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		<title>What Would You Do With 30% More Web Traffic?  A Case Study</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/06/04/what-would-you-do-with-30-more-web-traffic-a-case-study/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/06/04/what-would-you-do-with-30-more-web-traffic-a-case-study/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:24:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Case Study]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web site metrics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=127</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What I have for all of you today, as opposed to general information about how to survive in an Internet world, is a real-life example of the kind of benefit a good search engine optimization campaign can have for your business.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>OK, 29%. Call it poetic license. What I have for all of you today, as opposed to general information about how to survive in an Internet world, is a real-life example of the kind of benefit a good <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#seo" target="new">search engine optimization</a> campaign can have for your business.</p>
<p>Our subject is Rountree Moore Toyota, one of my clients, and their website, which can be found at <a href="http://www.rountreetoyota.com" target="new">www.RountreeToyota.com</a>. When I first started working with Rountree Moore Toyota, they had so many things wrong with their website that it would take an entire post just to get through it. Suffice it to say, we were starting at square one. (<a href="#numbers">Click here if you&#8217;re impatient and just want to see the numbers</a>)</p>
<p><span id="more-127"></span></p>
<p>Our effort went through several major steps, and what&#8217;s amazing about the results I&#8217;m going to share with you a bit later is <strong>they were achieved on a site that was still a work in progress</strong>.  But here&#8217;s are some examples of the things we did:</p>
<p>The first step was to follow a lot of the guidelines I set forth in this post: <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/06/search-engine-optimization-1-2-3/" target="new">Search Engine Marketing 1-2-3</a>. I changed and updated <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#meta tag" target="new">meta tags</a>, page headings and page titles. I submitted the dealership&#8217;s information to two dozen different <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#search engine" target="new">search engines</a> and directories.</p>
<p>That was just the first step. Then we undertook a significant redesign of the site, looking closely at what the then-current user behavior was on the site. We wanted to streamline a customer&#8217;s shopping process, making the site easier to navigate and highlighting key actions that customers would want to make. Consequently, we found a web site template from their provider that had some of the features we wanted, and went about modifying it.</p>
<p>We added a &#8220;Request for Quote&#8221; button to the top line. We stripped out extra links in the drop-down menus. We custom-built a new inventory page and <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#landing page" target="new">landing pages</a> for each particular model. We added descriptive free text to every page a customer might land on. We added content boxes at the bottom of the primary landing pages &#8211; the home page, new inventory and used inventory &#8211; to make them easier for search engines to spot. We added HTML links to the bottoms of several pages, both for ease of navigation and for optimization purposes.</p>
<p>We added a YouTube page, links to Facebook and Twitter pages; we tied their customer testimonials page into their DealerRater.com page, allowing them to embrace and manage their online reputation (as per one of my previous posts: &#8220;<a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/14/online-reputation-management-the-future-of-word-of-mouth/" target="new">Online Reputation Management &#8211; The Future of Word-of-Mouth</a>&#8220;).</p>
<p>As I said, there were lots of steps, lots of little details we addressed (far more than those I&#8217;ve mentioned), and it took a fair amount of time and thought. But in the end, the site is easier to navigate. More people come to it. They get more leads than they ever did before. But, to quote Reading Rainbow, &#8220;you don&#8217;t have to take my word for it.&#8221;</p>
<p><a id="numbers">Here</a> are the results from Rountree Moore Toyota&#8217;s web site for the month of May, as compared to their four-month average from January through April:</p>
<p> </p>
<table border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>Jan-Apr</td>
<td>May</td>
<td>pct. +/-</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Total Visits</td>
<td width="20%">1207</td>
<td width="20%">1551</td>
<td width="20%">29%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Total Visitors</td>
<td width="20%">821</td>
<td width="20%">1252</td>
<td width="20%">52%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Avg. Visit Duration</td>
<td width="20%">4:40</td>
<td width="20%">5:51</td>
<td width="20%">25%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">% of traffic from Google</td>
<td width="20%">22%</td>
<td width="20%">31%</td>
<td width="20%">41%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Page Views</td>
<td width="20%">3267</td>
<td width="20%">5877</td>
<td width="20%">80%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Form Submissions</td>
<td width="20%">7</td>
<td width="20%">12</td>
<td width="20%">71%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Traffic from Search Engines</td>
<td width="20%">308</td>
<td width="20%">546</td>
<td width="20%">77%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Page Views per Visit</td>
<td width="20%">2.7</td>
<td width="20%">3.8</td>
<td width="20%">40%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>Without a doubt, those seem to be pretty impressive results. But there&#8217;s one question you have to ask: &#8220;I heard the auto industry was recovering; how do we know these results aren&#8217;t just happening everywhere?&#8221; I know I asked that question. Well, let me show you results from some other car dealers, during the same time period, using the same measures. This first dealership (&#8221;Dealership A&#8221;) is from <strong>a market of a similar size </strong>to Rountree Moore&#8217;s in Lake City.</p>
<p> </p>
<table border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>Jan-Apr</td>
<td>May</td>
<td>pct. +/-</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Total Visits</td>
<td width="20%">2282</td>
<td width="20%">2329</td>
<td width="20%">2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Total Visitors</td>
<td width="20%">1393</td>
<td width="20%">1475</td>
<td width="20%">6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Avg. Visit Duration</td>
<td width="20%">4:33</td>
<td width="20%">4:22</td>
<td width="20%">-4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">% of traffic from Google</td>
<td width="20%">26%</td>
<td width="20%">27%</td>
<td width="20%">4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Page Views</td>
<td width="20%">8033</td>
<td width="20%">7931</td>
<td width="20%">-1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Form Submissions</td>
<td width="20%">12</td>
<td width="20%">13</td>
<td width="20%">8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Traffic from Search Engines</td>
<td width="20%">776</td>
<td width="20%">848</td>
<td width="20%">9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Page Views per Visit</td>
<td width="20%">3.5</td>
<td width="20%">3.4</td>
<td width="20%">-3%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>OK, so you can see, over the same time period, Dealership A didn&#8217;t see any of the same sorts of growth that Rountree Moore Toyota&#8217;s site did. But then, I know there&#8217;s another question I asked. &#8220;Chris, these are small dealers. How did a dealership in a large market do?&#8221;</p>
<p>Well, me, I&#8217;m glad you asked. &#8220;Dealership B&#8221; is from <strong>a market almost ten times as large </strong>as Rountree Moore Toyota&#8217;s. They sell significantly more cars every month. Here&#8217;s what their results looked like:</p>
<p> </p>
<table border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>Jan-Apr</td>
<td>May</td>
<td>pct. +/-</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Total Visits</td>
<td width="20%">9008</td>
<td width="20%">10445</td>
<td width="20%">16%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Total Visitors</td>
<td width="20%">7183</td>
<td width="20%">8327</td>
<td width="20%">16%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Avg. Visit Duration</td>
<td width="20%">3:54</td>
<td width="20%">3:45</td>
<td width="20%">-4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">% of traffic from Google</td>
<td width="20%">44%</td>
<td width="20%">44%</td>
<td width="20%">0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Page Views</td>
<td width="20%">27384</td>
<td width="20%">31447</td>
<td width="20%">15%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Form Submissions</td>
<td width="20%">107</td>
<td width="20%">123</td>
<td width="20%">15%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Traffic from Search Engines</td>
<td width="20%">4660</td>
<td width="20%">5631</td>
<td width="20%">21%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%">Page Views per Visit</td>
<td width="20%">3.0</td>
<td width="20%">3.0</td>
<td width="20%">0%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>So you can see, there was something that did change in May &#8211; there was an uptick in overall shopping. More people were looking for cars than did in the first four months of the year. Dealership B saw increases in traffic, leads, visitors, page views and search engine traffic. But what&#8217;s different between their results and Rountree Moore Toyota&#8217;s? <strong>They&#8217;re proportionate</strong>. Their site&#8217;s traffic rose with the tide, and not because they did anything to make their site more findable or more useful. The implication of this, to me, is that the results are <strong>scalable</strong>- if you can do it well in a small market and get increases, you can do it in a larger market and see proportionate benefits.</p>
<p>Rountree Moore Toyota&#8217;s site saw significant increases in what I call &#8220;usage statistics:&#8221; statistics that show how people used your site, instead of just whether or not they got there. Chief among these is, of course, form submissions (sales leads). Rountree Moore&#8217;s rose by 71% &#8211; far greater than the &#8220;rising tide.&#8221; Other &#8220;usage statistics&#8221; include page views and visit duration. For Dealerships A and B, there was no change in the amount of time people spent on the site &#8211; Rountree Moore&#8217;s went up by 25%. Page views for Dealerships A and B moved with the tide in their respective markets &#8211; Rountree Moore&#8217;s almost doubled (+80%).</p>
<p>What&#8217;s my point? It&#8217;s simple: <strong>this stuff works</strong>. If you performed this same analysis on a dozen other dealership web sites, you&#8217;d see the same things. Believe me, I&#8217;ve looked. Take a look at your business&#8217; web site. Do you think you&#8217;ve done everything you can to make it findable, accessible, and useful? Do you think you get every sales lead you can out of it?</p>
<p>If you look at your business honestly and the answer to those questions is &#8220;no,&#8221; then maybe you should give me a call. I can help &#8211; the numbers don&#8217;t lie. All my contact information can be found here: <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/contact-us/" target="new">Contact Us</a>.</p>
<div align=right>                                        <script type="text/javascript">  linkscolor = "000000";  highlightscolor = "888888";  backgroundcolor = "FFFFFF";  channel = "none";   </script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.addmarx.com/dynamicbookmark_compressed.php"></script><span><a onClick="clickDynamic1(this); return false;" onmouseover="clickDynamic2(this); return false;" href="http://www.addmarx.com/wordpress_plugin.php"><img alt="WordPress Plugin Share Bookmark Email"  style="padding:0px; margin:0px" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/plugins/addmarx/sharebookmarx.png" border="0"></a></span><span style="position:absolute; z-index:1000001; margin-top:24px; margin-left:-127px; visibility:hidden;"><iframe id="addmarx_empty" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></span><p class="addmarx_spacer"></p><!-- Please place the above code into your site where you want to have a bookmark/share/publicize link. Please do not change any of the code aside from the link text or image, or else the code may not work properly.  -->                                  </div>                                      ]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet &#8211; The Future of SEO</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/27/i-feel-the-earth-move-under-my-feet-the-future-of-seo/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/27/i-feel-the-earth-move-under-my-feet-the-future-of-seo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2009 18:25:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Connectedness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paid links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web site]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=110</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The key to SEO's future is understanding how to embrace social media, build links based on legitimate content without resorting to "spamming,"  and manage your site's user experience so that when people come to your site, they're landing on the page that is most relevant to them, and are able to find the information they want.  It doesn't take a lot to do these things, in terms of technical expertise, it just takes knowing how to look at a site critically and interpret the web site's metrics to determine what people are doing on your site.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Before we get down to business, I wanted to note that I&#8217;ve updated the <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/">Glossary</a> with some new terms I thought might be helpful. Click to read:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#folksonomy">Folksonomy</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#metadata">Metadata</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#social bookmarking">Social Bookmarking</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#web 2.0">Web 2.0</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#wiki">Wiki</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#www">World Wide Web</a></p>
<p>But on to other things. I read another great <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#blog" target="new">blog</a> post from a few months back about &#8220;the changing face of <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#seo" target="new">search engine optimization</a>.&#8221; It&#8217;s called, &#8220;<a href="http://www.i-optimise.com/blog/the-face-of-seo-is-changing-are-you/" target="new">The Face of SEO is Changing Are You?</a>&#8221; and, bad grammar aside, it&#8217;s a good read.</p>
<p><span id="more-110"></span></p>
<p>You see, historically, the way that SEO companies did business was to pay for links and blog posts; they would pretend to be their client companies and post articles on various &#8220;fake&#8221; blogs. I say &#8220;fake&#8221; not because they were not actually created with blog software or anything, but because what makes a &#8220;blog&#8221; a &#8220;blog&#8221; is the human(s) behind it who actually have interest in creating community and having two-way conversation with their customer base. That&#8217;s an idealistic opinion, but you&#8217;ll see that sometimes idealism counts for something later on in this piece.</p>
<p>With regard to the paid links &#8211; you may recall that <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/06/search-engine-optimization-1-2-3/" target="new">I wrote in an earlier piece</a> that one of the key items that search engines look for in judging a site&#8217;s <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#relevance" target="new">relevance</a> is how many sites link to it. Well, an old-school SEO company will pay companies that create pages that are purely a collection of links. Have you ever accidentally mistyped a web address and ended up at a page that had a bunch of unrelated links on it? These pages are created by SEO companies to increase the number of incoming links to a site. Seems like a dirty trick, and it is.</p>
<div id="attachment_116" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><img class="size-medium wp-image-116" title="hitwise20search20share20june202008" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/hitwise20search20share20june202008-300x191.png" alt="hitwise20search20share20june202008" width="300" height="191" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Google serves almost 70% of all web searches.</p></div>
<p>But, because this is technology, it evolves. I mentioned idealism, and we&#8217;ve all been told at one time or another that idealism has no place in business. Well, maybe, but one exception to that rule is Google. Google is in a unique position in the business world &#8211; it is the 800 lb. gorilla in the most important kind of business of the next century: information management. Almost 70% of searching done on the Internet is done through Google outlets. So Google has the power to choose standards that all must follow. It&#8217;s a lot of power, and it can be abused, but Google does have certain ideals. Google&#8217;s corporate mission statement is to &#8220;organize the world&#8217;s information and make it universally accessible and useful.&#8221; And the truth is, &#8220;fake&#8221; blogs and &#8220;paid links&#8221; do nothing to add useful content to the Internet.</p>
<p>So Google is beginning to penalize companies that use these techniques to boost their sites&#8217; relevance. Their goal, of course, is to reduce the number of pages out there that have worthless content on them, which will, naturally, make it easier to find the things people are actually looking for.</p>
<p>The author, Dave Freeman, put it well:</p>
<blockquote><p>Well in times when businesses are struggling to stay profitable a website is a must for any business trying to attract new customers. If either your in-house SEO or your SEO agency is undertaking a link building strategy that includes buying blatant paid links then not only are they placing your website at risk of a penalty, they are also placing you business at huge risk of losing its biggest revenue generator and in these economic conditions that could spell the end for the business. What you have to ask is, is it worth the risk of using an SEO or a search agency that is stuck in the past?</p></blockquote>
<p>Once again, poor grammar aside, the point he&#8217;s making is valid. Why waste your money on an old strategy that risks your site being banned by they #1 traffic driver on the Internet?</p>
<p>The key to SEO&#8217;s future is understanding how to embrace social media, build links based on legitimate content without resorting to &#8220;spamming,&#8221; and manage your site&#8217;s <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#user experience" target="new">user experience</a> so that when people come to your site, they&#8217;re landing on the page that is most relevant to them, and are able to find the information they want. It doesn&#8217;t take a lot to do these things, in terms of technical expertise, it just takes knowing how to look at a site critically and interpret the <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#web metrics" target="new">web site&#8217;s metrics</a> to determine what people are doing on your site.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this: ask smart questions of the people managing your SEO business, and you will be in a better place to handle whatever the future holds.</p>
<div align=right>                                        <script type="text/javascript">  linkscolor = "000000";  highlightscolor = "888888";  backgroundcolor = "FFFFFF";  channel = "none";   </script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.addmarx.com/dynamicbookmark_compressed.php"></script><span><a onClick="clickDynamic1(this); return false;" onmouseover="clickDynamic2(this); return false;" href="http://www.addmarx.com/wordpress_plugin.php"><img alt="WordPress Plugin Share Bookmark Email"  style="padding:0px; margin:0px" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/plugins/addmarx/sharebookmarx.png" border="0"></a></span><span style="position:absolute; z-index:1000001; margin-top:24px; margin-left:-127px; visibility:hidden;"><iframe id="addmarx_empty" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></span><p class="addmarx_spacer"></p><!-- Please place the above code into your site where you want to have a bookmark/share/publicize link. Please do not change any of the code aside from the link text or image, or else the code may not work properly.  -->                                  </div>                                      ]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>What&#8217;s that Mean?  A List of Words You Should Know</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/21/whats-that-mean-a-list-of-words-you-should-know/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/21/whats-that-mean-a-list-of-words-you-should-know/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 17:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Glossary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[key words]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=103</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I took the time to create a glossary for this page - it occurred to me that it can get pretty easy to get lost in the jargon that gets thrown around in these types of posts and sites.  ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I took the time to create a <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/" target="new">glossary</a> for this page &#8211; it occurred to me that it can get pretty easy to get lost in the jargon that gets thrown around in these types of posts and sites.  So check it out, and if you find yourself wondering what a <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#widget" target="new">widget</a> is you can find out quickly and in plain English!</p>
<p>
Right off the bat, if you&#8217;re unfamiliar with them, you should check out:</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#banner ad" target="new">Banner Ad</a></p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#behavioral targeting" target="new">Behavioral Targeting</a></p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#cookie" target="new">Cookie</a></p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#free text" target="new">Free Text</a></p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#RSS" target="new">RSS</a><br />
<P><br />
Let&#8217;s hear it for learning!</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Your Future Manager &#8211; How to Find Him or Her</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/15/your-future-manager-how-to-find-him-or-her/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/15/your-future-manager-how-to-find-him-or-her/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2009 17:01:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Connectedness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Generation Y]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hiring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reporting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=74</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The younger generation (about age 30 and younger) has been bred into a multimedia cauldron - you may remember how "multimedia" was such a buzzword in the 90's.  Now it's just a fact of life.  Those of us from the "Connectedness Generation" are a breed apart from the past... the information age has infected us to a much greater degree.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_75" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 160px"><img class="size-medium wp-image-75" title="multimedia" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/multimedia-150x300.jpg" alt="Our paths to the outside world are many." width="150" height="300" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Our paths to the outside world are many.</p></div>
<p>I just read a great post on <a href="http://www.dealerrefresh.com/future-automotive-management/">Dealer Refresh</a> about &#8220;Your Future Manager.&#8221; Here&#8217;s a quick excerpt:</p>
<blockquote><p>Your future manager is a multi-tasking fiend. She or he will embrace every form of social media and communicate with staff by email or instant messenger. Technology use will be first and foremost on his or her mind, with an understanding that it doesn’t always work perfectly, but incorporating technology into processes is crucial. They will demand it!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It goes on to discuss how the younger generation (about age 30 and younger) has been bred into a multimedia cauldron &#8211; you may remember how &#8220;multimedia&#8221; was such a buzzword in the 90&#8217;s.  Now it&#8217;s just a fact of life.  Those of us from the &#8220;Connectedness Generation&#8221; are a breed apart from the past&#8230; the information age has infected us to a much greater degree.</p>
<p>Alex Snyder, the author of the article, describes his siblings and cousins and how all of them live lives wired (and now wireless) in so many different ways. It&#8217;s an experience that matches my own &#8211; as I type, I&#8217;m listening to the podcast of last night&#8217;s episode of <strong>Pardon the Interruption</strong>, keeping an eye on my <strong>Twitter</strong> and <strong>Facebook</strong> feeds on <strong>TweetDeck</strong>, and downloading last week&#8217;s episode of <strong>Lost</strong>, which I missed because it conflicts with two other shows I record on my DVR &#8211; <strong>Lie to Me </strong>and <strong>Mythbusters</strong>.</p>
<p>By my count, there are <strong>nine</strong> items in my house that are connected to the Internet, and that&#8217;s just for me &#8211; the dog is only seven months old and hasn&#8217;t figured out the Internet yet. And the truth is, to a large degree, Alex Snyder is exactly right. We should be looking for people with a talent and comfort level that makes them able to learn and adapt to new technologies and technological habits as they emerge.</p>
<p><span id="more-74"></span></p>
<p>The key is &#8211; and the first commenter on his article brought this up &#8211; is that many of the people who have this skill use it purely as a means of gratification and distraction. It&#8217;s a very, very fine line to walk, because what may look like unproductive behavior in one person may just be part of the creative process for another. Making judgements about someone&#8217;s level of productivity based solely on how &#8220;connected&#8221; they are compared to you is a slippery slope and can alternately lead to a group of people who are all unproductive or all unimaginative and out of touch.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as employees, these younger folks have to handle the distractions out there with aplomb. Yes, I have other things going on in the background and manage to remain productive, but I am smart enough to know that if I really need to concentrate (and it is against human nature to be fully engaged on a constant basis), items of distraction need to be muted or unplugged.</p>
<p>How do we test for these things when hiring? The interview is an inexact tool for gauging the work habits of a potential employee. And it&#8217;s easy for someone to sit in front of a computer and <strong>look</strong> busy while they&#8217;re not really doing anything productive.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>It&#8217;s a fine distinction, but an important one &#8211; the difference between leading a horse to water and shooting him with the firehose.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>My answer? Results. Managers, most often the folks who are most intimidated by this technology, need to take control of the process and demand real results. In my work with car dealers, they are often inclined to draw a direct line to sales when I say this, but it&#8217;s not that simple. Your management team needs to determine real performance metrics and goals on a daily, weekly and monthly basis that <em>lead</em> to sales. It&#8217;s a fine distinction, but an important one &#8211; the difference between leading a horse to water and shooting him with the firehose.</p>
<p>The problem, though, is that many managers are uncomfortable with technology and don&#8217;t know the capabilities of what they have in their arsenal, so they don&#8217;t know what to ask of their people. Too many just want to have someone to &#8220;handle it&#8221; for them.</P></p>
<p>So, when we think about hiring, think about this: a good manager (or consultant), will have a plan for how to utilize the items in his toolkit to motivate and maintain productivity from his staff, while providing relevant and timely reporting of his department&#8217;s results to his bosses. It should involve technology, to be certain, but a good manager will make those technological tactics <em>serve</em> the business, not drive it.</p>
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		<title>Online Reputation Management &#8211; The Future of Word-of-Mouth</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/14/online-reputation-management-the-future-of-word-of-mouth/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/14/online-reputation-management-the-future-of-word-of-mouth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 14:41:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Connectedness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Reputation Management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dealerrater.com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gene reed toyota]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[testimonials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web 2.0]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[word of mouth]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=63</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's one of the axioms of branding that the best kind of advertising is word-of-mouth advertising. One person telling another about their experience, positive or negative, is more powerful that fifty TV commercials. The problem has always been, "How do we generate word-of-mouth advertising?"

Before the Internet and "Web 2.0," this was a very difficult thing to do, requiring grassroots events, surveys, testimonials and other expensive and difficult-to-execute programs. Now, in the age of connectedness, it's not at all. Because of the proliferation of online review sites, and the way Google and other search engines have started aggregating these reviews from all over the web, word of mouth is simply a part of your online presence, whether or not you sought it out.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_70" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><img class="size-medium wp-image-70" title="onlineshoppingreviews2" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/onlineshoppingreviews2-300x204.gif" alt="No matter the industry, online reviews matter." width="300" height="204" /><p class="wp-caption-text">No matter the industry, online reviews matter.</p></div>
<p>It&#8217;s one of the axioms of branding that the best kind of advertising is word-of-mouth advertising. One person telling another about their experience, positive or negative, is more powerful that fifty TV commercials. The problem has always been, &#8220;How do we generate word-of-mouth advertising?&#8221;</p>
<p>Before the Internet and &#8220;<a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#web 2.0" target="new">Web 2.0</a>,&#8221; this was a very difficult thing to do, requiring grassroots events, surveys, testimonials and other expensive and difficult-to-execute programs. Now, in the age of connectedness, it&#8217;s not at all. Because of the proliferation of online review sites, and the way Google and other search engines have started <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/glossary-of-internet-marketing-terms/#aggregator" target="new">aggregating</a>; these reviews from all over the web, word of mouth is simply a part of your online presence, whether or not you sought it out.</p>
<p><span id="more-63"></span></p>
<p>That&#8217;s a powerful thought &#8211; every single person that seeks you and your products out now has a forum to view others&#8217; experiences and results. And if you think back to your own experiences in buying on the web &#8211; a book at Amazon, a pair of shoes from Zappos, etc. &#8211; you have almost certainly looked through the reviews on the product before you bought it.</p>
<div id="attachment_71" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 286px"><img class="size-medium wp-image-71" title="trusted-advertising-consumers" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/trusted-advertising-consumers-276x300.gif" alt="Two of the top three sources are word-of-mouth!" width="276" height="300" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Two of the top three sources are word-of-mouth!</p></div>
<p>That&#8217;s the new word-of-mouth. Are you going to buy a product with one star? Are you going to buy the one that has only been reviewed once? The answer to both questions is probably &#8220;no,&#8221; and for good reason. So think about your own business. Google it and look at the accumulated reviews in the local business listings.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;ve never looked there before, you may be surprised. Because, and this may just be common sense, most people who go online to review a business or product, if they have not been prompted to do so, are the people who are disgruntled and need a place to vent their frustration. This is especially common with car dealers. So most of the reviews that you may find are going to be negative, and reflect poorly on your business.</p>
<p>How do you combat that?</p>
<p>Many clients that I have worked with want to ask, &#8220;How do I get rid of those bad reviews?&#8221; The truth is you can&#8217;t, in most cases. You might file a grievance with the site hosting the review, but unless it is outlandish and egregious, you&#8217;re not likely to get them to remove it. So what&#8217;s the solution to combat it?</p>
<p><strong>Simple:  Ask <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all</span> of your customers to review their experience online.</strong></p>
<p>I know what you may be asking. &#8220;Shouldn&#8217;t I only ask the ones I know are happy?&#8221;  The answer is no, and I&#8217;ll tell you why:  the great power of the Internet is not in being able to reach people with your products and services.  That&#8217;s the Internet of the 1990&#8217;s and early 2000&#8217;s.  The great power of the Internet today, and into the future, lies in the fact that people can reach back to you, and share their experiences with you. </p>
<p>Why do you care?  Three reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>It gives you the opportunity to get honest assessments of your practices and your personnel.  If you have a salesperson who is driving customers away, it&#8217;s good to know that.  Likewise the reverse &#8211; if you have a salesperson who is consistently getting great reviews, then you have a better idea of their value to your team.</li>
<li>It gives you a forum to respond to negative word-of-mouth.  Most sites will offer the opportunity to respond to reviews as the business owner.  So, when you see a review in which someone describes a negative experience, you can respond with an apology and offer to rectify the situation.  This is a good move for two reasons.  First, you may be able to satisfy that customer and turn their experience from a negative to a positive.  Second, and I believe this is the more powerful, <strong>everyone sees that you care enough about your customers to make the effort</strong>.  The key factor you need to remember here is that you have to come strong &#8211; you cannot appear to be sniping or fighting back.  If you don&#8217;t think you can be contrite, for whatever reason, <strong>do not respond publicly</strong>.</li>
<li>It gives you an opportunity to brag.  If you&#8217;re doing the right things and your reviews are positive, you have the opportunity to share that with the world. </li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>Here is an example of a car dealer that took this advice and ran with it: <a href="http://www.genereedtoyota.com" target="_blank">Gene Reed Toyota (website)</a>, <a href="http://www.dealerrater.com/dealer/Gene-Reed-Toyota-Scion-review-24974/" target="_blank">Gene Reed Toyota on DealerRater.com</a>.  Notice that they have a person dedicated to responding to every review personally, and investigating every negative review.  And on their website, they feature their relationship with DealerRater.com.  In their store, they have brochures on every table, and they request that every person visit their DealerRater.com page.</p>
<p>Going back to a point I made earlier, the new power of the Internet in the age of Web 2.0 is that your customers can reach back to you and share their experiences.  And if you&#8217;re doing the right things, their responses will be generally positive.  And if you&#8217;re not, you&#8217;ll have the tools and feedback necessary to take corrective action.  The deeper implication of all of this is that taking these opportunities to have personal, one-on-one communication with your customers is the best way to guarantee your success online.</p>
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		<title>Search Engine Marketing- Why and How Much?</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/12/search-engine-marketing-why-and-how-much/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/12/search-engine-marketing-why-and-how-much/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2009 21:34:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Strategies and Tactics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paid search]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pay per click]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[S.E.M.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=48</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here are the two things I can tell any car dealer (or almost any businessperson) without equivocation, that they should be spending money on. In this day and age, you absolutely must have an optimized and fully realized web site, and you absolutely must have a paid search campaign.  Because your web site is your front door, and the search engine is the street you're located on.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In all my work with car dealers, it&#8217;s been rare that I&#8217;ve ever been able to give blanket, one-size-fits-all advice on any particular subject. There are so many different types of dealerships and so many different markets that what works in one may not work in another because of a variety of different factors.</p>
<p>Naturally, this is true for the rest of the universe of products and services. Cars and couches may have very little in common, but do you know what <strong>is</strong> common about them? If someone is considering buying them, they are probably going to search for them online, either to shop or to find a retail outlet to visit to do their shopping. Likewise business cards, bed linens, video game consoles, and almost everything else. We don&#8217;t even think about all the items we research on the Internet before we buy them anymore, but there&#8217;s a reason that &#8220;google&#8221; has become a verb.</p>
<p><span id="more-48"></span>We&#8217;re always searching, and our window to the world is the search engines of the world wide web. Search engines are that yellow brick road that leads to your door, if you let them.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve talked about Search Engine Optimization and the basics of how to make your site more appetizing to search engines. The other half of the puzzle &#8211; the way to get more clicks to your site even if it isn&#8217;t completely optimized &#8211; is Search Engine Marketing.</p>
<p>And so we have the two things I can tell any car dealer (or almost any businessperson) without equivocation, that they should be spending money on. In this day and age, you absolutely <em>must </em>have an optimized and fully realized web site, and you absolutely <em>must</em> have a paid search campaign.  Because your web site is your front door, and the search engine is the street you&#8217;re located on.</p>
<p>Now, three quick reasons you should be spending on a paid search campaign:</p>
<ol>
<li>Your site, even at its best, will not be served up for <em>every</em> relevant search term.  To get in front of as many of the right people as possible, you must pay to cover the &#8220;gaps&#8221; in your optimization strategy.</li>
<li>Search engine optimization feeds search engine marketing and vice versa.  The amount you pay for paid search clicks is dependent in part on how relevant the search engine determines your site is to the keywords entered.  Optimizing your site will increase your relevance, and if you &#8220;win&#8221; the click, your site&#8217;s relevance will increase, which will potentially decrease your cost on future clicks.  For more information on relevance, click <a title="S.E.O. 1-2-3" href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/06/search-engine-optimization-1-2-3/" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li>There are <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/search-engine-results.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-49 alignright" title="search-engine-results" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/search-engine-results-300x246.jpg" alt="These search engine results for moving companies show how third party aggregators can take over a search page." width="300" height="246" /></a>often third-party lead &#8220;aggregators&#8221; out there that <a href="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/search-engine-results.jpg"></a>collect lead information.  They then sell those leads back to the companies that sell the products that people were searching for.  A pay-per-click or other paid search campaign will typically supersede most third-party aggregators, if your web site is properly optimized.  Click on the screenshot at the right to get an example of just such a page.  In a future post we&#8217;ll talk more about why you&#8217;re better off developing leads through your own site than signing up for an aggregator service, and how to prove it for yourself.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>So now we&#8217;ve answered most of the why&#8217;s of search engine marketing &#8211; it helps optimize your page, grabs searchers you might not otherwise reach based on your page&#8217;s relevance, and it gets you in front of competition that is using aggregator services.  So let&#8217;s talk a little about how much.</p>
<p>How much to spend on search engine marketing is a very difficult question.  On the one hand, search engine marketing is extremely powerful &#8211; it lets you reach people everywhere and anywhere based on what they&#8217;re searching for.  You can make your search ads appear globally or in the tiniest sliver of a single ZIP code.  You&#8217;ll appear in blogs, related websites and every other conceivable place through Google&#8217;s AdSense network and other similar systems.  It&#8217;s easy to get overwhelmed and think you can reach the entire world.  But if your site and your business are not equipped to service the entire world, it hardly seems worthwhile to try and do so.</p>
<p>Moreover, your site needs to be prepared to receive new visitors and offer up the things that they are looking for.  So you need appropriate landing pages within your site that address those items.  For instance, if you are a video game retailer, you might have a Wii page, a PlayStation 3 page, and an XBox 360 page that offer games, accessories, et. al., so that in your paid search campaign you might have three different sets of keywords to reach those people.  Because it hardly seems sensible to send someone who searched for &#8220;wii controllers&#8221; to your home page, where they have to wade through menus to get to the thing they were just searching for, right?</p>
<p>It&#8217;s obvious that there&#8217;s a lot to consider, and it&#8217;s easy to overspend and waste your money if you don&#8217;t have an educated eye to help you figure it all out.  I don&#8217;t offer pay-per-click management services, because it&#8217;s a huge time commitment on its own, and it&#8217;s just a part of the bigger picture.  But what I do offer is to help companies find the right partner for paid search marketing &#8211; one that knows their industry and concerns, as well as best practices.  I teach the questions you need to ask, the results you need to be asking for, how to interpret them, and how to get the best out of your provider by providing feedback that helps guide them and increase your success.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s what it&#8217;s all about, right?</p>
<div align=right>                                        <script type="text/javascript">  linkscolor = "000000";  highlightscolor = "888888";  backgroundcolor = "FFFFFF";  channel = "none";   </script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.addmarx.com/dynamicbookmark_compressed.php"></script><span><a onClick="clickDynamic1(this); return false;" onmouseover="clickDynamic2(this); return false;" href="http://www.addmarx.com/wordpress_plugin.php"><img alt="WordPress Plugin Share Bookmark Email"  style="padding:0px; margin:0px" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/plugins/addmarx/sharebookmarx.png" border="0"></a></span><span style="position:absolute; z-index:1000001; margin-top:24px; margin-left:-127px; visibility:hidden;"><iframe id="addmarx_empty" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></span><p class="addmarx_spacer"></p><!-- Please place the above code into your site where you want to have a bookmark/share/publicize link. Please do not change any of the code aside from the link text or image, or else the code may not work properly.  -->                                  </div>                                      ]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Twitter</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/06/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-twitter/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/06/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-twitter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2009 02:43:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Connectedness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[articles]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=42</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ll write some about how to use Twitter effectively later, but here&#8217;s an interesting primer from The New York Times on the basics of Twitter.  Check it out!
All You Need to Know to Twitter
                      [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ll write some about how to use Twitter effectively later, but here&#8217;s an interesting primer from The New York Times on the basics of Twitter.  Check it out!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/technology/personaltech/07basics.html">All You Need to Know to Twitter</a></p>
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		<title>Search Engine Optimization 1-2-3</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/06/search-engine-optimization-1-2-3/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/06/search-engine-optimization-1-2-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 May 2009 23:42:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/?p=22</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A quick rundown of the basic elements of search engine optimization.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_23" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 280px"><img class="size-full wp-image-23 " title="spaceship-earth" src="http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/spaceship-earth.jpg" alt="Just imagine Walter Cronkite intoning, &quot;billions and billions of stars.&quot;" width="270" height="360" /><p class="wp-caption-text">&quot;Billions and billions&quot; of websites.</p></div>
<p>There are a lot of websites out there.  Like stars on a cloudless night, there are so many.  So many you may have flashbacks to Walter Cronkite narrating your trip through Spaceship Earth.  The truth is, there are too many to really know anything about most of them. </p>
<p>So what do search engines do?  They use robots!  Robots that manually call up every website on the Internet and &#8220;read&#8221; it.  These &#8220;web spiders,&#8221; as they&#8217;re called, pick out items to categorize and classify websites in order to allow search engines to give you the results you want.  I google &#8220;Spaceship Earth,&#8221; and Google finds all the websites and images out there that fit that set of keywords.  The question we&#8217;re going to answer here is, &#8220;What are the basic items that search engines use to categorize your website?&#8221;<span id="more-22"></span></p>
<p>There are a lot of ways to answer that question.  First, let&#8217;s ask an even simpler question: &#8220;Why does a search engine care what results it returns to users?&#8221;  Of course the answer is elementary.  Search engines want to give you the best results so that you&#8217;ll come back and search with them again.  If you don&#8217;t come back, they can&#8217;t sell ads, and they quickly go out of business.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s what makes Google so special in the world of search engines.  Google has for a long time been regarded as the &#8220;best&#8221; search engine because they typically return the best results. </p>
<p>So what are the &#8220;best&#8221; results?  Results that provide the user with a link to the page they were looking for, whether they knew it existed beforehand or not.  So, in other words, Google and other search engines want to determine how &#8220;useful&#8221; your page will be to their users, and for which searches.</p>
<p>So what makes a site &#8220;useful?&#8221;</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Text that matches the search query</strong>.  So if someone searches for &#8220;yellow labrador puppies,&#8221; and you are a lab breeder, you might think about having those words on your site so that the search engine can pick it up.</li>
<li><strong>Page headings that match the search query</strong>.  The title of every page on your site should represent what it actually is.  Many website providers and systems do not automatically do this for you.</li>
<li><strong>Relevant metadata</strong>.  Meta tags are the information &#8220;underneath&#8221; your site that search engines read as part of the effort to classify your page.  They&#8217;re not used so much in the mainstream anymore (i.e. Google and Yahoo), but the &#8220;description&#8221; meta tag is still used to describe your site in search engine results.</li>
<li><strong>Recency</strong>.  In other words, newer pages are better.  The example I always give my clients is this: if you&#8217;re searching for information because you just got diagnosed with cancer, which article are you going to read, the one dated 2004, or the one dated 2009?</li>
<li><strong>Age of the page</strong>.  This may seem to be at odds with the previous item, but it&#8217;s not.  If your site is established and has a history of more clickthroughs, it will be served up more often in the future, especially if it has been updated frequently and/or recently.</li>
<li><strong>Back links</strong>.  In other words, how many other sites link back to your site?  Because creating a link takes effort on the part of the website creator, it is assumed that if someone else links to your site, it&#8217;s because they found it useful.</li>
<li><strong>Total clickthroughs</strong>.  This one is self-evident.  Search engines don&#8217;t care about fairness.  If your site is the most frequently clicked based on the search terms entered, it will be the first one displayed the next time someone enters them.</li>
</ol>
<p>So how does one break through?  Be aggressive about the things you can control.  You can&#8217;t control the number of times your site gets clicked on directly &#8211; Google will catch on to that.  But you can offer your site up as many times and in as many places as possible.  You can create other pages that link back to your site (Facebook, MySpace, etc.).  You can update your page frequently, and make sure that all your page titles are appropriate.  You can spend on a pay-per-click advertising campaign to help improve your ranking on searches you&#8217;re not currently optimized for.</p>
<p>You can do all of these things on your own, if you have the time and the technical ability.  But a smart Internet marketer can not only help you check off all the items on the list, but help you make sure that you&#8217;re doing it all right.</p>
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		<title>Finding the Magic Bullet</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/05/finding-the-magic-bullet/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/05/finding-the-magic-bullet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 May 2009 19:17:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Strategies and Tactics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[media buying]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tactics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[value]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://cmasseconsulting.com/?p=10</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A quick overview of the critical questions necessary to judge the value and suitability of a marketing opportunity.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There isn&#8217;t one.  There is no single technique or strategy that will bring you all the success you want.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, I&#8217;m selling something too.  I sell marketing and search engine optimization services to companies far and wide.  But I won&#8217;t promise you a one-stop, be-all end-all solution to your Internet marketing problems.  What I will do is put you on the path to success by giving you a foundation of knowledge and several SEO techniques that will prepare your business to go out into the digital world confidently.</p>
<p>So what about those magic bullets?  How do I avoid getting sold one?</p>
<p><span id="more-10"></span></p>
<p>The first thing you need to remember when you&#8217;re reviewing any marketing proposal is that you&#8217;re being sold something.  No one does anybody any favors, and nobody gives anything away.  If you are paying $25,000, you&#8217;re getting $25,000 worth of value or less.  You are NEVER getting more than that, because if they could sell it for more, they would.</p>
<p>Pretty easy, right?  You&#8217;d be surprised at how many times I&#8217;ve had clients who got distracted by how much &#8220;extra&#8221; they were getting.  In the back of my head when I read some proposals I actually hear Billy Mays shouting, &#8220;But wait!  There&#8217;s more!&#8221;</p>
<p>The second thing you must remember is that there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all.  Not in gloves, T-shirts or in marketing.  What worked for your competition across the street, or for your buddy in his business is not necessarily what you must be doing.  The key question you have to ask is, &#8220;How does this fit my marketing strategy?&#8221; </p>
<p>If you don&#8217;t have a marketing strategy, well, that&#8217;s another problem.  If it doesn&#8217;t fit your marketing strategy, then it&#8217;s time to ask yourself another question.  &#8220;Do I need to change my strategy?&#8221;</p>
<p>Sometimes the answer is yes.  Sometimes no.  How you determine the answer (and whether or not it will be the right answer) has to do with a third factor.</p>
<p>The third thing you must know and understand to make smart marketing decisions is the difference between <strong>strategies </strong>and <strong>tactics</strong>.  A strategy is never a tactic, and (this is the more common mistake) a tactic is never a strategy.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s the difference?</p>
<p>A strategy is an overall philosophy for how you approach your marketing efforts.  It involves looking at your overarching goals and determining what methods you will use to reach your market, and then applying your approach through a series of tactics.</p>
<p>What are tactics?  Tactics are individual techniques used to achieve your strategic goals.  That sounds circular, so let&#8217;s look at it this way:</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s say your media buying <strong>strategy</strong> is to reach the mass market through a combination of network TV (which has a broad reach but is expensive) and cable TV (which is much more fragmented, but offers the ability to build up frequency).  That&#8217;s a perfectly valid way to approach the market for many industries, and is the basis of most advertising campaigns.</p>
<p>A <strong>tactic</strong> you might use in buying your media plan is to split your :30 commercials into :15 &#8220;bookends,&#8221; which are placed at the beginning and end of a commercial break, so that there&#8217;s a better chance TV viewers in this DVR world will see at least one of them.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s move into the digital world for a minute and look at the same three items.  The local newspaper sends your company a proposal for banner ads that will run all across their website (they call that &#8220;run of site;&#8221; clever, right?).  It sounds pretty good.  The <em>whole</em> site?  Well, let&#8217;s say, for the sake of argument, that you know that only about 2% of the population is in the market for your product at a given time.  So, while you have &#8220;run of site&#8221; on the local newspaper site that &#8220;everybody&#8221; goes to, what do you really have?  Maybe not much.  It depends on your strategy.  What is the message you would be intending to send in these banner ads?</p>
<p>So right there, we ask those first two questions, &#8220;How much am I really getting?&#8221; and &#8220;Does this fit my strategy?&#8221;</p>
<p>The key here is that the answer to the first question is dependent upon your answer to the second question.  And the answer to the second question is dependent upon your understanding of how to make tactical use of the marketing opportunity.</p>
<p>The value of a good marketing or advertising partner is that these questions are second nature to the practiced professional, and the time and cost savings of good advice can be monumental.</p>
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		<title>Let&#8217;s Get Connected</title>
		<link>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/05/hello-world-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.cmasseconsulting.com/2009/05/05/hello-world-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 May 2009 16:44:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Connectedness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Welcome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web 2.0]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://cmasseconsulting.com/?p=4</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a website about exploring the things that are necessary to win those battles for attention that are at the heart of Internet marketing and the whole "Web 2.0" phenomenon.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>To quote a bad movie adaptation of a good book, &#8220;<em>A beginning is a very delicate time.</em>&#8220; </p>
<p>No kidding.  But here we are &#8211; poised to begin exploring this new world.  We could start with a dissertation on why I love the Internet, but, really, no one wants or needs that.  The Internet is all things to all people, and in the end, that&#8217;s all that needs to be said.  What we need to concern ourselves with is connectedness.</p>
<p>What we have to learn, in order to make the Internet work for us, is how to harness that connectedness, because if we don&#8217;t, we&#8217;re either going to get burned, or we&#8217;re going to get left behind. </p>
<p>So what does &#8220;connectedness&#8221; mean, and why is such an awkward word so important?</p>
<p>&#8220;Connectedness&#8221; means that the traditional boundaries that we have used to delineate different types of behavior and experience are eroding.  It means that, to paraphrase a song, &#8220;the Earth is moving under our feet.&#8221;  It&#8217;s an exciting new world, filled with new ways to talk to people.  New ways to learn about the world.  And of course, new ways to sell to people.  What companies need to learn is that in a world where people are connected to information and each other in an exponentially growing number of ways, <strong>you cannot rely on old methods to reach them</strong>.</p>
<p>This is a website about exploring the things that are necessary to win those battles for attention that are at the heart of Internet marketing and the whole &#8220;Web 2.0&#8243; phenomenon.</p>
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