web at: http://www.onerank.com

CPSQ3AV5RMHE

Thinking Outside the Box

One of the great marketing sources I love to follow is Seth Godin. His insights into “out of the box” thinking and marketing clarity are second to none. He recently wrote a compelling article about the effectiveness of using competitive advantage to catapult a business into dominance.  Seth’s observations, which I must admit make perfect sense in our current technological climate, realize that the equation doesn’t always add up. Creating a dominant new technology may get you a jump start ahead of the competition, but it doesn’t always set you apart far enough to coast into first place.

We are constantly meeting, researching, and developing new technology services and tools for our customers. Many of our favorite clients have trouble thinking outside this paradigm – if you build a better mousetrap, the world will come knocking.  While this is very true, our new culture tends to see this as a fleeting chance. Today a company can develop the “next big thing” only to be outdone by an equal and more financially equipped competitor.

Back when Coca Cola first bottled its secret recipe and sold it to the masses it was a hit. A few years later a competitor created Pepsi. We’re now looking at the two most dominant soda production companies still in existence, over 100 years later. If it were possible that Coca Cola was able to create and perfect a bottling/canning process that Pepsi could not replicate, we probably would only find Coca Cola products around today.

The point is this… In business there are very powerful equalizers of industry. If it can be created or innovated it can be replicated. Don’t expect your technology to set you apart from your competition. Create a brand that is superior and awards its target demographic with value-added benefits and the world will be pounding a pathway to your door.

For all your internet marketing, SEO friendly web design &  web conversion optimization needs, call ONERank Internet Marketing & SEO: +1 (877) 771-7265 or visit us on the web at: http://www.onerank.com